February fun

Valentine's day was fun and candy-full; we got 8 inches of snow last week which shut down our town for (of course) 5 days; and Grandpa came to visit! Fun times. 

And today we went to George Washington's birthplace to celebrate his 283nd birthday.

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!

Events and Easter

Monkey is on a soccer team this spring, the "Giants." So far so good:

The two oldest rocked their science fair presentations on Thursday; tons of hard work put in on the experiments, the boards, and the oral reports. The judges were impressed! So proud.

We went to DC yesterday, the crew and I. No trouble getting in and we parked right on the mall in a free, 3-hr space (then instantly found another, 3 spaces down, when the first 3-hour slot was up). Amazing. The mall merry-go-round was a big hit:

We had some time to wait to meet up with our friends the Schumans, and we spent a lot of it running up and down the steps of the National Gallery of Art, Rocky style, and timing ourselves:

Great time on the mall with the Schumans and their crew, including picnic, soccer and red-light/green-light, Air & Space Museum, and ice cream.

The dads were off on a surprise 40th birthday hiking venture with a bunch of other men in the Shenandoah Valley (not pictured here. But good times!)

Easter today was fun! The Johnsons came up from Richmond to share Easter dinner with us, and play, and do a farm egg hunt. Gorgeous day! Gorgeous kids--

We are blessed! And He is risen!

Thanksgiving week with family

The fam visited for Thanksgiving week! Gang in the rain at G Washington birthplace

Annual shooting competition: Nona's arrow was closest to the pumpkin! Caleb runner-up.

14 for Thanksgiving dinner! (15th, Mouse, was napping). Nona did the turkey!

The girls made bead creations; here Grandpa proudly sports his rapper-style necklace

Post-turkey property walk. Uncle Rob, HF, and backpacked-Mouse survey the woods

Cousins Ruth and Naomi did the girls' nails! Treat.

New pizza oven went up! First pizza meal, day-after-Thanksgiving. Success.

Notes from November

Thanksgiving is coming! And with it, turkey crafts. A preschool creation demoed by the goose:

Giving. This year the kids and I made up a few Christmas boxes for poor kids in developing nations through Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan's Purse). The oldest three contributed money from their "give" bins to the items we purchased, which worked out great. AWANA gave us the opportunity to participate, and I was glad to take it. We need to do much more of this kind of thing as a family (by which I mean service and engagement in global poverty), and this proved to be a simple and doable start.

Lights, camera, action…! OK, just the lights, part -- but that's the only part we were after anyway. Overhead lights in the living room, den, and stairway -- hooray! We also have curtains and artwork going up, so things are moving along in the interior design way. Love it

Sad day... Monkey's closest friend since we moved to Virginia is Seth, a classmate of his from first grade at King George Elementary last spring. This weekend Seth and his family are moving to the United Arab Emirates… Sad day for us. This wrestling photo was taken on Sunday, when the two boys spent most of the day playing and soaking in time together. (He was also one of the two boys at Monkey's sleepover birthday party.) We'll foster a pen pal relationship between the two boys - we've been fortunate enough to do that with several friends from CA. But in the meantime, farewells are always hard.

Spring break stuff

Things we've been doing during the kids' spring break:

Celebrating Easter with Uncle Tim...

...including backyard egg hunt.

Exploring nearby Colonial Beach on a deliciously warm day...:

...and finding a playground that still sports see-saws.

 Roasting the worlds smallest marshmallows by our first backyard fire:

Good Friday

Valentine's, all around

Here's what Valentine's day meant for us this week: 20+ Valentines for each kid to make for classmates (about 70 for me to oversee). Three parties - one for the goose yesterday at preschool and two today for Roo (2 pm) and Monkey (2:30) -- with Goose and Mouse in tow of course. And gobs of sugar all around - gives Halloween a run for its money. Truly. But I was glad for the chance to get into classrooms, see class dynamics and teachers in action, and the like. And the kids were (needless to say) ecstatic.

The snack line at Roo's Val party. Best friend Mikaela is in the foreground

Monkey's party was ice cream sundae based

I had the kids hand-make the Valentines instead of buy them so we could learn some of the names of their classmates, which they generally still don't know, and so Roo could work on her printing (which she needs). Also good crafting activity for home time. Monkey wrote "I love you" on the cards for his classmates and they didn't get it. He had to explain he just meant, "I like you"... And said next year he will handle that differently. Sweet boy.

