Christmas Tree Time

Once again, it's that time of year. Okay, I admit it. We've been listening to Christmas music since the beginning of last week. We were all expressing our thankfulness for Christmas music. And really, if you are going to spend too long celebrating something, Christmas is a pretty good one to choose. Growing up, the tradition was to cut down our tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Shelby had to work, so we went today instead. The weather was amazing. It was in the 60's and beautiful clear skies. I found this great little tree farm about an hour west that had everything I wanted in a tree farm.

Ahhhh...Selighbell Christmas Tree Farm. I searched online for about an hour to find you, and you did not disappoint me. Thank you!

The trees were all one price. (Less than we paid for our tree that we did not cut ourselves last year) so we had money left over to share two delicious pulled pork sandwiches a local caterer was selling. The kids here are also enjoying their free hot coco and cider.

Lennon cutting his first tree down. The last time we went he was only 2 and wasn't interested in helping. This year though, he made a few attempts at it.

The tree we ended up choosing had a birds nest in it, which many people at the farm told us meant good luck. We took the nest out before they shook the tree out and placed it back in the tree at home as an ornament. Mia was more excited about the nest, I think, than the tree itself.

Just a pretty little photo op

The hay ride was great. There was hardly anyone on it with us, it was long enough to sit back and relax a while and they were piping holiday tunes in for us through some speakers. That was one high tech hay ride!

My little tree baby.

Our gingerbread sweetheart

We went straight home and got started decorating. Shelby went to the office for a few hours while the kids and I fixed up the tree and made our traditional tree trimming dinner. Another tradition from my childhood. Only, our kids have renamed Chicken Squares, "Christmas Chicken." Because we usually only have it this once a year. Although, each year we wonder why we don't have it more often.

The kids were awesome all day. It's so fun to see them having fun together. Mia is such an awesome big sister and doesn't just humor him, she really enjoys playing with and hanging out with him lately. They did a great job of cooperating during the tree trimming. Mia had her heart set on having a color scheme for our tree this year. She fell in love with the idea at our hotel in NH because all of their trees stuck to two or three colors each. Lennon went right along with her plan (although I let him stick a few of the out of bound colored ornaments on the back of the tree.) They are pretty cool kids. I like them a lot.

Inspiration

Mia was inspired at the craft fair yesterday to make fairy houses so today she gathered all the necessary materials from the back yard and came and to build a fairy house. She's built plenty of fairy houses outside, but she wanted to build one that could be moved from place to place as a play thing. I think she did an amazing job. What do you think?

Mia kneeling beside her house taking about to take some pictures with her camera.

The little characters are some she bought from the people who were selling the fairy houses at the fair. The houses were out of her price range - one reason she wanted to make one.

When she was finished, she declared that this was definitely as good as the ones for sale at the fair and if she wanted to, she could turn right around and sell it. I was glad that she was so proud of her work. I like it a lot too.

Mia's Greek/Roman God Family Tree

Mia's craft project for history this week was to make a family tree for the Greek/Roman Gods and Goddesses. She chose a branch from the backyard. Luckily for her, the recent snow storm left quite a few big fallen branches in it's path. She then had the idea to spray paint it gold before collecting dirt to fill this pitcher we found at a thrift shop for her birthday party. Next, she chose a leaf to trace and cut out 23 times for the tree. She wrote the name of each God on each leaf and then we hot glued them onto the tree descending from most important to least important. She loved working on it and in the end Lennon helped with the glueing. It's so festive and fall looking too, so we're going to keep it up for a while!

Strawbery Banke Museum

On Tuesday we went on a field trip with a home school group to a museum we had been to before called Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We got to do a special program focusing on how Thanksgiving has changed over the years. The kids got to help with kitchen chores that kids their ages would have been responsible for in the 1700's, 1800's and early 1900's. They had a blast despite the fact that Lennon was on his way to being sick. We didn't know that yet.

Each of the kids made their own corn husk doll to bring home.

Lennon was fascinated by this old fashioned spit turning machine which would have been new fangled in it's day.

All the kids took turns doing various kitchen tasks including grating cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, stringing beans, weighing different ingredients on a scale and grinding corn with a mortar and pestle.

Right at the beginning Lennon found a very exciting piece of history for him - These water pipes from the early 1800's. He and his friend Luca had fun talking to each other through the pipes.

A bit out of order, here is a picture of the kids hard at work in the kitchen. They actually strung the beans on string with a sewing needle.

Among other activities of the day, they had the kids complete a vin diagram, watched a short video on the history of Thanksgiving, talked about some of the myths surrounding the origin of the holiday and focused on what the real meaning is of the holiday. Throughout the day they emphasized that we are celebrating being thankful for what we have and the ability to share any excess with others. It was a great day, and we even made it home in time for Lennon to go to school and Mia and Jaeda went to choir.

