Santa Anecdotes, cont'd...

Leah continues with her hilarious observations on Santa. I don't know where she gets this stuff!

We finally got to see the fire truck with Santa on top the other night. Gramps came out to watch with us. He picked up Leah and the conversation went something like this:

Gramps: Are you going to get to see Santa on the fire truck?
Leah: Yes, but you know the real Santa is dead.
Gramps: (trying to hold back laughter)....How did he die?
Leah: His sleigh ran into someone's house.

I can't figure it out...what is my kids' fascination with Santa all of a sudden? Our policy on Santa is that we just tell the kids exactly like it happens. Jesus is what Christmas is all about. We give the history of St. Nicholas and so they know he was once someone who was alive, and now his legacy lives on in the imaginary character, Santa. Anyways, we have heard many humorous comments by the kids the past few days, and Leah especially seems enthralled by Santa, with Bay coming in a close second :)

#1 Our local fire department has one of their volunteers dress up as Santa and ride throughout our area on top of the truck, sirens wailing, throwing out candy. They have a schedule of which back-country roads they will be visiting on which nights. Last night was our night, so we went out to wait. The whole time, Leah is singing..."Sa a anta Claus is comin' to town..." They must have gotten a call, because they cut the tour short, so we went inside. Leah went back to her room and came out with her play phone. "Mommy, Santa is on the phone, do you want to talk to him?"

#2 During a recent trip to the mall, Leah, shy as she is of all the children, saw that people were going to sit on Santa's lap. "Mommy, can I go sit on Santa's lap and see him?"

"Of course not, honey. I am not allowing you to sit on some strange man's lap in a mall!"

#3 We went caroling with our church a few weeks ago. One of the people who came along dressed up as Santa. The people in the nursing home loved it! So did Bay. The whole time, he buddied up with Santa. Held his hand as we walked around. Talked about the one thing he really wanted for Christmas that we already told him there was no way we were getting. (He totally knew who it was under that costume, but something in his child's brain told him differently!)

#4 We are getting ready to install a woodstove. We will need to put in stovepipe (it will be exposed). Dennis and I were discussing specifics about this upcoming installation and the light bulb went off in their heads..."Now Santa will have a chimney to come down!!!"

Crazy kids.

Preparing for Christmas

I am sorry for the blog silence....our family has been battling a nasty cold/virus for the past 2 weeks. It has hit one after the other about 2-3 days apart, and seems to last for an entire week, so you do the math! Eric is the last one hit, and he went down today. Anyways, in the midst of our self-imposed quarantine, we are still trying to prepare our hearts and our home for Christmas. I hope you are doing the same, and I promise more posts in the near future.

My husband/My hero!

Our flourescent lights that have been under our cabinets have been dying, one-by-one, and so we decided that it was time to replace them with something a little nicer. Off to Lowes, and then Home Depot for Dennis to find out that they don't sell "direct-wire" under-cabinet lights, only the kind that you plug in to an outlet. That was no good for us since we already had the wiring connected to a switch. So Dennis got some and totally made them work! He hard wired them to our exisisting wiring with a junction box. This is so amazing to me because Dennis used to balk at electrical work, but he did such a super job, I just couldn't be happier!

And the light that comes from them is so much warmer than flourescent bulbs.

I've also been busy finishing up some projects around the house...finally getting to sewing Bay's jacket was a priority!

It's exactly like Eric's, but in blue camoflage twill, lined with blue camoflage fleece.

And since I'm giving the whole update, I might as well show you a few pics from our recent afternoon down in the southern part of the county at the Chesapeake Bay Field Lab. This is an educational research area that has an open house each year. It is fun because the kids get to tong for oysters, tour the Skipjack (oyster boat), take a marsh walk and explore estuary creatures with a seine net, among other things. This year it was extremely cold, so we didn't get to enjoy ourselves quite as much as we have before, but it was still fun.

Bay and Leah exploring little mud crabs, minnows, etc.


And our little girl's newest favorite thing to do is to put foam curlers in her hair after her bath and wake up in the morning looking like Shirley Temple !!!

