Christmas #1

This was a throwback Christmas year with the Edigers.  Back to 2011.  Check out this post.  We headed to Nate and Jen’s house on Friday for taco night and a sleepover.  While we got their late (because I forgot to pack half the things we needed for our super secret Christmas gift for the kids…), we had a great evening.  The kids didn’t get to bed til about 10pm, but they were no worse for the wear the next day.  I was woken up by Madison at 6:45, so we snuck downstairs and played quietly til others started joining us. 

After a hearty breakfast – cinnamon rolls (thanks, Sophie!), coffee cake, egg casserole, and fruit – we transitioned to the living room for Christmas.  We took family pictures before officially starting the Christmas festivities.

              

         

The boys took turns reading the Christmas story from the Bible.

Then, we started with the gifts.  The cousins do a name exchange.  Madison got a fish tank this year, and money to buy a Betta fish.  She was pretty excited about it.  Ellie got a BIG coloring book and some gel pens to write on her black paper with. 

    

Then, Grandma and Grandpa gave the grandkids their gifts.  Ellie was very happy with a horse for her doll.  Madison loved the bike basket and matching clothes to wear with her doll. 

Then, can the BIG surprise… in their stockings!  They pulled out swimsuits.  Many of the younger ones shouted things like, “This matches my stationery I got!” “This looks just like my suit.”  The older two or three picked up on the similarities to the last time this had happened.  Grandma explained that the suits meant we got to go to Splash Harbor to play and for a night in a hotel.  Then the kids got really excited… and really loud!!!

   

We cleaned up, packed up, and cleared out by mid-afternoon.  The kids waited patiently for us to get checked in.

The rest of the day was spent swimming,

                   

shooting hoops, playing volleyball, and throwing balls at each other,

    

sliding,

    

conquering the starfish,

               

laughing and planning supper,

    

hot tubs and spray pad. 

    

We had a pizza party, showered, and hung in the rooms before another later night.  All worth it. 

The next morning, we had breakfast before the kids headed to the pool one last time.  We had lunch at Wendy’s and went our separate ways.

We were thankful that we were able to travel on the roads during breaks in weather.  There was ice and freezing rain, but during our travel times, it had cleared up and the road crews had done a good job staying on top of it.  The men, who went out to load the cars, just had a job on their hands de-icing all the vehicles.  It was a great Christmas.

Advent #2

And… I’ll need to go on a blogging rampage to get this all in before the year’s end.  So, here we go…

Day 7: Check out Christmas books… This is one of my favorite days.  I love the library anyway, but for some reason, I anticipate a chance to check out and start reading Christmas books.  We always find some good children’s books.  One of my favorites this year: When Posey Peeked.  The library also has a really cool imagination area that changes every so often.  When we went this time, we enjoyed playing post office.

    

Day 8: Take coloring books and supplies to Hospice Care.  When we went to be with Papa Yoh, we noticed that their children’s room had a lot of fun things – puppets, movies, stuffed animals – but no coloring books or supplies.  So, this Christmas, the girls and I picked out coloring books, crayons, markers, and colored pencils.  The girls enjoyed this.

Day 9: Make a birdfeeder.  For the second year in a row, we have not done this one.  Obviously, the girls do not find this as exciting as me to make it a priority.  I am going to try again this year to make it sometime this year. 

Day 10: Go to a live nativity.  Usually, we go to Oak Grove Mennonite’s live nativity, but this year, it fell on the same date and time as our youth group Christmas party.  So, I searched for another one.  I found one in North Canton at Holy Cross Lutheran church. It was a hit as well.  Very well done.  The girls liked it.  It is such a ministry and a gift from the churches that do this.  Ellie wanted nothing to do with the live animals due to a frisky llama in the pen.

Day 11: Thank your pastor.  This one was super hard for the girls.  Even though they know Pastor Kevin well, they had a hard time walking up, looking him in the eye, and saying, “Thank you for being our pastor.”  He was patient, and it was good practice. 

Day 12: Family Game Night.  The girls love this whenever we do it.  We made it through without anyone crying… which is always a win.  We played Hullabaloo, I Spy Go Fish, and Candy Land. 

Day 13: Make a gift for your teacher.  We were like Santa’s elves.  It is hard to figure out how many of the teachers to make gifts for.  I think the homeroom teacher would be enough, but I know the teachers of specials (music, art, etc) get forgotten.  And I really appreciate the opportunity my kids have to go to these classes as well.  So, for this year, we did everyone.  We tied ribbons and notes to flavored boxes of hot chocolate, made snowman jars filled with coated ritz bitz, made rudolph and snowman cups filled with chocolates, and whisks filled with kisses (I “whisk” you a merry “kiss-mas”).  It was fun – and intense. 

Day 14: Make a card or pictures for Great-Grandpa Jantzen.  My grandpa is not doing well health-wise right now.  We were able to go visit him in August and I am so glad we did.  So, we decided to send him some homemade pictures to maybe brighten his day when they deliver mail.  I didn’t get it sent for another week, but we did work on this. 

Day 15: Take food to the food pantry.  We took a trip to Buehlers with a list of some of the most needed things at a food pantry.  The girls each pushed their small carts and chose the types of fruit, vegetables, beans, pasta, peanut butter, etc.  They had a few too many things to do the self-check, but enjoyed putting it on the belt.  We took our food to Everence where there was a drop off. I didn’t realize until we dropped it off that the food donated there would be going to a local family.  Although we don’t know who, it was neat to think it was someone in our very own community. 

Day 16: Help wrap presents.  This always takes a little longer than I think it will.  They are getting better at it, so eventually, it will actually take less time.  Madison can pretty much do it on her own once I help her measure out the right size of paper.  They enjoyed tying ribbons and attaching candy canes to all the gifts.  This was in preparation for the Ediger Christmas.