Thanksgiving Collage

Apparently it is a tradition at Lennon's preschool to send home a blank cut out of a turkey to each family in November. Our assignment is to decorate it in whatever way we want to, then return it to the school to decorate their halls for November. I suggested we do a collage and Lennon added that we should choose colors to make the turkey look like the colors of a real turkey. So, Shelby and I cut out a bunch of pictures for the kids to choose from and let them go to town cutting and pasting them wherever they wanted. The end result is really cute. They did a great job and had a lot of fun. They ended up making another collage each later in the morning.

Field Trip and Play Date

This past Tuesday I got to go with Lennon's class on their walking field trip to the Fire Department that is just across from the school. It was originally just his class, but one of the 3's classes had low attendance so they ended up joining us too. It was really fun to see Lennon in "class mode." He was very attentive although a little disappointed because we had such an awesome tour of a fire station in Plano last year and this didn't quite meet his standards.

Luckily, since Shelby's office is walking distance to our house, I was able to leave Mia home for her piano lesson and then Shelby took a late lunch, picked Mia up after her piano lesson and dropped her off at choir practice. Then he brought the car back to his office where I met him when I was done with Lennon's field trip and I went off to pick Mia up from choir and then dash back to Stoneham to pick Lennon up from pre school. It was bit crazy, but it worked.

Another somewhat crazy day. It started with a friend invited us to Drumlin Farm for a little morning play date. Then Mia decided she didn't want to go. Claire was home, so I left Mia here doing her school work until Claire had to drop her off at The South School for her gym class. Claire had a swimming class to get her kids to though, so she had to drop Mia off at 10:15 when her gym class didn't start until 10:45. I cleared it with the secretary first and Mia brought a book to read. It ended up taking me an hour to get to the farm when it should have taken only about 20-30 minutes. Then, I lost track of time at the farm and didn't leave until 11:45 when I need to have Lennon to school at 12:30 and Mia was done at gym at 11:30. It ended up only taking us about 20 minutes to get back to the school though and the secretary said Mia was great and just sat reading her book. Lesson learned: Don't plan play dates for mornings when Lennon has school.

Lennon isn't quite in this one, but it's a good shot of his friend Aleric, who "prefers to be called Beaver." These two were made for each other. The little girl is in Aleric's class at The Waldorf school, Ina.

Lennon had begged for a hay ride and I thought I remembered it being $5 or something, but it was only $2, so we did it. He was thrilled.

Lennon always wants his picture taken in any of these cut outs he sees.

Lennon and Aleric, AKA Beaver saying hello to the sow. They had a scale you could step on to tell you what age pig you were. Lennon was a piglet and I...was a finishing pig - ready for market! Pretty funny. Lennon told Mia the story and then said, "so basically, she's dead meat."

After I dropped Lennon off at school and picked Mia up from school, Mia and I whizzed home for a quick lunch before hopping in the car to bring dinner to a friend 45 minutes away who just had a baby. We got there with enough time to hold the baby for 10 minutes before we had to get back in the car and drive the 45 minutes back home with 3 minutes to spare before Lennon's class let out. I figured out I spent somewhere around 3.5 hours in the car today. I am definitely coming down with something and I can't get sick because there is just too much to get done for me to slow down at this point. Gotta go to bed. Good night!

Halloween Palooza

We just had our biggest holiday party yet. I promised the kids this Halloween party originally in lieu of trick or treating, but then after much protest on the part of Mia and the family we usually trick or treat with, I gave in to doing both. The party was deemed a success by everyone who attended. The kids said it was the greatest party ever! We had right around 50 people here and after a record breaking storm blew through this weekend, we were all kind of amazed that anyone showed up at all. The day was beautiful, albeit a little slushy from the melting snow. The weather was great considering the storm. It was around 40 all day, so totally warm enough to be out in the yard and jumping in the bounce house we rented. We set up the bounce house at about 11 and the kids were basically in it the entire day until we made them go to bed around 8:30. They definitely got their exercise today.

Luckily, the downstairs apartment is in between tenants right now, so we were able to use it as the party room. With all the slushy snow, mud and dropped food, I was definitely grateful for the empty apartment.

We were given all these pumpkins at a Stoneham TV thing we went to yesterday because they were leftover, so we set up a pumpkin decorating station at the party for kids to take a rest from the cold.

Jessica came early and she and Lennon used his awesome veggie slicer that he scored at a thrift shop to make some home made baked sweet potato chips

Mia set up a precious little story time area for later in the party when the kids needed some down time. She gathered all the remaining kids and read a few Halloween books to them. It was really cute.

