Merry Christmas

December 25  -  Merry merry Christmas!

Sarah had invited us to come over ANYTIME WE WILL BE AWAKE EARLY so we went about mid-morning. Sarah didn't have to work and Wade's parents Kathy and Mike were visiting. Caleb, Colin and Owen were excitedly playing.

Kathy's brother Jon with family came around lunch time. Sarah had prepared nibbles/buffet and all was very comfortable and casual. Lots of chatting going on. And playing with the children.

What you can do with a selfie stick!

After Jon, Carolyn, Carolyn's parents, and Cooper had left we just "lounged".

Oh yes, a VIDEO (from two merged clips)!   (1:23)

For the Christmas dinner Sarah had prepared place cards. Caleb "seated" us.

The melt-in-your-mouth Beef Tenderloin is Sarah and Wade'sChristmas tradition. All together a great day with telephone calls and FaceTimes too. We missed our Nashville family but there are already plans to spend time with them in January.

T'was the week before Christmas and ...

I was wondering whether I should just skip this blog and go on but since I do this mainly for myself I really don't want to miss being able to go back to this in ... time.

Tuesday December 19 - well, actually the night before we got the phone call. Two of the children were suspected to have "pink eye". Since it is highly contagious there was no question about going to day care. James had arranged for a hike that morning but cancelled it. He decided there should be two of us. Good thing because we had all three and we had to be there at 6:45 am. Sarah and Wade had left us with their mini van with all the car seats so we could go to a playground. It was cold but the children enjoyed it for a little while.

Caleb enjoyed it when his brothers took a nap and he got all of our attention. We built the tower which was almost as tall as him. He stood proudly next to it.

Grandparents are allowed to use everything available for entertainment (only for a little while).

So cute. Almost time for the parents to come home.

Colin (the older twin by 5 minutes) is running all over already a while. Owen was a very fast crawler but was also pulling himself up on furniture and walking along that way, as long as he could hold on. This week he is taking his first real steps though. In the evening Sarah texted me these three videos (don't watch them, read more):

VIDEO A     VIDEO B     VIDEO C

Oh oh oh, I had wanted to combine the three clips into one as I had done before on uTube but guess what? In September they had discontinued Video Editor. How nice (sarcastic)! After wasting some time surfing the net I found a program so I could do it. 

Wow. If you are not proud of me I will be, ha-ha. Watch this:   VIDEO   (0:31)

This is something I saw on FaceBook and thought it is just so funny. We always have stollen all during Advent and until we run out after that. I think this is funny. German humor?

On Friday it is warm enough again to do a walk in my hiking sandals without socks. Nice!

James gave me an early birthday present.

Sunday December 24 - Since Sarah and Wade didn't seem to make any progress due to their oldest son being very excited about Santa coming soon, we asked whether he wanted to spend some time with us and picked him up.

What to do? Sarah had also given me some pants to fix so Caleb got very inquisitive about my sewing machine. We proceeded to make a card with fabric for his parents. He learned very quickly which button was doing what ... stitch backwards or forwards ... needle up ... needle down. He stitched around the two flowers to sew them onto the background having a really great time. Then he "wrote" to his parents on the other side.

James thought we should bake cookies but it was such a spur of the moment thing that I had no time to make dough in advance but we could quickly buy some. We used the alphabet and spelled the children's names. Caleb made sure that we also had the letters to spell S A N T A .

Before his nap time we brought him home ... with the cookies of course.

Just before getting back to our house James commented that we really needed to have some eggnog. We stopped at our Publix. While James went to the store next door to get the brandy to enhance the eggnog I walked back to the car. I could not resist taking this photo of the car with the reindeer on the roof. Now, that's the spirit.

And ... today is the last day of the Advent calendar. All 24 Chrismons in lace turned over. I will be happy to have a look at it for the next 12 days of Christmas.

Busy Times

I didn't know what else to call this blog. It's not about one major event but lots of happenings. Busy busy busy.