The other preparation we did for the Ediger Christmas is bake some desserts.  Ellie and I did this on Friday so it would be fresh.  I told her we needed to pull our hair back; she decided we needed to put hair nets (aka plastic dish covers) on as well.  We made brownies, snickerdoodle bars, and monster cookie bars.  She was a super helper. 

    

Until I have time to post the Ediger Christmas festivities…

Advent #1

Did you see the title?  Can you believe it is already the Christmas season?  Our Thanksgiving was good this year.  We went to Salem’s Thanksgiving service and auction as we have in years past.  As always, I enjoyed time talking with those seated next to me and bidding on tasty treats and goods.  We went to my mom and dad’s for lunch and then just hung out the rest of the day.  It was relaxing.  It was the first year in many that we had no other obligations that day.

The day after Thanksgiving, we went to the Bricker Thanksgiving (which is usually on Thursday, but was Friday instead).  So, we got to hang out with this group.  After a delicious spread, a few of us went out walking around the farm before it got dark.  The girls enjoyed this part the most.

Then, Advent started.  We continued the tradition of an Advent calendar filled with an activity for each day.  Here is the run down so far…

Day 1 Write a letter to Ashel (our Compassion child).  Somehow, we did not get this done.  The slip of paper is still out so we remember to do that this month.

Day 2: Go to the Polar Express at the Orrville Library.  The girls enjoyed it as much this year as in years past.  One year, I would like to go on a real train to do the Polar Express experience.

Day 3: Tell silly jokes.  I was shopping with my sisters-in-law and my mom, so this was Jeremy and the girls.  The favorites when I got home were: Q: What do you call a snowman in the summer? A: A puddle; and Q: What does an elf learn at school? A: The “eff”abet!

Day 4: Attend a Christmas party.  The youth group was the place for this. We had a great time in our Christmas get-up playing games, eating food, and exchaning gifts. 

       

Day 5: Make a Christmas craft.  We used this Paint Chip Christmas tree idea.  It was fun and not too hard.

Day 6: Attend a Christmas program.  This one barely happened even though it was Madison’s 1st and 2nd grade program.  Madison woke up that morning with a sore throat, which, upon further inspection definitely pointed to strep throat.  I took her to the doctor that morning; tests confirmed my hunch.  The doctor, however, surprised us by saying as long as she was not running a fever and had a dose of meds in her, she could perform that evening.  So, she did.  This is her and her teacher before the program began. 

I will try to update you with our other days as they come… and go. 

Other things we have done (and I have taken pictures of).  Ellie baking oatmeal bread

    

Visiting the train depot Christmas celebration in Smithville at the spur of the moment…. and seeing Santa (this one looked different, – Ellie) 

    

Wore funny winter hats

Played outside at the end of November

Hiking

It has been a month probably since this event actually happened.  It’s never too late, right?  We headed to Wooster Memorial Park on a beautiful afternoon in November.  My mom joined us.  The girls were troopers.  Here are some photo highlights:

Hiking:

    

Holding up things:

Standing on or balancing on things:

         

Posing:

    

Until the days get nice, our hiking shoes are packed up and our snow boots are waiting to be worn. 

Fall Leaves

This is by far my favorite season.  I like winter and the snow that comes with it, but I don’t like the slow transition to spring.  I like spring and the flowers and leaves and life that returns back to the land, but it tends to rain a lot, too.  I like summer and bare toes and lightweight packing opportunities, but I get tired of the humidity and heat.  But fall, it transitions so nicely from summer – cool, crisp days mixed in with some warm days.  And it heads to winter sometimes overnight.  I am fine with that.  And I love the colors – the leaves are and the harvest colors are amazing.  I think my favorite color of leaves are the gold or orange ones.  I used to be drawn to the reds, but something about the orange and yellow with the sun shining on them brings a smile to my face every time.  I also like fall because you can play in leaves.  (I know, I know, you have to rake them or mulch them or do something with them, too!)  My girls are finding the joy in this as well.  Almost too much…  The other day, Jeremy and I went out to rake up leaves, and Ellie started crying because she wouldn’t have any leaves to play in.  We assured her more would fall!

              

Last Saturday, my brothers and their kids and my kids and I all got together at mom and dad’s to help them rake up leaves.  It was some last minute planning, and it worked out – so cool how that works sometimes.  The day was beautiful – sunshine, little wind, and 50s.  With 10 kids raking and 4 blowers going, we finished the entire yard in about an hour.  Record time.  It wasn’t as heavy with leaves as it has been previously, but there were still quite a few out there.

          

While I ordered some pizza and got lunch ready, the boys took their blowers over to the neighbor who had started in on his yard.  They helped him blow it in piles pretty quickly.  He left on an errand, and they surprised him by taking the leaves to the road to be picked up by the leaf service.  He was incredibly grateful.  Others played downstairs.  And another group hung out for story time with Grandpa.

After lunch, we hung out and cleaned up for a bit.  Then, Paxon suggested an all family kickball game.  This was a first for us.  While there are 20 of us when we all get together, which makes for pretty good competition of any sport, we don’t really do that.  I think we adults like talking and catching up too much.  And, for so many years, there were kids that were too young to really be able to join in.  Kickball, however, is a game even Ellie is able to play.  It was an absolute blast.  The adults didn’t hold back – we kicked hard and threw hard (with a few exceptions).  We ended the game tied up 21-21.  While some wanted to continue to declare a winner, there are too many of us with a competitive nature that we may not have wanted to be the “loser” or others who would gloat about being the “winner”.  This first time, it was good to end all tied up.  We’ll teach the next level of sportsmanship another day.

It made for some good memories.