This is the killer bounce house/slide combo we rented for the party. Several people chipped in for the rental so that it wasn't crazy to rent. We were worried that we weren't going to get to use it at all when the weather turned bad yesterday, but it all worked out in the end. The kids were even still sweaty while they were jumping in there. I don't even think any of them wore coats all day.

Shelby-our fire man

We couldn't get ahold of Lennon for this picture, but we were all characters from The Golden Compass. Shelby's costume cost a whopping $12. Thank you Salvation Army. Mine is a reused Homecoming dress with $5 worth of clearance fabric safety pinned on. Shelby is Lee Scorsby and I am Serafina Pekkala. Lennon's costume picture is on Facebook. Mia wore several costume over the course of the day.

We finished cleaning up right around 9:30 and this is all that is left of the carnage from the party. Not too shabby.

A Halloween Winter Wonderland

We got a huge winter storm just blow through, right in the middle of fall. The kids -and I-are in HEAVEN! I've been listening the Christmas music all morning while the kids played in the snow. They woke up and were sooo excited! Mia and Lennon dressed Mia's American Girl dolls in their winter gear and then came down stairs to decorate the cups for our party tonight. As soon as I was up they geared up and went outside to sled and build snowmen.

Goofballs to the core.

There are tons of fallen limbs, but luckily we didn't lose anything devastating. We very briefly lost power during the night, but all was well by this morning.

While the kids were out playing in the snow, I baked some muffins at Lennon's request. I used the last of some fresh pumpkin we cooked ourselves and filled them with raspberry jam that Mia got from a farmer's market in Vermont recently. They are pretty delicious! Especially along with the Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice coffee I made this morning.

New Haircut and Halloween Happenings

Last night we went to this great event at The Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary called Halloween Happenings. They start you out in the barn with crafts, games and activities. The kids did leaf rubbings, played bingo and fishing for prizes and made masks. They also learned a bit about native animals. When our group was called we went on a one hour hike in the forest - in the dark! Along the way, we came across several "animals" - costumed characters who told us all about their habitat and life cycle as well as lots of other interesting facts. We even encountered a rotting tree. At the end of the hike there was a booth with cider, cupcakes and a bonfire. There were also tons and tons of really intricately carved jack o lanterns.

It was around 30 degrees last night, so Mia dressed in her Hermione costume to stay warm. The woman who carved this pumpkin said it took her all day. Pretty awesome!

Surprisingly, this is all the hair he lost. Sadly, it was pretty much all of the curls.

I still need to even up the back a bit, but overall I think I did a pretty good job. It should be a lot easier to take care of for the winter now.

Busy Weekend

With Shelby off to NYC this weekend to visit Dusty, the kids and I had a friend filled, fun weekend. Dusty had Adidas following him and his band around with a camera crew and outfitted them for their Friday night show, so there may be some kind of deal in the works and Shelby wanted to watch the magic first hand. He left Friday morning before we got up though and had class last Thursday night, so essentially, this meant I was alone with the kids for four days and nights. The kids haven't seen him since Thursday afternoon at lunchtime and by now are missing him terribly. Mia has cried once and Lennon asked for him last night at bedtime. That's about as sentimental as it gets with Lennon at this point.

Friday morning we got up and got most of Mia's school work done for the day before running into Matues and Bianca, who had just returned from a month long vacation in Oregon. Right as we saw them though, we had to run out the door and go babysit for Anderson and Theo for an hour at Sue's house for her to go see the eye doctor. The boys had fun playing and riding tricycles on Sue's street. She lives in this great little, quiet neighborhood where you can actually let your kids play in the front yard and ride bikes in the street without worry of them being hit by a car. You couldn't even dream of letting the kids step into our front yard on this busy street.

When we got home we invited the Lima kids over to participate in our history related craft project. We were learning about ancient Phoenicia last week so we made our own purple dye out of cabbage. Let me tell you, the smell of that boiled cabbage will never leave my memory. It was sooo awful! Our book tells us the smell from the boiled snails they actually used to make their famous purple dye was much worse, but I have to say, this would be hard to beat. I've been burning scented candles almost around the clock for three days to get rid of that smell. The project was fun for all, but didn't yield such a great outcome. The pasta we dyes didn't really take on too much of the purple color and the kids ended up eating most of the necklaces they made anyway. Afterwards, we threw a dish rag, a couple of pairs of socks and a pair of Mia's underwear in the dye to try that out. I've been letting those all sit and need to wash them in cold water to see how they turn out.

