Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas this year! We stayed in our pajamas most of the day. We had a daughter-planned dance party and great food. Best of all, we spent the day together sharing time and treasures.

Here are a few pictures of this year's highs and lows of Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve

Heather's mother and grandmother came over to help us celebrate Christmas Eve. The kids were thrilled to open some gifts a day early.

Catherine and Chloe tear into a joint gift.
Sam was pretty excited about this gift!
Catherine shows off her gift bags. The girls love the buying power of gift cards.
Madelyn got a veterinarian set complete with these silly glasses.Seth got this fun conductor costume. He loves it! Mark and I love that he has an alternative to his sister's princess dresses now.
Here's everyone except photographer Mark:
Mark taught Madelyn to play Jingle Bells on the piano. Every time she walks by the piano she stops to play it. She just can't help herself it seems!
We made our annual birthday cake for Jesus.
Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus after a long day of presents, food, church and luminarias!

Christmas Countdown

After all the presents and cards were sent to family near and far, it was time to get serious about preparing for our own Christmas festivities. Thus our plan for the week revolved around all things Christmas. First on the list was the tree which had been sitting naked in the corner since Thanksgiving weekend. Madelyn made some origami irises for the tree and the kids and I made glass ornaments which I shared in the last post. We finally hung the last ornament Tuesday. The painted glass ornaments took longer to dry than expected.

Christmas tree....check!
Next, we hit the kitchen. My little elves and I baked up some cute sugar cookies.

Cookies...check!Then Daddy built a mini gingerbread village for us. The kids got to decorate the houses but Dad did the majority of the work. This project was a testament to Mark's dedication to his wife and children as this was delicate and tedious work.
Seth got caught with his hands in the candy bowl.

Ta-Dah! Gingerbread village...check!
Happy Harrison is all smiles these days! He's our #1 reason for straying from the checklist.

When peace just isn't enough

We finally got around to breaking out the Christmas decorations yesterday. They've been sitting in boxes next to the tree since the day after Thanksgiving. As I hung the stockings I was reminded of just how blessed our family is.

You see, the Christmas after we had Madelyn we bought 'family' stockings. I caught an after-Christmas sale and bought the stocking hangers. I remember debating whether to buy NOEL or PEACE. I decided on PEACE because we could hang the stockings symmetrically and I still wished, hoped and prayed that we would someday have at least one more child.

We had one more year of symmetry and then Catherine and Chloe were born and our PEACE was full. For three years we hung five stockings on five hooks. The next Christmas (2007) we added two more stockings. PEACE was now exclusively for the kids. Mom & Dad got demoted to the hooks on the fireplace tool holder. Last year, I decided to add characters to either end of PEACE so that we would all have a spot once again. And then Harrison came along. Once again, we are shuffling stockings, buddying up, and celebrating the miracle of our newest baby and the baby whose birth we always rejoice in this time of year, Jesus.

What's next for this classic holiday tradition? We're thinking about adding 'ON EARTH' to the PEACE. We'd only have four slots leftover. Now, how to fill them...hmmm.

In other holiday news, Madelyn and Chloe worked diligently to make ornaments yesterday. They look great. I'll post pictures of the tree after the painted ornaments dry and are hung.

You should see the other guy

In this case, the other guy is the windowsill. Ouch!

Two months and growing

Our little Harrison had his two month well-visit the other day. My, how our little boy has grown. He weighed in at 14.5 lbs. and was 24.25 inches long. The doctor called him the 'image of health'. We are so thankful for his health and the sweet smiles he shares with us daily.

Art & Poetry Night

Can I just say that Madelyn's school is amazing! Everything the school does is so well thought out. And here's the thing that makes it really special: everything about the school supports the students and their education. No special interests, politics or gift wrap fundraisers. Just good teaching (from teachers AND parents) and a lot of learning.

Last Wednesday the school hosted an Art & Poetry Night. Madelyn made this flower sculpture out of origami flowers:
And this Japanese kite:The class made this cool 3-D crane picture.
There were also poems. Madelyn wrote the ones with the mountains, penguins and the one below it.
One of the 4-8 classes did this amazing pointillism display:Our tour through the classrooms was inspirational. I can't wait to see what all three girls create next year.

Levers, inclined planes and pulleys, oh my!

Madelyn's class has been blissfully working on designing and constructing 'frisbee flingers' made from simple machines for the last month or so. Yesterday, they put their machines to the test. The event had it all: high hopes, a hint of competition, and A LOT of duct tape.

Here is Madelyn's inclined plane. This was her contribution, along with a lot of cheerleading, conflict mediation and a roll of duct tape. Unfortunately the student responsible for the lever failed to bring it to class. So this was all the group had until they finally asked to borrow another group's lever at the last possible second.
This is the remodeled version after the first 'fling'. The group solved some problems it was having with their design by borrowing from other groups and well, more duct tape. Their farthest fling was an impressive 52 inches.
The other kids were bored waiting for the groups to get organized so they headed to the park across the field. It made for some good photo ops and gave me an opportunity to actually watch what Madelyn was doing.

Explora-tion

We're trying to get back in the habit of our weekly family adventures. This week I was inspired by both the desire to get out and the need to complete a big inquiry project with Madelyn. So, we headed to the local science museum. What gets a kid's brain working more than a ton of hands-on experiences with science, art and music?

Harrison celebrated being two-months old with some deep thoughts and hand chewing.
We thought we might never leave the train table.
Brothers co-conducting! Of course this harmony wasn't achieved until Sam agreed to a two-car train while Seth monopolized the rest.
Daddy and Chloe experiment with air and magnets.
Catherine tries out the flight simulator.
It was in this area that Mark asked me where Seth was. I didn't know. An employee heard this exchange and asked if we were looking for someone. With the number of small spaces at the museum we told him, honestly, yes. He made a sweep and we both made a sweep. Still no Seth! The nice young man told me to take everyone to the front so they could send out a page. OK, now the adrenaline started flowing and my stomach started knotting. We made it up front and halfway through my description Mark shows up with a crying Seth. Of course he was crying because he wanted to go back to playing, not because he was lost. In fact, he had no idea he was lost. We then left to regroup and have lunch.
Part II---Mark took pictures of all the kids in this cool kaleidoscope tube. Here's Madelyn multiplied:
Sam liked the reptiles.
Bubbles! This is my favorite part of the museum.

This is the picture of sensory overload!