Trying to take the Christmas card photo

That time of year again, the dreaded Christmas card photo. Here are a few attempts. Did we ever succeed? Watch your mailboxes to find out.

Our Elfyourself

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ODU Christmas Party

ODU had its tree-lighting ceremony and Christmas party tonight. My pictures suck. It was kind of crazy with a choir concert inside, then outside for the lighting, then back in for snacks and Santa. It was freezing outside and boiling inside. I felt like all I did was repeatedly put on and take off coats, gloves and hats, which is hard to do while taking pictures! I think the kids enjoyed the McDonalds stop on the way to campus more than anything else. Neither one cared about Santa--really glad we didn't wait in line at a mall!

Looking at the big Nativity "action figures."

Luke only got close enough to grab the candy cane Santa offered.

Michael just liked climbing on the furniture.

The girls

Driving home from work yesterday, I remembered the box in the crawl space mysteriously marked "GIRLS." When I was in college, I dated a guy who was into collecting Star Wars and other action figures, so I started my own collection. In case my friend Kendra (whose husband is an avid collector) reads this, I had them out on display in my dorm room and they were never mint-in-box, so they are not at all valuable. Many of you may think that's geeky, but my recently-obsessed-with-superheroes three-year-old thinks I am the coolest mom ever. He did not care that all of the action figures are female. In fact, he now claims that Poison Ivy is the "best mean hero" of them all.

Painting trees

I actually let Luke break out the paint yesterday. He made some Christmas trees. He put so much paint on them that some of them are still drying 24 hours later.

Christmas decorations

The inside Christmas decorations have been up for a few days now, although the weather has not cooperated with Matt's schedule for the outside lights yet. We were able to move our huge entertainment center over enough so that we could squeeze the tree in the corner. B.C. (Before Children)--Matt and I started collecting Fontanini nativity figures and we have a quite a collection. It requires bringing up an extra table. I love having it out, especially now that Luke is old enough to play with the figures, but I will also be ready to put it away at the end of December. It always feels like I get a brand new huge house!

Christmas Past

Once again, Poppy pulls through with the scanner. Here is the picture of my Nana wearing reindeer antlers. I think this was at my aunt's house in the mid 90s. What you can't tell from the picture is that she was yelling "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Demille" a la Sunset Blvd. as she was coming down the stairs.

And because my stepdad never scans just one photo, he also sent this one of my mom. Her jammies look an awful lot like Michael's xmas jammies from last year. This must be Christmas '74 or January '75 because my mom says she was a few weeks pregnant with me at the time. Not that you can tell, she was such a skinny mini.

Lukism of the day

Luke was being very quiet at church this morning.

Me: Luke, you're being such a good boy right now. I'm very proud of you.
Luke: I'm proud of you, too, Momma. You're being very quiet. You're a good girl.

Later . . .
Luke: Momma, tell me the story about Jesus and the octopus.
Me: What story is that?
Luke: The one where Jesus uses his octopus to fight the mean guys that wanted to hurt him.

Must be one of those apocryphal stories that didn't quite make it into the canonical Bible.

Michaelism of the day

Michael loves breakfast. Every morning he gets up and starts wandering around the house. Inevitably he ends up in front of the fridge yelling "EGG! EGG! EGG!" until I come and make him one.

Uncle Chris and Auntie Katie

Well, at least we hope she'll be officially "Auntie" Katie very soon! Matt's youngest brother and his longtime girlfriend made the drive from Toronto to experience American Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping. We had a great weekend. It was the first time in a while that they have visited and I haven't been either pregnant or breastfeeding and I probably enjoyed myself a bit too much by staying up too late and drinking too much. Three nights in a row. We're pretty freakin' tired about now and we have dinner plans tonight. What were we thinking?

Chris bought a new electric guitar and had a jam session with the boys who used our Guitar Hero guitars.

We went to Wildlights at the zoo on Saturday night. Luke was very content to stay bundled in the wagon.

Michael, not so much, he wouldn't even hold still long enough for a picture. Here he is running behind us.

How we spent the evenings after the kids were asleep--turning the old Ponesse home videos into drinking games.

Thanksgiving

I have only a few pictures from yesterday. It turns out that cooking a 21lb turkey plus fixings for six adults and four kids followed by chasing after those four kids does not leave a lot of time for photography. But we had fun! This was the third Sperle-Ponesse Thanksgiving and probably our last since they will be moving next summer. Sad, but we are so thankful to have had such wonderful holidays with them. Matt's youngest brother, Chris, and his girlfriend, Katie (yes, that's two Katies in the family) also made it in from Toronto just in time for dinner.

Hey look, I actually got in front of the camera before our guests arrived.

The adult table.

The kids table--used as a shuttle landing strip and for jumping off of, but not for much eating.