Here is the un-dyed pasta on the left and the dyed pasta on the right. You can tell it's been dyed, but it's not exactly purple

After all the crafiness was done, we all headed out to meet up with Krissy and her three kids at a park we have dubbed "diarrhea park." It's a great park, but trust me, do not go in the water. At the park Krissy invited us all out to watch some fireworks in Arlington near where they live. I hadn't planned on my kids being up late, so I was leaning towards saying no, when Claire offered to pay for me to take them all out to dinner before hand if I would take her kids too. I agreed.

The fireworks were sooo great! The fireworks we went to see on July 4th never happened, so my kids had missed out on fireworks so far this year, so it was extra fun. It was also Aidan's birthday and was a really fun way to celebrate with a friend. Aidan turned 8 and he is who Mia is currently "in love" with. After fireworks we all ate mini cannoli's which I bought ahead of time, in the car on the way home. The kids crashed as soon as their heads hit their pillows.

Saturday morning Mia had her second week of fencing with Tyson. The Moore's all came this week, so Osheta and I got to hang out and chat during class and Lennon played with Trinity and T.J. and we also got to meet and chat with another mom of a couple kids in class who had a sweet little boy with similarly long, curly hair like Lennon. Lennon declared that the boy was "super funny," so I think there is going to be a play date in their future. Afterwards the Moore family all came over for lunch and play time. There was hardly a toy in our house that had not been given attention by the time they left and we headed over to town day. At town day I let each kid choose one carnival ride and we all shared a fresh squeezed lemonade. There were some pretty popular bands playing, though I couldn't tell you their names. I recognized the songs from radio, but I don't remember now. The kids got some free samples and played with Ella and Diva at Town Hall Park before we headed home to watch the Mickey Mouse Halloween movie we checked out from the library. I didn't get any pictures all day. Wah!

We had planned on going to church this morning, but with all the excitement of the rest of the weekend, I think the kids were exhausted and they didn't wake up in time for us to make it. Instead, after breakfast we headed up to New Hampshire to go to America's Stonehenge. I just started doing the whole envelope budget Dave Ramsey thing, so I checked my "field trips" envelope and decided I had enough for a fun little day trip with the kids. We packed some snacks and got on the road. On the way, I got a call from Sue about a yard sale down the road with great clothes Lennon's size. I stopped in and got a great pair of shoes, winter jammies and four different, long sleeve shirts for the fall/winter and walked out having spent only $15.

America's Stonhenge is a 4,000 year old complex of man made rock formations and caves. It was really like little huts essentially, but made out of stones and apparently dating back much farther than anything else of it's kind ever discovered in North America.

The kids at the little diner we stopped at for lunch called "The English Muffin."

This is where we had our second breakfast of the day.

Mia was brave and walked into the first cave by herself. Lennon was hesitant as there was no lighting and not too much information about what there may or may not be in the caves.

It's hard to show exactly how cool all this stuff was. This was the front of a three room chamber. All of the chambers had little nooks in them for possible storage or ovens. No one really knows.

This was inside the biggest dwelling on the site. It was called Oracle Cave. It had a possible bedchamber, chimney, "ancient couch," which the kids are pictured sitting on, possible "closets," for storage and other shelf areas. It was really cool to be in there and think about people so long ago having stuff/things they needed to store. It's hard to imagine what life must have been like so long ago for people.

Ancient "closet" Not sure why Mia wanted to flash us a peace sign in this picture, but...she did.

At this point the sun will set on the winter solstice. There was a tower, newly constructed, from which you could see the entire astonomical chart made from stone here. It says that most likely when it was originally put together, there were no or few trees on the grounds so it was all easier to see and read. The tilt of the Earth has changed in the past 4000 years, but even still many solar/lunar events can be charted using these rock formations. Pretty cool.

Kids digging for archaeological finds

It was a very fun weekend and we are all looking forward to Thursday when Hillary, Jackson and Baron are coming to visit us! Yay!!!!!!!!

Fencing Fun

Months ago I got a Groupon for four weeks of a fencing class that Mia has been dying to use. We finally have room in our schedule for her to go on Saturday mornings this month. Last week was the first class and she had so much fun! Her friend Tyson is taking the class with her, so it's an added bonus because we have a hard time getting together with his family due to having such different schedules.

Call Me Soup Lady

I got an email with several soup recipes from EatingWell.com, so I officially declared this week "Soup Week." We had Egyptian Stew, Black Bean Soup and tonight we had Broccoli Cheese soup with Cannelinni beans. I thought the Black Bean soup looked so pretty, I took a picture. So, here it is. So far everyone except Mia loved the Egyptian Stew. The Black Bean soup was an all around hit, and the Broccoli soup was declared Mia's favorite.