Christmas is coming!

We're counting it down...

Roo and I went to a phenomenal rendering of The Messiah by a F'burg community chorus

Look whose ax-handling skills are coming along!

Homeschool co-op Christmas party

Potluck lunch including hot chocolate, live group caroling, marshmallow roasting, s'mores, caroling, Night Before Christmas reading, and make-your-own gingerbread treats (in our case, Christmas "tree" comprised of sugar cones covered with green frosting and candy decorations). Now that's what I call a good party. Lucky us!

Giving thanks for Thanksgiving

My aunt Susan lives in Birmingham, AL but has a house in Oxford, MD where she spends a lot of her time when she can. It's a gathering point where she, Uncle Bob, and their five children (my first cousins) - who lives all over the globe - come together at times. One such time is Thanksgiving. And this year we got to join them (three of the five anyway, along with 6 of the 9 second cousins), along with my Uncle Rob and his family of four- and several other guests. It's a little over 2 hrs away from us and an easy drive. We had such fun with them all. These shots can give a bit of flavor to our day there:

On Saturday HF and I left the kids at 7 AM in the hands of a brave babysitter and drove two hours east to the Shenandoahs to hike the well-known Old Rag mountain. It's nearly 4,000 feet and a 9-mile roundtrip hike. We expected it to be substantial in nature (which it was). We didn't expect it to be snow- and ice-covered (which it also was). Turned out to be quite an undertaking!

Fun adventure overall (though as we slipped and slid, HF noted nearly a dozen times how sad he was not to have crampons with us), and dinner afterwards in F'burg was also a real treat.

Performances, grandparents, trips: something for everyone

Crazy full and perfectly fabulous past two to three weeks. So many wonderful events and blessings. Photos of a few:

Happenings around here

We play Sleeping Queens every day before rest time, the Goose and I:

Strawberry-picking field trip yesterday morning with the youngest two. They were quite keen:

There was a new baby calf at the farm where we picked. Here Mouse looks on:

Roo had her choir recital on Sunday night, at which she excelled. She enjoyed it more than her fall performance:

Burn pile! The (newly-clean-shaven) HF oversaw a weekend fire with assistance from the oldest two:

Monkey is coming along with his soccer this spring. Here he was making a goal kick at the game on Saturday:

Last week we had the Mother's Day tea at Goose's preschool. So much fun! Relished the special time with my adorable four-year-old. She had helped bake the items we ate and made gorgeous crafts. Love.

Week in review

I went to DC for a two-day work meeting at Prison Fellowship Int'l on Mon and Tues which, overall, was really nice. HF watched the kids one day and our babysitter watched them the other.  Good meeting, interesting people and topic, some time to myself, and a nice quiet hotel room--bliss for a mom of four young kids. (I did have a little trouble figuring out what to wear, but we got it resolved.)

Roo came down with the croup Monday night when I was gone, but thankfully it moved through quickly, and she was well enough to go to school and to her gymnastics class on Thursday:
Friday night the monkey and I went to the mother-son Valentine's dance which was fun. His two good buddies Tommy and Theydon were there, which he loved, and when it came time for the dance competition, he and I won. He had an energetic signature jump/helicopter-arm/twist move which the judges seemed to fancy. Quite a thrill!


Saturday night HF too Roo to the father-daughter dance; he she is all dolled up (got to use Mommy's flat-iron and wear Mommy's lipstick!)

Full, fun week all-told.

A June Saturday

Fun first Saturday in June, despite the weather being about a bazillion degrees here with 100% humidity (just the start of the summer, so we need to get used to this!). There was a little canoe festival in nearby Fredericksburg, so we went down and sat on the banks and checked it out. Some good little whitewater, so hopefully we'll start participating - on the water - in this kind of thing before too long.

This evening the town held a "summerfest" night in a local park, so we went down and played some games, listened to some live music, jumped in some bouncy castles, and looked at some exotic animals. Good times!

2! And too much fun at the fair....

Yesterday this rockstar turned 2!:

Here she is bouncing her heart out (she was literally in the bounce house for a full hour) at a fair sponsored by Mary Washington University on Saturday. I took the kids to get us all out of the house so that HF and the contractor/crew could get a lot of work done on the house. It was a big hit--
Other activities enjoyed--

Monkey, in red, with the big boxing gloves (though laser tag was his favorite)

All three years ripping it up in the bounce house

Yarstick-and-duct-tape daggers - and friendly knight helper

Nona and Grandpa are coming to visit on Saturday for a week (hooray!), so we are saving our celebrations of Tilly's two fabulous years of life till this weekend. Excited!

Weld wedding

Things that were awesome about Chris Weld (and new bride Amy)'s wedding in DC on Saturday:

• I was healthy enough to go! And no one else in my family - miraculously - caught the (pretty hefty dose of) flu from me. Amazing.
• The whole Weld family was there, and while we were blessed to see the CA Welds (Andy, Emily, and three kids) many times over the past 4+ years, we hadn't seen several of the over brothers in over five years. So fun to see them!
• My whole family was there- parents, Katie & Adam, Robbie & Gina, Starr & Josh. Both Gina and Starr are expecting twins, and as I sat on the pew with all of them during the ceremony, I thought how strange it was that five in-utero babies were represented among the group - and none of them ours! Weird.
• This was the first event that we have been able to attend that has made us really, really feel like, "It's so great to be back on the east coast where we can participate in wonderful events like this that are so important in the lives of our family and extended network.
• It was a super fun wedding
• We connected with a solid babysitter who did a great job with our kids for 11 hours while we were gone
• My parents got to come and visit with us the following day and see the farm for the first time. So fun!

Three cheers to Chris and Amy, the lovely couple: