New Year's Eve

This year we decided to try and let the younger guys stay up until midnight. My online friend Michele has this great tradition of revealing a new activity each hour as her family celebrates New Year's Eve. We decided to give this a try.

We set up nine bags with clocks on them and set them in front of the Christmas tree. We started at 4pm and went until midnight.

The kids were very excited by the idea of this added to the fact that we were going to let them stay up so late.

Bag #1 was a new Wii game. This was a lot of fun and got everyone up and moving to start the night.

Bag #2 was make your own pizzas. We used canned biscuit dough, sauce and many toppings. We had cake for dessert.

The pizzas were a big hit and everyone enjoyed picking out their own toppings.

Bag #3 was a new movie. We watched for the hour and then stopped to open the next bag. Part way through, Bess went to a friends to spend some time there. It is hard to realize that she will not always be with us for family times any more.

Bag #4 was a scavenger hunt. We split the kids into teams and gave them copies of the list. We made the items small enough to fit in a bag and I knew that there were at least two of each item on the first floor of the house. What a mad dash. It was fun to watch them search for things.

Gabe and Dan were the winners but everyone got some chocolate for their effort.

Bag #5 was decorating party hats. We had pom-poms, feathers, glitter glue, and stickers. What a wild assortment of creations. The girls were careful and wanted to make their hats pretty. The boys went wild and came up with the craziest hats.

Ready to ring in the new year.

Bag #6 was going sledding. The kids really loved this one as they do not usually go sledding after dark. Brian set up his work light to shine on the hill and away we went. Brian and I even got a few runs down the hill.

We followed up with hot cocoa and cookies.

Shortly after the sledding, Bess came back home. She wanted to finish out the evening with us. I was pleased.

Bag #7 was new containers of Play Doh. This helped calm things down a bit after the sledding. Everyone got into their pjs and we had a nice relaxing time of making dough creation.

Bag #8 was a game called Guesstures. This is a great Charade type game. I must admit that by now Hannah and Dan especially were getting quite tired and the game probably would have been better earlier, but the kids did great and we had fun.

We opened the last bag about 15 minutes before midnight. The bag contained noise makers, Champagne glasses with paper umbrellas and silly glasses. We opened our sparkling grape juice, put on our hats and watched the clock.

After a countdown, we blew our horns loudly and raised a toast to the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011.

I think this will become a new tradition for us as everyone enjoyed the hourly activities. It kept the evening fresh and interesting and helped the younger guys stay awake.

I hope you all have a terrific 2011.

A Relaxing Day

Today was a good day.

The kids played outside several times, coming in just long enough for their snow gear to dry and then heading out again. They made trails, worked on the sliding hill and later as the snow got stickier, working on a fort.

Brian loves his new Kindle and has already downloaded quite a few books. He could be found several times today reading.

Bess has had a cold the last few days, so she took it easy, spending time reading, on the computer and knitting.

Rachel and Hannah got crochet hooks and yarn for Christmas, so today I gave them a lesson. Rachel caught on very quickly as I suspected she would. She is almost ready to start a real project.

Hannah was frustrated at first, but kept at it and as mastered the chain. I'm not sure how long she intends to make this, but she is having fun.

Gabe loves perusing eBay and Amazon for deals. He has Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket and the possibilities are endless, or at least until his cash runs out.

Dan flitted from here and there playing and hanging out. These days can be more difficult for him with less structure and he often needs a lot of redirection, but he did pretty good and enjoyed himself.

No pictures of me, but I spend the day doing a bit of this and that, picking up Christmas stuff, laundry, playing on the computer, teaching the girls and visiting with Brian and the kids. I enjoy these do nothing days when we are all together exploring our own pursuits, but spending time together.

Big Snow

We had our first major snow storm of the 2010-2011 winter season overnight. This was a true nor'easter, working it's way up the coast dumping snow along the way.

It started last evening and snowed all night. I watched the snow swirl under the spotlight out back. It piled up very quickly.

It is hard to tell how much snow there is with all the wind. There are many places where it is well over two feet deep, but others only a few inches. My best estimate would be someplace in the 15-18" range.

This poor little bird feeder is somewhat protected from the wind, so the snow piled up high. The birds don't seem to mind the snowy hat on the feeder as they flit and fly back and worth for seed and peanuts.

The younger guys spend a lot of time making trails and sledding. The snow is very dry and powdery. It took quite a few runs down the sledding trail to pack it down enough to get a long run.

The birds are very busy today taking advantage of the steady supply of things to eat at the feeders. It must be hard for them to find food with so much food and I imagine the cold temperature and high winds tax their energy. We try and offer a wide variety of foods for them to make it a bit easier.

