Snapshots of Easter

Easter was Rosie's last "first" to experience. Last year, I was on an airplane to Ethiopia on Easter Sunday, so Rosie missed out on experiencing Easter here. But, we made up for it with lots of fun this year.


The traditional bunny cake. Just like my Mom made for us every year-very 70's, complete with angel food cake, cooked 7-minute frosting, and tinted coconut! But, it tastes great, and the kids LOVE it.

Someday, Rosie may hate me for this picture, but I love it. Having been outside all day, the kids were filthy. So, Gareth put them through the shower while I got things set up to decorate the cake and dye eggs. Gareth very carefully picked out Rosie's hair to remove all of the grass, and, boy, does that girl have an afro! (My apologies for the lack of clothing and for the resulting lack of pictures of the kids dyeing the eggs. I just couldn't face up to ruining clothes while we dyed eggs, so the kids had a great time decorating eggs and watching me decorate the cake in their underwear!) And Rosie had a great time licking the 7-minute frosting off of the spatula!
Celebrating holidays with the munchkins is more fun every year! The older they get, the more we can do. This year, we made some really intense dyes using my paste food colors, and then we used white crayons to put on designs before dyeing, and Elmer's glue and glitter to glitter-wash some of them. The munchkins did really well. We didn't make too big a mess, and Nathan was the only one who ended up with dyed body parts.

A few photos from Easter morning:

A couple of snapshots from the egg hunt:

Assorted Christmas Snapshots

Granny brought some special Christmas projects to enjoy with the munchkins. Here is the gingerbread house they made together.

I always wish for a White Christmas, and this year I especially wanted one for Rosie's 1st Christmas. And, I got my wish!!!!!! The snow started on Christmas Eve, which made for a great evening to light a fire in the fireplace and be cozy and warm inside.

Sophie took special care to keep cozy and warm! She DOES NOT like snow, but she does appreciate our fuzzy winter blanket.

Christmas Eve snapshots:
Christmas morning opening the stockings

And then, on to the presents.

Favorite Auntie Keri, these are for you. The munchkins LOVE their pillow animals

For a couple of my favorite guys, the excitement was a bit too much.

O Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree is up. Oh how I love this tree! Well, more specifically, the ornaments. As I unpacked them last week-end, I commented to Gareth that it was just like unwrapping old friends.

What I don't love is the star which always tries to lean. But, it's part of the tradition. The star wants to lean, and I spend the Christmas season battling with it.

Also, note the cat under the tree. Again, this is Christmas tradition. From the second Sophie spies the tree going up, she positions herself to wait for the tree skirt so that she can make her comfy bed for the month. (Please ignore the chairs stacked on the kitchen table in the background. I was getting ready to mop the floor.)

Our tree isn't fancy or glamorous. But, it is very much us, and most of the ornaments hold special memories.

Here is the angel that I had on the top of my miniature Christmas tree in my dorm room in college. Add a bit of string, and she now hangs from the tree. I remember how much I loved my little tree in my dorm room, and then I remember how I discovered that if you used Windex to clean your dorm room floor it made it very slick, so I polished the whole floor with Windex and turned it into an indoor-ice skating rink for a few friends and I!

These two are part of a set of glass ornaments filled with old-fashioned animals. I bought them in 2002. It had been a tough year, and I was really struggling with the fact that after trying for 2 years, we had not succeeded in being pregnant and had been told that we likely wouldn't. I hadn't had the heart to put up a tree that year, but the day after Christmas I was out shopping with my Mom when I found these and fell in love with them. I could just imagine a little kid adoring the animals, and so I bought them in the hope of being able to use them someday. Little did I know that I was already pregnant. Morning sickness set in on New Years' Eve, and it was the best Christmas present ever.

The next year we had a sweet little 3-month old who wasn't mobile yet, so we could just lay him under the tree to enjoy the lights. We didn't have many ornaments and couldn't afford to buy a lot more, but he sure did love laying under that tree.

The next year we had a VERY active toddler and another one soon to make his arrival, so I very carefully made some soft, non-breakable ornaments and bought some wooden ones that would hold up to being handled by a toddler.

The next year, I happily added some pictures of the 2 little reasons for putting up a Christmas tree.

Last year, the entire family spent an evening making "cinnamon applesauce glue" ornaments as part of our advent activities. They still make the whole house smell great.

