Merry Christmas!

Blizzard of 2009

This is some serious snow. The kids are loving it and I'm pretty excited too. At least I was until I got out there and saw the magnitude of the situation. The depth of this snow is intense and will take quite a while to dig out of. It's okay though. We only get these kinds of storms every once in a great while and they cause such excitement and bring the kids loads of joy!

It began last night, so before bed I took this picture looking out our front door.

And took this picture of our back deck.

Then this afternoon around 12:30 I took this picture of the deck. Yeah, that's a lot of snow.

I got the kids ready, bundled up and set to go, but before I did, I had to take this picture of Evan by the back door. This is not drifted snow....it's how deep it was.

There was no way to avoid it coming in when we opened the sliding glass door.

It was tough getting off the deck!

And poor Evan had so much trouble just walking! He kept saying, "Help me girls, I can't walk!!"

This gives you some idea of how deep it is.....

as does this....

Skylar was LOVING it!

Evan had fun, too, when he managed to stay upright.

When he did fall over, he just went with it...."mmmm, snow tastes yummy".

There's Taylor and her "don't-take-my-picture" hand up.

Look how intense this is!!! Our car and van are buried!

Poor Alexa had some trouble walking, too. And come to think of it, I think her hat is out there still, somewhere in all this snow. She's standing in that snow, btw. It is DEEP!

Crazy deep.

I think the kids are going to love the fact that the low temps will keep this snow here for a while. I, on the other hand have some more Christmas shopping to do. Plus, I really hate to miss Mass, especially on the 4th Sunday of Advent. At least the roadways should be cleared before Christmas Eve Mass. Yay!

Stay warm and cozy!

TTFN

~Tina

A Special Day

Today is my daughter Skylar's 11th birthday! We had her party with her friends on Saturday and she had a blast! What a wild bunch of girls they are! I'll try to post pics from that soon, but today she celebrated with just us, her family. We went to dinner at Red Robin, where she generously shared her ice cream sundae with Alexa and Evan. Such a sweet girl. It was a really nice evening.

Skylar is my second oldest. She's an outgoing sweet girl who is very friendly. I don't want to give too much personal info. about her on here, but it's no secret that she LOVES her karate classes. She enjoys the other children, the junior instructors and all of the karate teachers. It's a great bunch of people there and Sky makes friends with everyone. Anytime a new kid joins, she knows it, welcomes them and learns their name quickly. She's very supportive of the other kids, especially the little ones, always giving them high-5's. She does have some spunk to her personality that leads to a bit of a "girl power!" attitude. It's admirable to see how she is who she is and that's what makes her happy. She really enjoys when family visits and hates to see them go. She loves hugs! Always has and I'm sure she always will. She's very tough and yet affectionate. It brings me so much joy to see her growing up (with a small hidden tear as it seems to be happening way too fast).

You are my sweet girl, Skylar, and I love you so very much!

A Meal the Whole Family will Love.....(and it's healthy, too....shhhh)

We really want our kids to have a balanced diet full of healthy foods. But that's not always easy. And as the video below shows, sometimes we moms will do just about anything to get our kids to eat healthy.
Watch the video here. If you are a mom, I'm sure you can relate. :-)

Okay, so the "supermom" in the video really goes to extremes, but we do try hard to convince our kids to make healthy eating choices. Our family loves pasta. It's warm and cozy for this time of year, especially. And it's one of the few meals that ALL of my kids will actually eat AND enjoy. I love that. Pasta has always been an easy sell in this house, but with Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta, it's actually a nutritious choice for dinner, too. But, would my kids enjoy it? That's the real test. I made some Ronzoni Smart Taste Spaghetti for dinner last week with our favorite sauce. It was so good! Not just to me and my husband, but to ALL of the kids. They loved it! You can find more about Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta here.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by MomCentral on behalf of Ronzoni Pasta and received a sample of Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta to facilitate my review and a $20 thank-you gift certificate.

Preparing Our Hearts for Christmas

Our Advent Traditions

I thought I would take some time to write about our family Advent Traditions. They have developed over the course of our marriage and the raising of our children, but some of the traditions go back to our childhoods. And we enjoy sharing those with our children.

