Advent

On Friday, I conscientiously objected to Mt. Laundry in favor of enjoying this view:

I love Christmas and Christmas decorations, but I'm finding it hard to stop and enjoy - to really anticipate the celebration of Jesus' birth.  Usually my brain is so full of my to do list that there's no room for reflection.  

However, I'm trying.  I'm imperfect and we miss days, but here's what we are doing for advent:

Advent calendar.  Yeah, the candy kind.  In years past, I bought the one Starbucks sold.  But $30 is a bit pricey for what boils down to 24 pieces of chocolate.  Enter Aldi:

Boom.  A dollar a piece - both CC and Henry have one so they don't argue over who's turn it is.

As far as something more Jesus centered, we printed out some Advent bible verses to put on a mini tree:

So we read the day's verse at breakfast usually and then put it on the tree -- veeeerry simple, this is what I can manage in the current season of my life.

We are also doing an reading plan for the Jesus Syorybook bible

...taken straight from homewiththeboys.net. Again, we miss days, but we are trying to point out hearts toward the best Gift and not just to the ones under the tree -- if there were any under there (I haven't wrapped yet).

Do you have Advent traditions?

Menu

I love food.  If you're reading this blog, you probably know me and if you know me, then you know I love food.  But then, who doesn't?  Can anyone give me an example?  Anyway, I thought I might post here some what-I-cooked-this-week type posts.

  Growing up, my mom wasn't a meal planner.  She'd just go to the store and buy stuff and decide later what to do with it.  Dinner was usually a surprise at our house -- a good surprise though.  My mom is a great cook.  

I remember going to a friends house and being in absolute astounded awe that their meals were written on the calendar for a month.  A MONTH!  

I aim to plan meals out for our week based on Brian's work schedule and any activities we have planned.  

Here's this past week's menu:

Monday: BBQ pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, veggies

Tuesday:  Taco Tuesday (this happens most Tuesdays.)

Wednesday: Egg salad sandwiches, fruit

Thursday:  Enchilada soup

Friday: Asian noodles

Can you guess which day Brian worked? Yeah, it was Wednesday -- egg salad day.

We hadeftover hot dog buns from Henry's party (keep in' it real, folks)

I've learned not to plan an involved meal without a baby holder.  B is also working tonight -- we foraged and ended up having chicken salad sandwiches and pears.

Oh, I also took a picture of Asian noodles, which is loosely based on this recipe.

It's a family favorite.

I think it might be cool to catalog this from time to time so I'll be better about taking pictures.

Henry's birthday

Henry's birthday was the day after Thanksgiving this year.  

On his actual birthday.

We had a party on Saturday evening.  It was mostly family.  One of the only shows Henry watches is Daniel Tiger -- for the longest it was the only show he'd watch.  He's recently branched out to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Anyway, I say that to say that the (loose) party theme was Daniel Tiger.

With the help of some figurines I ordered from Amazon and a Pinterest post,I made a Daniel Tiger cake.

Henry helped.

He has mad decorating skills.

What?! It's tiger striped on the inside!! Let me give you a better look:

With Katerina Kitty cat on top because that's the way CC wanted it :)

Here are some other party pics:

Graham played musical laps.

Karis found my phone unattended.

Henry got a stuffed Daniel Tiger.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came and went in an absolute blur.  Does time move faster with each additional child?  

We spent the night at my parents house on Wednesday so we could get up early and Turkey trot!  

  Dad, Kristi, Julie, and I ran the 5k.  Im working on getting back to where I was before Graham.  This one was a full minute per mile faster than my last 5k!  

Susan and Kristi (again) did the fun run with CC, Carter, and Ella.  

We came back.  I ate too many sausage balls, showered, put the boys down to rest and got ready for the big meal.  Here are pictures that Dad took.

CC and Ella

Brian's parents and our crew.  Brian is missing because he was at work -- sad face.  

Everyone who was at Thanksgiving!  There are a ton of us.  I love, love, love that both of my sets of parents and my in-laws were at one Thanksgiving meal.  It is truly a blessing to have such a gracious, loving family. 

Chub

I'm 90% positive that Graham is my last baby.  This is evidenced by my terror at the thought of getting pregnant.  I'm looking forward to my kids being a little more independent.  But I will miss chubby baby legs.

Don't you just want to chew on 'em a little?  No?  Just me?  

I've got to do this more often.

I'm thinking of deleting Facebook.  For all the reasons you've heard other people say those same words -- it's a time suck, there's too much drama, etc. 

I mostly post pictures of my kids and family -- things that I want to document, that I don't want to forget.  And I have thought for a while now that it would be more easier to recall if o posted those things to a blog -- even if they were little Facebook sized posts.  Truth is, I like the likes.  I'm *that* girl.  But I'm going to try to break away from social media (is this blog considered social media?) and tell our story here so that maybe I can print it out -- in the distant future when I have time to do anything that is not on my iPhone while I'm nursing the baby.

I let CC sleep with me last night and Graham always ends up in the bed with me (I'm a lazy breast-feeding mama), so I woke up to her talking to him.   

She sang to him too.  It went some thing like this: "you have strong arms" (as she holds his hand and waves it around) "you could punch somebody in the face."

Not much later, Henry started calling from his bed.  As I was feeding the baby,y big, sweet, helpful 7 yr old went to him.  I could hear her through the monitor making voices for his stuffed animals, "I'm Teddy P and I want to go see mama.  I'm Brett Keisel.  Yeah, I want to see mom."  

So my morning before Thanksgiving looked like this:

Brian, by the way, had been at work for 48hrs.  We were all glad to see him when he got home.