.this moment.

Right now I am

• thankful for the brightly wrapped surprises hidden in my closet. If they were under the tree, Aoife would've opened them all by now.

• sipping hot coffee

• curious how best to help my coughing, hacking cat

• enjoying a winter-like day in Texas with overcast skies, drizzle, and a high in the low 50s.

• debating which of my favorite treats to bring along to our Yule celebration tonight.

• listening to the chirping of cardinals and sparrows as they enjoy the safety of our yard

• grateful Hawk has not gotten any of them or my chickens yet this season though she is also in my yard every cloudy morning

• hoping everyone's mailed treasures arrive to the destinations when expected

• wondering how my cat manages to open the closet 

• about to finish the annual card mailing

• loving the stillness before the children stir

• snuggling my furry friends

• wishing you all a joyous and safe season of celebrating. May blessing find you throughout the year to come!

Winter holiday countdown; the last days

Dec 22:

Attend community solstice gathering complete with mulled cider and gift exchange. 

Dec 23: playgroup Christmas party! And the never ending fairy play that accompanies awesome new gifts.

Spontaneous dinner party!

Dec 24: gingerbread house time! 

Aoife didn't get to play, but daddy added her house to his neighborhood while she did this: 

Then we baked cookies for Santa, read stories, hung stockings and opened the Christmas Eve gift that has been taunting Emagene for days. 

Merry Christmas! Hope you have a great day!

Winter Holiday countdown week 3

Dec 14: needing new ballet slippers requires a forced trip to a mall during holiday shopping season, run into Cowboy Santa at a mall bookstore 

which sends mom into an Internet shopping frenzy trying to find a toy version of this: 

(Green Arrow Car/Plane)

Side note: when Santa looks like one of your ballet classmates' father, it can be a little disconcerting. mostly causing stress that the plea for a batman toy might not reach Santa. Good thing he has email and can pass on all the wishes!

Dec 15: finish Aoife's stocking

Dec 16: make paper snowflakes

Dec 17: make this thing 

and because it suddenly was over 60 we cleaned like it was March!

Dec 18: paint the garden fence just because while listening to holiday music

Drink more cocoa.

Dec 19: attend a small Christmas celebration and play date, eat festive treats

Dec 20: look for lights as we drive around town running errands. Get horrible news and spend the rest of the night distracted by justice legue cartoons. And elves.

Dec 21: sing up the sun, make a holiday gift for our solstice gathering. Finally start my Last handmade for the season! Watch Mickey's once upon a christmas.

Winter Holiday Countdown week 2

Dec 7: work on stocking, finally watch Love Actually while Emagene and Daddy trek to corner store for TP.  listen to music while stringing popcorn for the birds.

Dec 8: trip to grocery store, wrap presents, make pie 

Day 9; listen to music while cleaning the kitchen, play outside and watch a mouse hunt for seeds after the chickens were tucked in for the night.

Dec10: ballet class, watch how the grinch stole Christmas. 

Dec 11: play date! listen to music while pretending to be Santa and leave "gifts" under the tree

Dec 12: do nothing holiday related unless, going to the pool, drinking choco and dressing like a unicorn count as festive

Dec 13: see Santa!

Winter holiday countdown

Since we live in a house divided as to which story we ascribe to this season, we sort of celebrate them all. Because of this our "advent," or time of preparing for the national holiday on December 25, is a bit eclectic. 

The weekend after thanksgiving is typically set aside for getting and setting up the tree. Though I think we'll start holding off on the tree in years to come. It's difficult to keep a real tree fresh and happy here in Texas, not to mention the length it had to travel to get here.

Once the tree is done, and December finally arrives, come the crafts and decorating and the counting down. I know there's beauty in simplicity and I don't want to overdo the season or overwhelm my kids so some days all we do is watch a holiday movie or listen to seasonal music while we play with princesses and Legos. There are a few specific things we do to help make this season special such as make and decorate cookies, paint or create a ornament, attend the library's christmas storytime and see Santa, look for lights any time were in the car, buy and wrap presents, and attend the town's tree lighting festival. Every year we discuss what traditions we want to keep alive and what we want to leave in the memory vaults of the previous years. This list seems to hold true.