Monday Dec. 11 - Monthly lace meeting day.
Traditionally the December meeting is at my house and so it was this year. We don't make much lace at this meeting and nobody has to bring a sack lunch because I do like to cook. We were not as many as usually and somehow I wasn't quite as prepared as I should have been. Didn't even take a photo. But nevertheless we had fun. These are good friends.

Tuesday Dec. 12 - CR quilters meeting at 10 am.
This time not at the Pavilion but at our house. Show and tell and chat. I showed my Fröbelstern (or Moravian Star) which traditionally is made with paper strips. Before last Christmas I had figured out how to make it with fabric. I did not have enough time to prepare needed fabric strips for everybody so we used paper strips from kits my sister had mailed from Germany (THANK YOU, Ute). Everybody finished one. Details about this HERE!

Janet had brought an ornament she had made for each of us as a gift. THANK YOU, Janet.

Tuesday Dec. 12 - evening meeting of the Country School Quilters in Montpelier. It was the Christmas party with potluck and very nice. There was a challenge. Those who wanted to participate put their names into a hat and we drew the name to whom to mail a fabric postcard before the January meeting. These are the first postcards I have ever made and one is on its way. Details about this HERE! 

Thursday Dec. 14 - We babysat the twins so Sarah and Wade could take Caleb to "Disney on Ice".

In-between everything happening we also decorated the house for Christmas. It's an ongoing project. Every day it looks a little bit more like Christmas. A lot of the things are memories from our travels like this little angel which is less then 2 inches high.

New additions to my nativity collection from Israel ... bought in Nazareth, Magdala and Tabgha. On the very right the nativity from the Azores made with lava rock and glass.

The "Korrende" singers are from my father's hometown in the former East Germany. They are older then our girls.

Shopping we encountered this: Fishless Tuna?
What? (had to share)

And on the weekend from Saturday to Sunday we had Schatzi stay with us. The weather was so lovely and we went for a nice walk on Saturday.

We brought Schatzi back on Sunday. The twins surprise us with their antics every time we see them. And now they are both walking. So cute.

If they could only stay germ-free long enough from the day care.

Not even Winter yet

Every year the Glen Allen High School Choir comes to CR in the lunch hour. Friday Dec 8 was the day this year. I love that little concert. Nice seeing the young people doing so well and it gets us into the holiday spirit. Here just a little sample.
VIDEO 1   (1:15)
VIDEO 2   (2:46)

Yo yo weather. In the afternoon it started snowing ... quite heavenly. James and I were supposed to babysit all three because Wade's company had the Christmas party. But Sarah called and told us not to come. She decided that she was not going. Wade told us next day that the usually about 30 minute drive took him 1 hour and 45 minutes. I hate it when weather changes my plans.

Our lonely geranium (the last one from this summer) is still looking good.

The camelia too has lovely blossoms.

Later that evening!

My Advent star is up and makes me happy when I look at it.

Saturday morning ... news about power outages and traffic crashes is not nice. Sarah had to work Saturday and Sunday but she always reported when she had arrived safely. James and I are not going anywhere. But had looked forward to playing a little with the boys.

Sunday morning ... church time. The roads are dry now. I had driven but James thought parking under these heavily laden branches was not a good idea and moved the car on the church parking lot. He was right. It was so pretty.

Coming home again I took this VIDEO on our street. Several neighbors had tree damage, a shame. My pansies don't seem to mind.

Sarah had called that we should come to dinner. I had cooked stew, mashed potatoes and stuffed peppers and we said we would bring that since Sarah had to work that weekend so they might have some "leftovers" in the fridge or freezer.

James and I arrived shortly after she did. Unfortunately she was not in a good shape for the rest of the evening. She must have caught the 24 hour stomach flue. Not much we could do for her except that it was easier for Wade to run out to get drinks for her and we could play with the children, feed the twins etc. Owen actually took some steps. He still thinks that crawling is much faster. The three were a lot of fun.

Nashville didn't seem to have received any snow. Good for Helen. She is so busy in her resolve to organize herself and their house while Ben has much work with his mother's house. They are making great progress though.