I usually bring the gazing globe inside, but I think it looks pretty interesting with a the snow cap and reflection of the house.

The wind caused some very interesting snow drifts.

I hope everyone in the snow area is staying safe and warm. Thankfully, we were all home today and didn't have any place to go, so we are enjoying the fresh snow, a cozy home and being together.

Rachel's Winter Concert

Rachel had her winter concert tonight. She seemed so much more relaxed than last year. There was one song that was a "shoobie doowah" type song and she had so much fun with that one.

She looked so pretty in her black dress.

Christmas Tree Hunting in the Rain

Today was the first day we had free for picking out our Christmas tree. It was raining...hard. We went anyway. Thankfully it was not terribly cold.

We took a cart to keep the tree off the ground. The boys thought this was great fun.

It seemed odd not to be trudging through the snow, tossing snow at each and enjoying the crispness of the December air, but the rain didn't really seem to dampen any one's spirits and we enjoyed our outing. The kids ran all over the tree farm, chasing each other and hiding behind trees. There were only a few other folks there, so we didn't feel bad about all the noise we were making.

We looked at this one and that one. Bess and Brian spotted this one and it was voted a keeper.

Brian had to lay on the damp muddy ground to cut down the tree. He is always a good sport about these things, but I think he would have much preferred snow.

By the time we were putting the tree on the van, it was really pouring. We got home soaked, but happy with our tree. We all changed and had hot cocoa and cookies.

The tree is set up and drying in our family room. We might get to the decorating tonight, but more than likely we will let it settle and finish drying overnight and get to the decorating tomorrow.

I am finally feeling like the Christmas season has begun.

Homeschool Group Christmas Party

Our homeschool group is not having a weekly co-op this year, but we have been getting together for Mom's Meetings, Field Trips and special events.

We had a great time today at the Christmas Party. Rachel, Hannah and Dan only had a half day of school today, so I decided to let them stay home and come to the party with us. They miss their homeschool friends very much and it was so fun for them to reconnect.

We spend the first part of the morning enjoying the wonderful fellowship. The kids played, chatted and ran around. We moms did a lot of talking. What a terrific group of women. I am somewhat relieved to not have our weekly co-op, but I do miss meeting with these ladies each week.


Stacy, our wonderful party/field trip planner had some very fun games organized. This relay race involved moving a balloon down the room and back to the start with a small snow shovel. It is a lot harder than it looks and the children used many different techniques from trying to carry it on the shovel to scooting it along the floor.

This relay race was totally hysterical. Bib snowpants, jacket, hat, mittens, scarf and boots were provided for each team. They had to put on all the clothes, race down to the end of the room and back; the problem being that all the clothes were men sized. The children participating were aged 3-12 and it was so funny watching the little ones trying to run/walk across the room.

Before lunch, we had a marshmallow eating contest and a Hersey's Kiss eating contest. The Kisses had to be unwrapped and eaten, but they had to do it all with mittens on. Some of the kids had big ski mittens, which made it very hard to unwrap the Kisses.

We ordered out for pizza from a local place that gives us a very good price. One of the moms made a fun punch.

Each mom brought something for dessert. We had cookies, cupcakes, apple pie, a caramel chocolate trifle...yummy!

Bess joined us for lunch after her morning class.

I so very much enjoy this group of ladies and their children. Thanks, Stacy for organizing and thank you, ladies for being the wonderful women you are.

Pumpkin Carving with Papa

Dan's class had a pumpkin carving activity at school today. Last year, Brian was able to go and enjoy this time with Dan, but this year, Bri is on TDY, so Dad agreed to go in his place.

Dan was so happy to have Papa join him at school. Dad said that Dan was very diligent and did most of the work himself. Dan was very pleased with how their pumpkin came out.


Thanks, Papa for stepping in and making Dan's day a special one.

Another TDY

Gabe and I took Brian to the airport. Brian will be TDY for several weeks in New Zealand and Antarctica.

Gabe always enjoys going to the airport, although not so much that we are going to say goodbye. We work hard at being a good military family and no tears were shed until after Brian leaves us.


To console ourselves, we did a bit of shopping and went out to lunch.

Ahoy Matey

One of Dan's favorite toys are the Fisher Price people sets. We have several including the Nativity. He plays for long periods of time making up all sorts of stories and adventures.


This time the Noah's Ark set seemed to house all manner of characters, including a pirate, complete with parrot and I think I see an angel peaking out from below.


So many toys that the children get are not played with that often, but these sets are frequent companions for Dan's very vivid imagination.

Silver Linings

In between rain showers this evening, the clouds parted a bit and the sun made a brief appearance. The clouds looked like they were on fire. It was beautiful.