Christmas...that happened!

Okay, well, it's three weeks later and I am finally getting around to writing about our Christmas festivities.  To be honest, this was not our best Christmas.  I feel almost guilty to say that, because really, it's all about celebrating that God loves us so much that He became one of us, and how could that not be great?!  But, in my mind, I failed at Christmas this year!  I failed at having focus and at helping my kids to focus.  And, of course, by failed I mean I fell short of my own expectations!  Good thing we can all celebrate the love of Christ any and every day of the year!

On to more fun things than my confessional!  Christmas begins with the tree, right?  I am always anxious to get our tree ASAP after Thanksgiving.  I feel like if we are going to spend $50 or so on a tree, we need to have it as long as possible!  For the second year in a row we headed to Home Depot!  It seems so boring, but trying to fit in a trip to a tree farm is just one more thing to do.  Sidenote, the day after Christmas I bought a fake tree.  This Christmas felt SO busy and was a wake up call of the reality that, in the future, I want to simplify Christmas.  Buying a tree each year is one less thing to do, and we can still have fun decorating it as a family.  Plus, I really won't miss constantly sweeping up fallen needles and am stoked to have a tree FULL of branches that are nice and strong for the heavier ornaments!  Anyway, back to this year.  As always, we had a really fun time decorating the tree.  I pretty much sat back and watched the kids hang all the ornaments, and, for the first time, they weren't all clumped on one part of the tree!  Every year I get each of the kids a new ornament that somehow represents their year.

Abby was a star soccer player this year!

Seth got Spiderman (despite my dislike for character things) because he fell in love with super-heros this year!

Haley's love of horses was quite a theme in her life in 2013.

One of our very favorite Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses.  Good old Uncle Nate hand makes all the houses and we spend a fun day with family eating candy and sticking it on the houses!  This year Uncle Nate worked for hours and hours to create a template and make a gingerbread pirate ship!  We had so much fun (even though we really missed Auntie Laura being there with us) and are SO thankful that Uncle Nate takes the time to create such a fun day for us.

Getting started on the barn:)

Uncle Nate and Seth hard at work on the pirate ship

Last year we went to Streets of Bethlehem, which is a reenactment of the events leading up to and including Christ's birth that a church in a nearby city does.  It was by far the highlight of the kids Christmas.  We went again this year, so excited because of how much fun we had last year.  It's a really neat event, but wasn't quite the joyful outing that we had last year!  We got a little turned around on the way there, which always happens when I am in charge of the directions, and then Carey and I were annoyed with each other, which also always happens when I am in charge of directions!  Abby lost her beanie somewhere along the Bethlehem marketplace and Seth was whiny because he was really cold.  When we got back to our car, everyone fell apart.  I can't even remember what happened.  I just know I was crying and we were all super tense and irritable:(  Oh, on the way home the moon was really low in the sky and huge and orange, so I pointed it out to everyone.  Haley immediately responded with "No, that's not the moon" which broke the tension for Carey and I because it was SO ridiculous! 

A really fun thing that we did for the first time this year was going to Candy Cane Lane in another nearby city.  It's a whole neighborhood that decorates like crazy and there are tons of people just walking all around.  We had a great time walking all around and enjoying the lights (and imagining having a baby there with us next year)!

On to Christmas.  Christmas Eve morning we went to Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Steve's for a delicious breakfast and gift-exchanging fun!

They love Grandma Jackie:)

How cute are these kids?

Watching their cousin Brannon play video games.

We went on a walk and met a really friendly horse!

In the evening of Christmas Eve we went over the hill to an annual Christmas Eve party that my family has gone to since I was an infant.  We went Christmas caroling and ate yummy treats and played the l-o-n-g-e-s-t game of white elephant (or big elephant, as Abby kept calling it).  When I looked at my watch and it was 9:00 and we still had a 45 minute drive home, I had to let some of my plans go!  Normally I wrap all the of the gifts that go in the kids stockings.  I warned them on the way home from the party that it wasn't going to happen this year!  I also usually decorate the house with streamers and balloons so that when the kids wake up on Christmas morning it looks like a birthday party (you know...for Jesus).  Oh, and we always have a birthday cake for Jesus.  Yep, none of those things happened this year.  I had to let them go. 

Christmas morning we did stockings, enjoyed monkey bread and then got to work making breakfast burritos.  As is our tradition, we met our friends, the Hughes, downtown and handed out breakfast burritos and socks to homeless people (this year we stepped it up and had waters, chocolate milks, cuties, muffins and chocolate).

We got that box of chocolates at the white elephant game!  We laughed every time Jonathan offered someone chocolate!

Pulling the wagon of goodies!

We went home and opened gifts and had a mellow afternoon at home.  The kids played with their toys and then took naps (after such a late night)!  Carey and I set up Seth's bunk bed (his "big" present) and then got ready to head over to my parents' house.  We did more gift exchanging over there and had a delicious dinner.

Our cute Christmas poodie under the tree!

Examining Poppa Phil's gift!

When I look at it in pictures it all looks so great!  I think I just didn't feel prepared.  I don't know if it's because the season was so short or because I had "morning-all-day-sickness" for most of it or because growing a person makes me SO tired!  Who knows?!  But, the kids had a great time and there's always next year!

