What we've been up to

I realize that I haven't posted here for a few days so I thought I'd pop in with an update. On Friday night the boys (little ones, not DH) and I went to an Ethnic Holiday Festival that we go to every year. We always look forward to seeing the booths from the different countries and my oldest son particularly loves to pick out a few new tree ornaments from other countries. Sadly, this year there really weren't any ornaments for sale that we could find. So.........my boys each got a flask (I know........I told them it was a canteen for water) from the Croatia booth. They are actually pretty cool and decorative. My oldest boy hung his on the tree when we got home. The little one has been periodically swigging water from his. :-)



On Saturday aside from my little guy having a YMCA basketball game in the morning we pretty much stayed home. I got my hair cut and colored. That afternoon DH worked outside putting up some lights and decorations. We let our chickens go out into a big dog pen we have so they could have "chicken recess". Our smallest and friendliest chicken, Sarah, is light enough that she can fly over the top (it's 6 feet high......or maybe higher). So.........when I opened the back door to get them back into the coop there was a porch chicken. Below you can see a photo of her. Also that afternoon as my husband and I had a brief moment of rest on the couch (we were just watching TV, not actually sleeping) my youngest son came into the living room and said, "Mom, Dad! Look!" He was carrying Sarah. So we had a chicken in the house for a short time. Not something we'll be doing on a regular basis, be assured. I have enough trouble cleaning up after the four 4-legged creatures who live inside without adding chickens to the menagerie.



Saturday night around 7:20 p.m. I headed to Kohl's to buy myself a new outfit for the Montessori Christmas Program I am directing on Friday. Can I just say something here? What is UP with putting bright fluorescent lighting in dressing rooms? Is there anyone in the world who would find it flattering to look at every little bump, dimple and roll under that kind of lighting? It's a wonder they sell any clothes at all. I was fairly depressed after the whole episode. Seriously. I hate shopping anyway though. I did find a fairly presentable outfit. I bought a new necklace to go with it. It's from the Simply Vera Wang collection for Kohl's. If the local paper did a write-up about my Christmas program they could say something like, "And the directress (that's what you call a Montessori teacher) wore Vera Wang." Ha!! Sounds pretty swanky, eh? Oh, sorry. There won't be a photo of me in the new outfit. Gray pants, fuschia sweater, cool new necklace and shoes. Does that help with your visual image? If not, sorry!!

The boys have enjoyed doing our two Advent calendars since December began. My oldest son is in charge of putting the Nativity figure up on the calendar shown below each day. They decided on their own to each do one instead of taking turns with the two calendars.




This year we added the Playmobil Advent calendar. I saw it at Target and couldn't pass it up. My little boy loves Playmobil. Each day he opens a door and gets out a new figure to put in a winter scene. Below you can see what is up so far.




Other than that...........we're just hanging in there, trying to enjoy this season of waiting and anticipation. We did our second Advent candle last night so there was one for each boy to blow out afterwards. I still have a TON of things to do before the 25th but I'm not getting stressed about it. It is incredibly cold here now and I have to go out a few times a day to break the ice out of the chicken's water. Makes me feel like a real farmer. Haha! We are supposed to get a ton of snow over the next 48 hours so a snow day may be in the schedule this week. We'll see.

We've done another Advent book and activity but the ornaments aren't quite finished. That will be another post. I guess I'll go for now. I'll end with this thought: Wouldn't it be awesome if I could get paid to stay home all day and just make crafts and blog about it? That's what I feel like doing right now. Unfortunately, crafting isn't on the urgent to-do list for today. Other mundane things like.............fold laundry, sweep floor, etc. await, however. So I'm off.......