Merry Christmas!

We had a quiet and relaxing Christmas. We usually celebrate as a family, so this year looked mostly the same as years in the past, with the bonus of lots of extra family time leading up to Christmas.  On Christmas Eve morning, we woke up to a surprise snowfall.

The boys were so excited and wanted to go play at 7am. Eliza opted to stay home and watch cartoons with daddy.

It looked so pretty.

Caleb wanted to make snow angels. Benjamin only had sweatpants and a sweatshirt on and was pretty cold!

Caleb flew down the slide, it was slick.

Afterwards, we drank hot chocolate and changed into warm clothes. Later in the day, we made cut out cookies. Benjamin was a good helper rolling out the dough. This rolling pin has designs on it so we made some of the cookies with pretty patterns. 

Taking a break to watch the snow fall.

Nathan went for a run in the forrest later in the day and took some pictures. The trails looked so pretty covered in snow.

We had ham, rolls, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie for dinner. 

Our family’s tradition is to give the kids matching pajamas on Christmas Eve. This year it was dinosaurs.

Quiet house ready, for Christmas morning. 

We woke up on Christmas Day to this beautiful sunrise.

We always make cinnamon rolls, bacon, and egg casserole for breakfast. 

Excited kids ready to open gifts. Eliza changed into a little Santa suit that was passed down to us from a friend.

They opened their stockings first. Everyone got new toothbrushes, chapstick, beef jerky, pencils, snow globes, and some candy.

The kids received nice gifts from family. They boys were really good with helping Eliza figure out what to do. She wasn’t too into opening gifts, and she enjoyed playing with her toys while the boys opened gifts.

Eliza loves babies, and she received a cabbage patch kid that she carries around all day. They have a distinct smell that will always stay with me and bring me back to my childhood. I loved those dolls when I was younger.

Fitting for Christmas, Caleb is learning Ode to Joy in piano lessons. Enjoy!

Hope you had a joyous Christmas.

Last day of school...winter break is here!

The boys finished school for the year and are on winter break for the next few weeks. We are really proud of their flexibility with remote school, and so thankful for their teachers and school that have done a great job with online education. The boys each have 3 zoom calls a day for various subjects and then finish the remainder of daily assignments during the day. They still need guidance and help, but they have become so much more independent. Eliza sometimes likes to say hi to their classmates, and will pop in from time to time.

We celebrated the end of school and start of winter break with ice cream from a favorite place near our house. We brought home a variety of flavors and the store gave us cones.

The boys have been wanting to sleep together, so they had a slumber party last night. They were awake pretty late talking and woke us up at 4:30am talking and Caleb was reading! There will be naps in store for all the kids today :).

Winter break ends on 4 January, and we were hoping they would be able to start going back in-person  part-time again after the break. However the government recently announced that online learning will continue until 22 January with a 3 week break following, so we think they will have remote school until at least 15 February. In the meantime, we will enjoy the downtime and have some fun!

Lockdown Fun

 We have been on lockdown and curfew the last few weeks, and it will last until at least the end of the year. However, I use the terms lockdown and curfew lightly because thankfully it is not overly restrictive for us in many ways. Restaurants are available for delivery or pickup and grocery stores and pharmacies remain open. During the week, from 9pm at night until 5am in the morning, people need to be home. Weekend lockdowns are from Friday night - Sunday morning. The biggest impact for us is that every day of the week,  kids under the age of 20 can be outside between 1-4pm. Fortunately, our neighborhood is very lenient about the kids playing outside of the curfew hours, so we often play outdoors past 4pm without any issues. For the most part, things are the same for us, though it will be nice to get out and explore again on the weekends. Here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks.

We are fortunate to have many large patches of grass for the kids to run and play ball.

Nathan makes the kids do races...they are getting plenty of exercise!

One day we went out during the 1-4pm timeframe to get ice cream.

Seeing the swans in the pond.

Benjamin loves doing cartwheels and handstands. He practices all the time!

One weekday when Nathan was off, we went to Emyir Lake during the 1-4pm period. It is just a few km from the house. We tried going to the lake several weekends ago, but it was so busy and traffic was backed up about half way to the lake, so we were glad to be able to go during a weekday when people were at work. The smaller buildings you can see at the top of the hill is our neighborhood.

Over the weekend lockdowns, we mostly stay indoors and play, and slip outside for a short run around break in the afternoon. 

It’s been nice to slow down some more, and we are all enjoying Nathan being home more during the week. 

Missing Teeth and Little Artist

Benjamin lost two more teeth this past weekend. He lost the first tooth at some point during the day but didn’t tell us, then Nathan found this note to the tooth fairy, where Benjamin confessed he didn’t tell his mom and dad that he lost the tooth! Then Benjamin decided to hide his tooth, which didn’t make it easy for the tooth fairy, so the tooth fairy hid his money, haha. The next morning, Benjamin pulled out a second tooth, but he told us about it...he is clever!

Benjamin loves art, and he recently re-started drawing again. Most days before or after school, you can find him by the window or at the table drawing all kinds of things. Here is is drawing the landscape downstairs.

This is a birthday cake from the online art lessons he received for his birthday.

Dreaming about the Salem pool in the summertime.

He found several YouTube channels that give drawing tutorials, and he has been drawing up a storm. These are lots of emojis.

A howling wolf

A pug. He hung his favorite drawings above his bed :)

We love our sweet little artist.

Christmas Spirit

Our Christmas tree has been up for well over a month now. As we unpacked our shipment, we thought why not put up the tree? Our tree is full of ornaments of memories of places we visited and things we have experienced over the years, pictures of our family, and ornaments from Nathan’s childhood. It puts off a warm glow and we love sitting around it and listening to music.

A couple of weeks ago, we decorated the rest of the house. Here are our stockings...Eliza’s stocking is not visible, but it is hanging on the right side of the chest. On top is our nativity we bought in Bethlehem several years ago.

Several Christmas statues inside the china cabinet, and an Advent calendar with bible readings that Mark and Betty sent us a few years ago.

We bought this pretty plate in Jordan, it says Merry Christmas in Arabic - Eid ilMilad.

A couple more Christmas statues on our bookshelf. Nathan gets all the house decorating credit. He has a great eye for this and he has done a great job around the house.

The kids playroom was spiced up with some Christmas cheer too.

We love how cozy it feels to have the Christmas decor up!