I am searching for ways to help make each season just as special. For example, finding ways to count down to the beginning of Spring, or May Day, or midsummer. Feel free to shoot me ideas and I'll keep you posted on our seasonal forays.

So here's what's been happening around here as we count down to the big day.

Day 1: decorate tree 

Day 2: go ice skating (week before national thanksgiving. Our November activities were a bit early and sporadic this year.)

Day 3: paint an ordament

Day 4: notice the neighborhood is starting to light up and only one house has a menorah, talk about Chanukah 

Dec 1: paint a picture of Santa Claus

Dec 2: hang the lights

Dec 3: watch Polar Express for the first time ever

Dec 4; make a "wreath" and attend company party 

Dec 5: begin working on Aoife's stocking

Dec 6: attend town tree lighting festival

Play in the icy wonderland

Drink cocoa, 

make something from a craft book I found at the library.

What have you been up to?

Thanksgiving part 2: new tradition

Trying a new tradition this year: the thanksgiving tree.

 

 First we picked out a fallen branch, devoid of leaves, and interesting in shape. Then we found an empty pot in our garden shed and put a handful of rocks on the bottom to weight the pot and create a foundation for the branch. While I held the branch, Emagene shoveled some potting soil around the stick helping it stand up straight. We didn't have a bag of play sand at this time, so we just used whatever "clean dirt" we found in the shed. (Funny concept, eh? Clean dirt.) We set a few more rocks on top to help keep the soil from spreading all over my house and brought the "tree" indoors.

 

We gathered some fallen leaves of various colors in our felt turkey basket (I found it in the dollar bins at target) and then set Emagene to work decorating. The cardboard turkeys taped along the outside of the pot were a craft project from another day and super easy. They involve circles of various sizes and glue. 

While she was busy poking holes and using tape and whatever other way she could figure out to keep leaves on the tree, I cut out paper leaves from construction paper. 

We refilled the empty basket with the paper leaves and a sharpie. When we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, we required everyone to write on a leaf something they were thankful for before filling a plate with food. This meant when we went back for seconds, we had to fill out a second leaf. In reality, we just sat around writing until we ran out of leaves. 

I love it! I may keep the set up and turn it into a winter wishing tree, replacing the cardboard turkeys with paper wreaths, unless someone knows where I can find scrap evergreen boughs in Texas...

Thanksgiving part 1: family

Due to holiday schedules, new baby and other family business, we were able to host thanksgiving dinner and have a couple aunties come over during the week of autumn here in Texas. Seriously Friday the trees were green, Saturday yellow and by the next Friday void of leaves with this link was floating around the interwebs http://www.texasstormchasers.com/2013/11/23/new-winter-storm-warnings-watches-issued/

But for the previous week, things looked like this around here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Trick or Treat

The day started with a surprise treat in the mail that was quickly added to the walls of a certain girl's room.

Then we did a little coloring,

Set up the window display,

 turned on the lights and hung the spiders we had made the day before.

She wore new socks from Grandma (thanks again, Grandma. She wears a new pair everyday!),

While we enjoyed our magical backyard,

And then, finally, daddy came home from work and we could get ready to go!

I had to make a small addition once we arrived at our meet up house, before heading out with 6 other creatively dressed children. It was just cold enough to require a layer. As I pinned the wings to her sweater, I giggled to myself remembering a comedian's quip about being from Oregon if you plan your Halloween costume to include a winter coat. While not a parka, a wool hand knit is basically the same thing here in Texas.

For those of you concerned that her bag may look small, don't fret. She repeatedly dumped her treasures into a pull string backpack I was carrying. This is the real haul:

Some of this will be recycled into Christmas stockings or sent to work with dad. This is more candy than we eat in a year, and I want to keep it that way!

Happy Halloween! All Souls! Day of the Dead! Samhain! Hallow's Eve! Or whatever you choose to celebrate this time of year. I hope it was blessed with joy and your pets stayed safe. Mine was and they did.

Blessed be.