The Christmas Season, etc.

The longer I stay away from writing here, the harder it is to come back! Why is this?

And I don't know why, either, this idea has wormed itself into my head, of not having anything to share with the world-wide internet when I don't feel like I'm knocking any area of my life out of the park currently. That's probably dumb because then the only person who could write on blogs would be Martha Stewart.

My kids are happy and busy, they love to sing, play and be with each other. They are not perfect angels all the time, by any means, but we've been having fun together with our extra time in the afternoons.

What I want to remember about Juliette on December 16, 2014: 

- She loves loves her books, and loves to sleep with them in her bed, mostly on top of one (whatever is the favorite du jour), and she will set up her stuffed animals likewise. We'll often go in after she's asleep and see her and three of her "friends" sleeping on top of a book also. So cute.

- Always the cruise director, she is either orchestrating picnics, slumber parties, or "dinner" for Molly and herself, and oftentimes me too. The activities include an ever-changing and ever-specific set of instructions that sometimes include the words "it would be amazing" thrown in there for good measure.

- She loves to speak for her and Molly collectively--like, "we don't want to do that" or "we're ready to get up and play." I love this so much, and Molly just grins and nods.

- Loves coloring/art-type projects more and more. I hope Santa knows this.


What I want to remember about Molly on December 16, 2014:

- She loves to hide, and will sneak off with a little grin on her face and say, "it's hiiide!"

- She can often be found wandering the house, calling, "Juuuu...Juuuu"

- Getting really good at singing! She'll chime in with perfect timing on words in songs like Jingle Bells (we've been listening to the Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters version and Michael Buble version), Sleigh Ride, and some Ben Kweller and Weezer songs. Ha! They love music so much.

- You can't talk this girl into anything she has her mind set against. Iron will, I think.


It's next to impossible to get a good photo of the two of them. These are the kinds of photos I end up with regularly:

Neither of them want to look at me, or one of them is making a weird face or moving or something. I guess this is typical little kid-photo stuff, but sheesh.

OK so Christmas! Once again, we've been enjoying Betsy's (a friend of a friend I admire so much) Advent Readings for the Very Young, which are wonderful. We have the Little People nativity set (I got it on super sale a few years back), which works well with this series too. I love teaching them about the Christmas story throughout the month, especially now that Juliette can retain this information a little better than last year (Molly likes to chew on the wise men, but that's par for the course right now, I suppose).

I've also been loving Oh Come Let Us Adore Him study book from SheReadsTruth. It's been so refreshing to my heart and mind to be in scriptures surrounding the story of Jesus' birth. Amazing, really. Also, we made the peppermint play-dough from the book, too! There are several recipes sprinkled throughout the study book, which I love! (Recipe posted here, but I used food coloring, not beets, with peppermint oil, and we only made one color--pink of course!)

It's so fun having kids at stages where their expectations for Christmas Day are nil. They don't really comprehend what "next week" means right now, and Juliette keeps telling us she wants Santa to bring her a candy cane. How great is that.

Everything we do (holiday activities/outings) is sort of a bonus, we can do as little or as much as we want. I hope we can always hold these parts of the Christmas season at arm's length--the traditions that can feel inhibiting, the gifts you think are "absolutely necessary" (not), and all the "stuff" of the season that is entirely besides the point of celebrating the birth of a Savior come to earth in the flesh. How marvelous, how hopeful, how joyful!


Baby 3 update - all is going well. I posted on instagram the other day that Juliette's name suggestions were "Captain Hook" and "Captain Von Trapp" over the course of a couple of weeks. Then this morning, she called the baby "Captain Von Trapp" again so we may have found ourselves with an in-utero nickname (we've never really done that before). I couldn't be happier with the selection. :)


End-of-year stuff: our 2015 planners are still for sale, and my 2015 one-page calendars available for download here. One week til Christmas (give or take a day)! I'm so excited!