One of Alexa's favorite Advent traditions was started a couple of years ago. It is an Advent chain. I saw a similar idea over at By Sun and Candlelight. (Can't seem to link to it right now..argh). Anyway, I write out some fun activities onto strips of colored construction paper (purple for all weeks except the 3rd week, which is done in pink). I tape/staple those together as links, only one week at a time. The kids take turns, usually after lunch, tearing off and reading the words describing that day's activity on the inside of the link. They, especially Alexa, get so excited about it. I only write these out one week at a time, because plans sometimes (MANY times, actually) have to be changed at the last minute for some unforseen reason. We've had a lot of fun with this. The activities can be very simple and still be fun. Actually Alexa prefers the ones where we do something cozy at home.

I begin this process by checking local festivities in our city, along with the library, co-op events, and fun activities our church is putting on. I also put Skylar's BD party on the calendar right away, before anything else. So once these big events are written in, I fill in the other days with smaller, simpler ideas.

Here are some of the bigger, "away from home" activities for us this year:

• Saint Nicholas Day, celebration of saints (put on by a local Catholic school)
• Gingerbread House Decorating Party (put on by co-op friends)
• Old Town Christmas Carol Sing-Along and Tree Lighting Ceremony
• Christmas Parade
• Advent Carols performed by our church choir and handbell choir
• Train Show in Old Town (this is followed by a stroll through the streets of Old Town to see the decorations, and hot chocolate when we get home!)
• A trip to the movies to see The Princess and the Frog (shhhh!)

There have been other things in past years, such as puppet shows at the library, or having a mini Christmas party with friends, or riding the Santa Train. And some of the outdoor activities are dependant upon the weather, too.

Some of our simpler and (mostly) Stay at Home Advent Activities include:

• Candy Cane Day ( read The Legend of the Candycane and make Peppermint Bark together as gifts for friends, and sip minty chocolate cocoa)
• Decorate the tree.
• Mom gets out most of the Christmas books and we read as much as we want together and drink hot chocolate.
• Read Night Tree by Eve Bunting, then bundle up and go into the yard and decorate our own trees with birdseed, suet and homemade bird feeders.
• One day, early in Advent, I bring in all the Nativities (our good set for the mantle, the Playmobil one for the older kids and Evan gets the Little People Nativity).
• Decorate for Advent....get the wreath out, change the colors on our family altar, etc.
• Make Christmas cookies for neighbors and to take to the Grandmas.
• Make candy and fudge...Yummy!
• Read The Legend of the Poinsettia, then make poinsettia clothespin fairies. We could turn this into a teatime (just might do that)
• Take a winter walk, after the Winter Solstice, and collect some things we find for our nature shelf.
• Stop and get donuts after Mass on Sunday.
• Watch certain favorite Christmas movies, either on TV or from our collection. I try not to let them watch too many Christmas specials, because it can get old....really fast.
• Watch the Juan Diego DVD that we own (link is in my sidebar) on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Make an ornament, or bookmark to remind us of this feast day.
• Read Country Angel Christmas by Tomie DePaola and make little paper angels and enjoy some delicious angel food cake along with a cup of hot tea!
• Decorate the outside of the house.
• Create Christmas gifts from crafts, as we listen to Christmas Carols.
• Take a tag off of the tree at church and purchase a gift or two for someone in need.
• Go to the grocery store to purchase rice, beans, pasta, etc. to donate.
• Watch Polar Express, stopping half way through to enjoy hot cocoa (just like in the movie).
• Have a Classic Claymation Christmas Night (very nostalgic for mommy and daddy). Watch a double or triple feature as we enjoy loads of popcorn.
• Present wrapping day!
• Teatime for St. Lucy. Roll homemade beeswax candles! Even young children can do this. And they make neat gifts, too.

I could probably go on and on and on....but I need to get to bed. If you have any ideas of your own, please feel free to leave a comment. My kids are always open to new fun things being added to our Advent chain. :)

May you have a very blessed Advent season.

TTFN

~Tina