Moira's friends decided to throw a surprise party for her this year. While she was out babysitting one afternooon, they gathered here with gifts and Audrey Hepburn movies. Like birthday fairies they bustled aroud here hanging crepe paper streamers, decorating the table and making dinner for us all.
A very happy day.
The little girls tried very hard to hang in there with their sisters. This one had a very good time.
Braid boards can be made fairly easily. This one is a 1 x 4 with a narrow hole drilled at the top, through which are pulled three shoelaces. If I was closer to a craft store I would probably redo it with 3 different colored cords. If the drill wasn't an option you could hot glue or staple the strings to the top just as easily.
From braiding practice you eventually graduate to other knotwork projects like beginner friendship bracelets. Or, doing your sister's hair. : )
I learned to bind off this week which finished the ribbed scarf I began shortly before Christmas. This is the first knitting project I have actually completed so I am pretty stoked. The first third of the effort was complicated by incomplete stitches and a nerve wracking needle pull by a certain 6yo.
Those bumps have been smoothed out and the challenge for the rest of the scarf was to pay attention. There are a number of little knobby errors where I purled when I should have knit. I have no idea how moms of many manage complicated patterns requiring careful counts! I guess I would have to have a better attention span or knit when they are asleep. But that is when I edit <g>
My reading time is still spent meandering through The Coming of the Monster. I read slowly – rather on purpose. Especially with the final book of the series I am dragging my feet to make it last. What will I do when the Masterful Monk is gone from my days? Of course good characters are never really completely gone from our thoughts, are they?
In other reads, Aidan picked up HG Wells' War of the Worlds. I picked it up for a few pages and wistfully considered reading that too, much like I pulled Jane Eyre off the shelf, which caught Alannah's eye. She still has it.
I am rereading The Book of Kindness in small chunks as a devotional. It is a convicting read which really deserves annual consideration. Oh to embody those ideals….
more great yarns at Ginny's
One day last fall I kept the iphone with me as we moved from one thing to another. I had great plans for Instagram after seeing Rebecca's work but mine was less than inspiring and my connection is so poor it took forEVER to move images. Still, it made for a virtual time capsule of our life right then. Life hit and I never did publish it but when we transferred alllllllll our images to an external drive this weekend they surfaced again.
It was a very full day, with Allen and Alannah in the States. I hit the ground running and kept it up til bedtime. We had a few weeks like this before I was flattened by the hospitalization (totally unrelated) and let me tell you, I wished for nothing more than to be back at it again.
The day started, like many days, with Abbie climbing into the bed at the crack of dawn. Perennial light sleeper, that one. Note to self, clear the side table….
I think we had chocolate chip pancakes, though we had never had them before nor since. They were amazed lol. We try to do something fun and out of the ordinary when Dad is traveling.
'course there are still dishes, pretty ordinary, but more fun when your mom peeks out of the dishwasher maybe <g>
treadmill time
The neighbor girls came over and if I remember right that was the day we emptied the utensil drawer and canned food shelves and they stocked the play kitchen for an hour.
Lunch and prep for extra-curric's
piano
Mailbox run
Library
Football practice – yes, next to the baseball diamond. But none of ours have ever played baseball. True story. Ok, one season of T-ball for one of the older boys in like 1992 which didn't end well when he ran the wrong way around the diamond. ; )
and yes, we had a wardrobe change at some pt. I think it had to do with the Minnie Mouse sippy cup and falling asleep in the car. The dress didn't make it through the day but it looks like Minnie did…
Movies aka "reward for being really good when Dad is gone"
Back home, with the Audio Bible. Got the New Testament 'read' last year.
walk the dogs
dinner
"Bed-night" stories.
There you have it. A very ordinary day in the life.
We have settled back into relative calm this week. There have been a string of days full of just regular everyday-ness for the little people. They are unwinding and slipping back into their groove.
Since I have had some catching up to do to get back into my groove, they have been playing together and generally keeping busy. This is only mostly productive for me because I am easily distracted by the sun falling across little faces or a hearty belly laugh. I want to bottle this. : )
We woke to sun today so Allen packed up the boys (ours and some neighbor kids as well) and went for run/bike. He runs, they ride. Then he came back and exchanged them for the little girls who ran errands and went for ice cream cones while we finished packing up the Christmas stuff.
My house doesn't look quite as tidy as their house does, but it's closer than it was this morning. I am rewarding myself by sitting down to bind off the scarf I finished this week. Probably after a few more chapters of The Matchlock Gun. They are dying to know if the French make it into the valley. <g>
I hope your weekend is warm and bright.
FOR TODAY
Outside my window… It has been gray and misty most days. The rain has come down in a fine spray which wafts across the valley rather horizontally. Today outside I saw a…..
any ideas? Never have seen one of these out back.
I am thinking… about the difference between unconditional love and unconditional approval. Specifically, thinking how difficult it is not to let one compromise the other. Either way.
I am thankful… for mild weather during our recent travels, for some long teary talks, for finishing the last of my follow up bloodwork, for letters from old friends, for happy children.