A train whistle serenade by Sadie.

Luke and Eli, Thanksgiving 2006.

Luke and Eli, Thanksgiving 2008.

Lukism of the day

Me: Tomorrow we are going to Nolan's to play. The next day will be Thanksgiving.
Luke: The day after Nolanday?
Me: Yes.
Luke: What do we do on Thanksgiving?
Me: We get up and have hot chocolate, watch a parade on tv and make yummy food. Eli is coming over and Uncle Chris is coming to visit.
Luke: I thought Thanksgiving is the day when somebody is GIVING us something.
Me: Well, we do give something. We give thanks, but we don't give presents. We give thanks that we have food to eat and warm beds to sleep in and friends and family to celebrate with.
Luke: Some people don't have beds to sleep in.
Me: That's true.
Luke: Thanksgiving is after Nolanday and then it's the day where we give the hearts.
Me: Hearts? You mean Valentine's Day?
Luke: Yeah, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is the day after Thanksgiving.

I Want a Hippopotomus for Christmas

Today I played this song for Luke. It is one of my favorite Christmas tunes for a couple of reasons. First, hippos were my favorite animals as a kid and I used to have a hippo collection. Second, my Nana, who passed away in 2000, was a Christmas freak--and Christmas will always be synonymous with Nana in my mind. One of the last Christmases we spent together, probably in 1998 or 1999, I can remember her sweeping the floor and singing this song in her super-low-always-mistaken-for-a-man-voice. Somewhere in Colorado are silly Christmas pictures of Nana--including one with reindeer antlers, I think (hint, hint, oh kind stepfather).

For now I'll make do with this family picture of my Nana, my grandfather Bo, my mom and dad c. 1980. Check out my Strawberry Shortcake jammies. This must have been taken with a timer and I think it is quite goofy.

By the way, Luke's reaction to the song was: "Mommy, I think I'd like an alligator for Christmas."

Wild Weekend photos-Part 2

Here are a few more pics from last weekend once the families arrived.

We found a slippery cave.

Luke and Jackson holding hands on a steep hill.

Little monkeys jumping on the bed. This is the one photo I took myself as it happened in our room!

My boys lounging by the fire.

Snot vs. Phlegm

Yet another colorful discussion at our house. I've got two sick kids. Michael is snotty and Luke is phlegmmy. There has been a lot of sneezing, coughing and whining. There has also been a lot of vegetating in front of the tv. Yesterday, they felt well enough for a while to build Wildlights in our living room. Tonight we are supposed to go to the opening of Wildlights at the zoo. Hopefully, they'll be up to it, but just in case, Luke put together his own version with his animals and a string of old Christmas lights. This morning, Luke decided he needed a "Wildlights blanket."

Wild Weekend photos - part 1

Here are some pictures I lifted from Alyssa's blog (thank you!). These are from the morning after the moms' night.

The awesome lodge and its private pond.

By the fireplace--this is pretty much how we spent all of our time. Lounging, talking and eating.

The group.
Back row: Amy, Heather, Ali, Karla, Allanya, Diane, Melissa
Middle Row: Kendra, Sharleen, me, Jennie
Front row: Alyssa and Cheryl

Lukism of the day

Well, yesterday, actually. I posted this on my moms' board and everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I'll post it here, too. There was a dancing broccoli on Sesame Street, so Luke asked for broccoli for lunch. I actually had some very old broccoli and cheese in the freezer. I made it for him and then he said "I just want to look at it and eat it in my imagination." Then he asked for Spiderman mac and cheese. Oh well, it looked pretty freezerburned anyway.

Venom vs. Super Why

Luke was home sick today and we watched far too much tv, which led to a coversation about who was more powerful: Venom or Super Why. Venom seems the more obvious choice and Luke agreed that Venom could be "very mean" and had the power to "hurt people." Unfortunately, he lists these traits with something like admiration in his voice. On the other hand, everyone (well, everyone who watches PBS) knows that Super Why has the power to read and Luke thought that was pretty cool, too. Also, Super Why gets to fly in his own airplane. Take that, Venom!

My other brother

I posted some pictures of my stepbrother Jason a couple of months ago when he got married. They are now expecting--sounds like a successful honeymoon! But I didn't post any pictures of my other stepbrother, Brian. Lots of my mommy friends sent prayers their way when Peyton was diagnosed with a thyroid condition shortly after her birth in June. She's doing great now. Here is the family: Brian and Lesley, 22-month-old Jessa and 5-month-old Peyton.

First Snow!

So it wasn't much of a snow, but there was some that stayed on the ground. I figured it was a good time to try on the snowsuits. When Luke was born, my friend Suzy sent me a box including a pair of 4T snowpants from her boys. I remember laughing and thinking it would be a hundred years before I needed them. Today I put them on him and almost cried--a hundred years sure went by fast! As for Michael . . .have you ever seen A Christmas Story with the little brother who couldn't stand up or put his arms down in his snowsuit?