Bull Run and Halloween

This post is way late, but I've been very busy lately and haven't had time to spend posting. Anyways, I still wanted to include something about our fun Halloween/Camping weekend in Manassas, Virginia at Bull Run Park. We camped with some friends from church (Ray & Genia and kids, and Rhonda & Gene and kid). It was a beautiful weekend, and nice to do something different for Halloween. We brought along costumes for the kids, carved our pumpkins at the site, and did a scavenger hunt for candy instead of trick-or-treating. It was very low key and was amazingly easy!

In the above picture, from front left to right is Leah (a queen) and Bay (Spiderman with a cape). Next row behind is Eric (a sorceror), Elliott (face painted as a tiger), Grace (face painted as princess) and Ian (a robber-without his robber mask)

This picture is for my and Genia's friend, Holly, who drew this picture on a piece of canvas long ago, and gave it to Genia for us to have the kids color while on a camping trip sometime. Finally we did it and they enjoyed working on it throughout the day. Thanks Holly! I hope your ears weren't twitching on Saturday, 'cause we talked about you while we colored it :)

Saturday morning Dennis and I took our kids to Manassa Battlefield. Dennis grew up with the battlefield literally in his backyard, so he thought it was really neat to come back after so many years and see it with our kids. I learned a lot about this battle while at the park, and can't wait until Eric studies the Civil War in school to get into it a little more.

WARNING: HISTORY CONTENT AHEAD....

The First Battle at Manassas was in 1861 and was really one of the most monumental battles of the civil war because going into the war, most people had a romantic view of war, and really thought it would all be settled in this one battle. Instead, it marked the beginnig of the bloodiest battle the United States has ever fought. Stonewall Jackson also got his nickname during this battle...soldiers were asking where their commander was and someone said, "There stands Jackson like a stone wall" and so the nickname stuck. He was brave and fought on the front lines with his men.

Pumpkins lit up...the great thing about carving pumpkins while camping, all the mess is already outside, and you can just leave them there when you go!

Hanging out in the park near the Old Stone Bridge.

A New Member of the Family

Recently we rescued a baby kitten from the end of our street. I know, I don't know what has gotten into me...I am not the rescue type. I guess I saw him and in a moment of weakness I was overtaken. Anyways, here he is. We think when we rescued him he was not more than 4 weeks old, if that. He could not lick himself, or lick milk from a bowl. He was in pretty bad shape. After some internet searching, and a few phone calls to our vet friend, we found out that he needed:

1. To be warm! a heating pad did the trick

2. He couldn't eat and get his digestion going until he was sufficiently warm-a dropper with kitten formula worked

After a few days of feedings with the dropper, he learned to lap up the formula with his tongue and so we moved to a bowl. Much easier. Then he amazingly started using a litter box...it is amazing the instincts God has given baby kittens.

Here he is wrapped up in a fleece blanket in Leah's lap the 2nd day we had him home. This is all he did for at least 24 hours...cuddled and got warm.

We have since set up home for him in Leah's bathroom...plenty of room for the kids to go visit and play, and the stinky litter is out of the way for me (my main aversion to cats is changing litter). Here he is perched on Eric's leg-he loves to perch on our laps! He is getting very playful and looks forward to playing with anyone who comes to visit him in his temporary home.


His eyes look blue in this picture, I guess due to the camera flash, but they are really greenish-brown. He's all black with a tiny tuft of white on his chest. Adorable. Can you guess his name?

Tiny little ball of fur. Did you guess his name yet? It's Spooky :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmXX3NuPQU8

If you are at all concerned about the upcoming election, I encourage you to watch the above video produced by Chuck Baldwin for president. He clearly addresses why it is absolutely NOT wasting your vote to vote for a third-party candidate. In light of where it seems evident these elections are headed, consider the fact that if he were to garner enough support in this election (even if he doesn't win) the country may be more receptive to a good third-party candidate by the next election. If all conservatives actually voted for someone who truly represented their views, then Chuck Baldwin would win the election. Please feel free to pass on the link to my blog to anyone you know.