And this year, we have also added a very special ornament.

In all of the commercial pressure to make Christmas bigger, better, and more glamorous, may I encourage you to slow down, keep it simple, and use this Advent season to make loving memories and remind yourself of the true meaning of Christmas? Sweet memories of home and family and time spent together will be remembered long after the memories of "cool" presents and fashionable excesses have faded.

A Few Pics from Thanksgiving

Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures from Thanksgiving. With 3 sick little ones, it was a rather subdued affair. I did cook all of the traditional Thanksgiving treats, but Nathan was the only little one who felt well enough to eat at all.

Still, that meant we had enough leftovers to eat for the next 3 days, which was very fortunate as I was sick on Saturday and Sunday.

Here are the pics I did take:

Thanksgiving Breakfast-homemade ebelskiver filled with cherry preserves

Nathan enjoying licking the whipped cream from the beaters

The pumpkin pie. I LOVE my fall-themed cutters from Williams Sonoma. They make it so easy to make a pretty pie crust! Definitely my best kitchen find of the year-and under $15!

Given the fact that all 3 little ones were sick, I was grateful to have Gareth home for a long week-end for some moral and practical support. We spent a lot of time just playing quietly inside in between visits to the Dr.s office and runs to the pharmacy. And, we also did lots of curling up and watching movies. The kids were introduced to Finding Nemo and Dennis the Menace, and on Sunday we decorated the Christmas tree, put up the nativity, hung the stockings, and then put down a quilt so that we could sit in the living room to eat popcorn and watch the Nativity story. Hopefully we're getting all of our sickness out of the way before Granny and Grumpy arrive in 2 weeks!

Ethiopian New Year

Yesterday was Ethiopian New year. I had grand plans for a big celebration with a unit study all about Ethiopia, dressing up in Rosie's Ethiopian dress, watching some traditional dancing via the internet and then decorating the table with Ethiopian decorations. Unfortunately, I woke up on Thursday with a virus that has been making the rounds. I still felt pretty rotten yesterday, so we didn't do anything that I had planned. But, I had already ordered traditional Ethiopian food for dinner, so Rosie was able to enjoy her beloved injera (a fermented flatbread made from teff) and some dorowat (a spicy chicken stew). We also sampled several vegetable dishes. Here are cabbage, green beans, collard greens, and green lentils. It tastes much better than it looks!!!!!!!
I have learned to make the dorowat myself, and I am hoping to branch out and learn to cook more traditional Ethiopian food.

Rosie is excited because I ordered extra injera, so she will be able to eat injera all week!

The other highlight of our Ethiopian New Year was a letter from Meron, the little Ethiopian princess that we sponsor through Compassion International. She was very excited to tell us that she started school last month. What a blessing to be able to provide the opportunity for an education to a little one who otherwise wouldn't have the chance. If you haven't already, may I encourage you to consider sponsoring a child through Compassion? They do an excellent job of sharing the Gospel and providing practical opportunities for families to share God's love with little ones around the world.

Happy Birthday America

One of my goals for this year was to make ALL of the holidays we celebrate really special for the kids. I really struck out on Valentines Day as I had bronchitis and was resting per Dr.s instructions, which doesn't make a very promising start to a year of special holiday celebrations. So, the kids and I decided to make up for lost time and really have fun celebrating Rosie's 1st Independence Day. We invited a couple of our favorite families over and then started planning.

The kids helped me plan the menu, and we went to Target and Wal-Mart to see how we could decorate without spending very much money. Here are the results:

Decorating our table


When Nathan asked what he thought he would like to decorate with, he said "jellybeans", so we went with it!


Dinner-a fabulous summer salad! Recipe to follow tomorrow


Our patriotic jell-o


After dinner, we headed out to do a few little fireworks and to enjoy all of the other fireworks. As we are outside city limits, there isn't any regulation over fireworks and our neighbors and their visiting friends take full advantage of this!!!!! It's a great evening, as everybody comes out in their front yards, kids run around and play together, and it's a good time to get to know your neighbors.

Nathan and the rocket balloons (Thanks Aunti Keri-the balloons were a huge hit!)


Rosie and the rocket balloon


The kids' little buddy, Spencer


Watching the neighborhood fireworks


Rosie's first sparkler