Lukism of the day

We are now the proud owners of a very used easel. Luke's school was giving it away. It has a chalkboard on one side and Luke spent all day yesterday drawing. Matt was talking about how we were lighting a candle to remember Nanny Kay up in heaven since the anniversary of her death was a couple of days ago. Then Luke went to draw and he told me was "drawing all of the houses of Strawberry Farms. My house. Granddad's house. The Felvus's house. My house. Nanny Kay's house. Ethan's house. Mr. Burchett's house. Miss Elaine's house. My house. God's house. "

Wild Weekend

I had an overnight Moms' Night Out on Friday!! My friend Karla picked me up at 1:30pm and we proceeded to take 4 hours to drive to the Hocking Hills which are really only one hour away. Amazing how errands don't seem like chores when you're with a friend and without kids! Even the unexpected delay of a highway dog rescue, which led us to search out a dog shelter in Lancaster, was more amusing than anything else. We sure hope he find his way home. We finally got to the beautiful cabin just after dark. There were 13 of us. We had a night of eating, talking, eating, gaming, eating, drinking (some more than others--eh, Sharleen?), eating, calling CW in CA, eating, hot tubbing, eating and finally, a little sleeping.

The next day, most of the ladies departed and six of the families arrived for a frigid Saturday evening in the hills. The weather was horrid, but the kids didn't mind the wet wintry hike. Twelve adults, six 3-year-olds and five babies ranging from 4 months to 19 months makes for a crazy combination--did I mention there were only five bedrooms? Lots of laughing, lots of tantrums, lots more eating and not very much sleeping.

Many, many thanks to Alyssa, our fearless organizer, and a couple of anonymous donors in the group who brought the price down enough to make it affordable for everyone.

Pictures to follow--I have to wait for other bloggers in my group to post theirs as I was too lazy to take pictures the first night and too crazed to take pictures the second.

Michaelism of the day

"ipadicle-icle" = popsicle.

I think I see the terrible twos approaching! Today he dumped a bowl of pasta on the dog's head (and the carpet), then when I said no and made an angry face, he just laughed.

Lukism of the day

Luke doesn't want to let go of Halloween. He loves things that are scary. While he was at school on Monday, I found a book about monsters at the library and checked it out for him. He was looking at it on the way home and I heard him say: V-A-M-P-I-R-E-S. Then he sounded out the whole word--not totally correct because he doesn't know about long "i"s and silent "e"s, but I was pretty floored considering how long the word is!!

On a related note--the book is really, really scary despite being in the kids' section at the library. It's probably inappropriate for most kids, but Luke totally loves all of the gruesome pictures. He's been cuddling with these icky Halloween rats I bought him and he has a 3 foot plastic skeleton sitting in his room that he won't let us put back into storage. And yet . . .he's terrified of a pink plant on the PBS show Word World and won't watch the "Chichen Itza Pizza" episode of Backyardigans because it's "too scary." Go figure.

Michaelism of the day . . .

So Michael used his first two-word phrase: mo jus! Which is funny because he doesn't normally like juice, but he swiped Luke's cup, finished Luke's juice and then asked for a refill, but when I tried to give him his own cup, he didn't want it. He has also discovered his first character: he loves to point at a book or tv and shout "NEMO!!"

Ordinary Days

Here's what we've been up to the last few days. . .Michael has discovered the piano. He looks startlingly like his Uncle Greg in this picture. I'll have to hunt down a picture of him and scan it.

I hate ironing and tend to let it pile up, so I ironed all afternoon on Monday. Luke helped. A hand mixer minus the beaters makes a great iron.

We are now gymnastics drop-outs. It was just too much craziness on a work day, so I'm trying to do something semi-educational now with the boys on Tuesday mornings. Yesterday, we talked about frost and ice and animals storing food for the winter. Luke left some crumbs for the squirrels and our chipmunk who lives under the sidewalk.


Then we played in the neighbors' leaves. They have perfect big maple leaves!

A project and a playdate

The nice weather last week combined with the realization that we will probably not have the money for a new deck this year finally inspired us to refinish our deck. The previous owners had painted it with gray latex paint. This time Matt used deck stain--it is still tiny, but it is a great improvement. Luke, Eli and Sadie broke it in today and turned it into a petting zoo for toy animals. Luke and his beloved Yummy Yummy Eli have conflicting preschool schedules, so they don't get to see each other very freqently anymore, but an out-of-town dad and a working dad meant a rare Saturday playdate today. The kids had fun and the moms actually got to sit on the couch and drink coffee for a while!