Guess Who's 8!

Our sweet, lovable, darling daughters are now only ten years away from adulthood!  That's right, they are 8 years old and cute as can be.  I really can't handle that in ten years they'll be 18.  That's just plan crazy!

Haley, our darling first-born, is very artistic, faithful, imaginative and bright.  She loves her friends, dancing, reading, Banjo (our dog) and fairies.  Haley likes to have lots of alone time, creating little worlds for her dolls or fairies or roly-poly bugs.  She doles out affection with scarcity, so hugs and heartfelt smiles from her are treasures that melt our hearts. 

Abby is funny, creative, such a sweet sister, tender-hearted and honest.  She loves spending time with people, "chatting", singing, creating things, soccer and playing outside.  Abby surprises us all the time with the clever things she comes up with and how resourceful she is.  Plus, she makes us laugh all the time.

For their 8th birthday the girls had a pool party at a local indoor pool.  It was the first time we've ever done a party somewhere other than our house, and it was really fun.  We got there about 15 minutes before the guests were scheduled to arrive, and then the kids just played and played and played in the pool.  Abby and Haley had a great time, and I'm pretty sure all their friends did too!

Abby had a little bit of fun!

Haley and some buddies taking a little snack break!

We always sing to Haley first, since she was the first one born.

And then it's Abby's turn!

On the night of their real birthday we had ice cream sundaes to celebrate.  Here's what happened:

Halloween In Pictures

scooping the guts out of pumpkins

happy pumpkin carver

all ready for the day!

Abby and her friend in the parade at school.

Seth getting ready to trick-or-treat at preschool.

Our mob of trick-or-treaters!

Seth is 5!

A week ago Seth turned 5!  How in the world can that be true?  He has gotten so big so fast...I know everyone always says that, but goodness is it ever true!  Five year old Seth loves Legos, super-heros, playing with Abby, drawing, board games, swimming and dancing.  We call him "all or nothing" because he is either SO SO SO fun and silly, dancing around talking in a southern accent, or he is adamantly against whatever is happening!

For his birthday Seth had a Spiderman party and invited a few of his favorite friends.  I had a lot of fun planning his party (he and I even made the pinata) and my sister helped out a lot with decor (thank you Melissa).  Seth was very specific about who he wanted to invite and what he wanted to eat and drink at the party (he told me he wanted lemonade "and you can have beer and wine"!)  The party was really fun, with just the right number of kids.  They all had a great time, playing with "green goblin goo" (aka Gak), shooting the Green Goblin (Carey) with web-shooters (silly string), going on a spider hunt and breaking open the pinata!

Happy birthday!

These super-heros took out the Green Goblins!

Firsts...Quite a Few of Them!

The Wee Webbers have been very busy lately, hence the lack of blogging.  I've been wanting to post, since there's been plenty to post about, just not plenty of time (sidenote: it's amazing how much less time it feels like I have once the kids are in school.  I guess it's just having to be somewhere twice a day, the endless papers to fill out and send back, the homework, the volunteering, and the packing and unpacking of lunches!)

Of course, the most obvious first is that the girls had their first day of 2nd grade.  If you don't know, I was so back and forth at the end of the year last year, trying to figure out if they were going to go to school or do home school.  My thoughts and plans changed over and over again.  Finally, though, one morning in May I felt a very clear leading from God that they should both go to school this year.  We are about three weeks in and definitely off to a better start than last year.  They are both really liking their teachers and coming home WAY more regulated than in the past.  Abby's been struggling with the transition of a new teacher, but she's starting to realize that this happens every year and that she will feel comfortable soon! 

Not only did the girls start school, but all three kids dove into after-school activities, which we've never done in the fall before.  In the past I have used the fall as time to get adjusted to going to school again (after the glorious free time of summer!), but Abby and Seth really wanted to do soccer, and Haley didn't want to take a break from dance.  So, we went from basically nothing all summer long to school, soccer and dance.  The first week was REALLY tough, since I hadn't worked out any carpools and the kids were spending so much time in the car and just hanging around at each others' activities.  At the end of the first week I felt like I had made the biggest mistake.  We were WAY too scheduled.  I love schedules, but a couple of my kids really need their "down time" at home.  So, we were having meltdowns galore!  Finally I realized, duh, pray about how it could work.  Now we've got it all worked out and flowing easily (well, as easily as anything will ever be when siblings are involved!) with plenty of time at home for my introverts...and for me to make dinner!  Hip, hip, hooray! (Let me tell you, trying to prep and make as much of dinner as possible at 5:30 in the morning is just kind of crazy!)

Seth's first soccer practice.  He's on the Blue Sharks.

Abby's first soccer practice with her team, the Neon Cheetahs!

Haley started a ballet class and a jazz class and Seth started a tap/hip hop class, which for whatever reason I didn't take any picture of.  

The most recent first for the Wee Webbers is that they did their first race with me.  We did a 5K (3 miles) called Color Me Rad.  Everyone starts off wearing white and as you run you have colored liquid and powder thrown at/on you.  It was one of my favorite things that we've ever done!  It was so much fun.  The kids were ROCKSTARS, completing all three miles without ever fussing!  I'm pretty sure they are all ready and wanting to do another race soon!