Last California Christmas

And it was certainly a memorable one~

"Christmas Eve at the Barn" was a highlight for us this Christmas. The 100-year-old barn is located 1/2 mile from us - also in the midst of the strawberry fields where we reside. It was such a sweet service, and the animals in the pen outside (goats, chickens, rabbits) were a hit with our crew - especially our rowdy 20-month-old who wasn't especially keen to sit through the service.

The kids got to dress up and sing "Away in a Manger" from the front stage, and the monkey elected to be a king. (The other two declined to participate - this time.)

 Our Christmas tree, all decked out and waiting for Santa!

We had a lovely Christmas day... The kids delighted in their gifts, and we enjoyed having HF's friend/colleague Joe and his girlfriend Andy join us for our traditional calzone dinner. Very nice day.

Doing December

We have scaled down our advent and December activities quite a bit this year. We aren't doing a Jesse Tree this year - way too time and gear intensive. There is not enough room on our little kitchen table to break out our advent wreath for our Sunday advent dinners, so we just use a candle. And, while we are decorating amply (the kids, especially Monkey, could not have it any other way), we do not have a tree. Correction: we have a bonsai tree for our Christmas tree. See photo below.

The rationale for this is:  a) we are moving exactly 9 days after Christmas and are thus awash in moving-related activities (mostly administrative related to home-buying, mover-coordination, and travel arrangements), b) we have virtually no extraneous space in our house, and c) we still have an 80-lb dog with a massive cone on his head who cannot fit through the doors (much less into his crate) and knocks children over willy-nilly at all times of days. It's a crazy time.

We have managed to listen to Christmas carols at every.waking.moment.of.the.day. To bake and decorate sugar cookies and a gingerbread house from scratch. To have our annual Scherrei-Arico Christmas dinner (last one of its kind, sniff sniff.) And tomorrow night we are going caroling with our friends the Coopers. So I'd say we're doing pretty well still, all around...

Yesterday was the kids' last day of school, rounded out by a lovely luncheon potluck that included parents, siblings, and teachers. They said their goodbyes and took their photos with friends and such... They - and I - really enjoyed their school and will miss when we move.

Final CA Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with our dear friends the Dibiases in Pasadena this year. This was the third Thanksgiving we've done with them in the five we've done in CA; they are like stand-in family and we love being with them.

We potlucked it and brought/made potatoes, homemade maple cranberry butter, bread, gravy, and pumpkin whoopie pies for dessert (of course). They did turkey, stuffing, beans, and drinks. The meal was, I must say, delectable. Three of our combined seven children were napping when we ate it, so we kept the chaos and spillage down to a minimum as well.

Our three girls wore beautiful cranberry colored dresses that their talented Aunt Katie made them... You can see glimpses here. Love them!

We upheld our new Thanksgiving tradition of shooting at a pumpkin, though because our bows and arrows are packed we used darts. The rules were slightly beefed up this year, as were the prizes. Jed won handily - impressively hitting the pumpkin with all three of his darts in both the practice round, and in the real deal. That kid's got aim... For his prize he got a small plastic snake and a second pumpkin whoopie pie!

Nutcracker!

Special Mommy-daughter date with Roo to the Nutcracker on Saturday... Fun day! New dress, sewn by Aunt Katie; Starbucks treat first; fabulous ballet; nutcracker ornament souvenir to boot. Roo even made it almost to the end of the second act. :)

Easter in these parts

HF was traveling for work throughout Holy Week. Before he left we managed to get "Easter Mountain" created, and then the kids and I decorated it and readied it for our weekend reenactment. This year we went for pastels.

We also busied ourselves with daily swim lessons with our beloved Miss Lynne who - bless her - offers them during spring break. Monkey and Roo are thriving and really getting it.

We baked cookies and generally got ready for Easter, read books, colored, etc. No help from anyone on this "Easter symbols" collage they both did, which quite surprised me.

On Good Friday I took the big two to a living stations of the cross service put on by the youth group at a nearby church, which was powerful and moving. Easter Day was pretty low-key. Church, egg hunt, roast beef meal with strawberry shortcake, plenty of chocolate all around. Thankful for the victory we have in Christ!

It was the mouse's second Easter, even though she hasn't yet celebrated her first birthday (which will be this weekend). Last year she was 9 days old on Easter!