In the kitchen… Coconut Cake for Brendan's birthday. It was much like a Tres Leches cake. Otherwise, I need to draft some menus for the new year aptly dubbed The Year of the Vegetable after hearing my husband tell the kids on New Year's Eve, "Let's get something good for tomorrow, then on Monday we all start to eat like Mom." ; )
He is 7 today btw : ) The beardless one, that is.
I am wearing… boot cut jeans, a slouchy sweater in blue's, silver earrings, clogs. I am longing to return to more skirts however and have been working on leg and footwear. Found some promising 'thermal-strumpf-hosen' (tights) today which really do look warm.
I am creating… new themes for a new year at the Snapshots Around the World blog. Asher and Colin are on board as guest bloggers from Korea and Colorado. This has been such a cool project. Come join us! I-phonography welcome!
I am going… back to the dance class routine this week. A couple big trips in the works for spring.
I am reading… The Coming of the Monster, the last of the Francis Owen Dudley novels I began last year. Will share more tomorrow.
I am hoping… Colin has a safe trip back across the ocean as Zach did, and that the little ones slip back into their routine easily. They have had a fabulously fun few weeks but are a bit overstimulated. We all needed this time together though.
I am learning… about flash photography. (not as quickly and easily as I would like)
Around the house… beds have been changed, towels all washed again. The tree and decorations are still up but a walk with Moira after dark tonight revealed that all the neighbors' houses look the same. Reminded myself that the Christmas season rightly begins on Christmas Eve, not ends. Still, it will be a good week before the house recovers from several weeks of surface cleaning.
A favorite quote for today… found on Jen's blog.
One of my favorite things… family game nights. There is an animated game of Apples to Apples going on next to me right now. There's been a lot of late night game playing around here. It is late here now. But I can't bring myself to break it up knowing Colin flies out tomorrow. I can't bring myself to go to bed either. Just hanging on for a few more moments. My table lately…
We were able to squeeze in a few snapshots of the kids all together – or almost all together – during the little window of sunshine we saw this week. An increasingly rare treat. (both the sunshine and the getting of them all together ; ))
Hard to imagine I have children with beards and children who need me to brush their teeth. There are two decades between Abbie Rose and Zach (and Colin).
We have had to wait a very long time for this picture, Zach and I.
And the peanut girl at the end here. : )
One more day of most of my babies in the house and then we are all off to different corners of the world once again. The past couple weeks have been exhilarating and exhausting. Wouldn't trade either for the world. The one thing that would have made the holidays complete would have been Asher. But I am grateful for every minute I have with each of them. Every one of them a gift. Every one of them different. Not a repeat in the group <g>
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the Magi who brought gifts to the Christ Child. When I was little the thing I remembered most about the Magi was that they came from "Orien-tar". <g> In our home, the day is usually commemorated with the same song, crown cake, and stories. Since living in Germany, we now have more stories to share.
In the Cathedral of Cologne (Köln) there is a magnificent gold reliquary which holds the bones of the Three Kings, which were brought originally to Constantinople and then in 344 to Milan, and finally in the12th century sent to Cologne. The reliquary was constructed by the famed goldsmith, Nicholas of Verdun, in 1180 and is considered the largest reliquary in the world.
The history of the cathedral is intertwined with the relics. It was due in part to the steady stream of pilgrims over the years that the cathedral was enlarged to it's current size.
Our other Magi fun fact this week was discovered on a trip to Trier, a city whose history also dates back to Constantine. Near the Haupt Markt you can see the Dreikönigen Haus, the house of the Three Kings, so named for it's "Moorish" design.
The house has a door on the second level which served as an entrance – by way of ladder which could be pulled up for security reasons if needed. Today the lower level houses a coffee shop.
One of the things I love about Germany is that the festivals and holidays are still referred to by their liturgical names. You may or may not be a Catholic, but if you're here you probably know when St. Andrew's feast day is, or the second weekend in advent and so on because the signage for events often leaves out actual dates but will just name the feast day.
Silvester – named for Pope Sylvester I – is one of those events, and everyone here knows that is New Year's Eve. It is also the date of an annual 10k. Those 10 kilometers brought my husband's total miles run in 2011 to 1000. The boys and I went to cheer him on. Very cool.
(I think I say that alot.)
Kaffee und kuchen. Not sure if Runner's World is up to speed on this yet but cheesecake seems to top the list of pre-race, carb loading choices here. : )
Likewise, there was no free water afterwards, as is the American race norm, but rather hot tea all around. And a lot of steam from hot runners on a really chilly morning.
Speaking of hot runners….. ; )
Did I say that, or was I just thinking it? <g>
Anyway, it wrapped up just as the sky opened and buckets of rain fell. Half and hour earlier it wouldn't have been pretty. As it was, it was perfect.
So here I am. In front of the Ministry of Something or Other building in Luxembourg last week. (fantastic trip and I will share pics soon!)
What?
You don't see me?
Try this…..
Happy New Year to you! : )
Starry Sky Journal 