Our neighbor gave Charlie a bed that she had bought for her dog, but turned out to be too small. Charlie loves it and snuggles in it every single night. He used to spend his winter nights in a basket that we lined with blankets in the upstairs of our garage, but he has gotten so chubby, he no longer fits in it. He really packs on the pounds each winter, and eats nonstop. I know what we feed him, and at least what one other neighbor feeds him, and I have to wonder if any other neighbors I haven't met feed him as well. My brother is currently working on a tracking device for Charlie, but it is not working in the cold, so it's back to the drawing board for it. I am looking forward to seeing exactly where Charlie goes.
We celebrated St. Nick's day at the beginning of the month, and the girls left their letters for santa in their shoes and woke up to find some oranges, chocolate and a Lego advent calendar. A few days later, Violet panicked and realized she forgot to mention a key item on her wish list, and so I hand delivered a letter from Violet to the special Santa Express Mailbox in our town. We just made the deadline!
Homeschool in December is always a tricky thing, and every year I contemplate just taking the entire month off. But I never do as the alternative is more school in the summer and who wants that? We read a book about a girl Eagle Hunter in Mongolia and watched the movie, and I swear it was the most amazing learning we experienced as a family so far this entire school year. I had some laughs when I was checking one of my kid's writing homework this past month - and in case you can't read it in the photo below, here were the creative writing prompts and their answers:
Book: If I saw a dinosaur peeking around the corner, I'd say...
Daughter: Dad, are you in that costume?
Book: Type of Food
Daughter: Green Beans
Book: What did it look like?
Daughter: It looked like jelly beans in a pod
Book: How did you feel before you tasted it?
Daughter: I did not want it.
Book: Why did you taste it?
Daughter: Because if I didn't I would get constipaede (constipated)
Book: How did it taste?
Daughter: Like beans in leather
Book: How did you feel about the food after you tasted it?
Daughter: I felt like I had to go poop
Book: What did you say?
Daughter: (in squeaky voice) "thank you for dinner"
I can imagine that reading homework like this is one of the highlights of being a teacher of a roomful of kids.
We did lots of cooking this past month, and also some clean up and repairs. In clockwise order from top left below: making apple crisp, a dessert Lucy invented, Emma flipping pancakes, a scary face that greeted me when I came in the kitchen to see if my squash was done roasting, Will repairing our old, but still fixable washer (thanks to YouTube), me trying not to cry because two days worth of breakfast in a 9x13 glass dish fell out of my freezer and shattered everywhere (I wasn't as sad about the mess as the fact that Liz of the past had gone through the trouble of making two mornings worth of breakfast for a busy Liz of the future and now it was all for nothing), and finally, one of my favorite parts of winter, homemade soup and in this case, chicken noodle with fresh parsley.
We celebrated the winter solstice, and the fact that the days would be getting lighter from here on out with a bonfire in the backyard. The kids insisted on s'mores, and I realized that s'mores with all of the winter accessories of scarves, gloves, hats, coats, etc. is a lot more work than s'mores in the summer. Needless to say, there was a lot of laundry after our bonfire, and despite the kids begging, I have not been convinced to do another bonfire with s'mores since.
Our adventures away from home were limited this past month due to COVID. Our town did have a walking storybook of the Polar Express which we enjoyed doing, with a map and each destination having a page of the book posted in their window and a little treat for the kids. We also took an emergency trip to the eye doctor for Lucy, as she started having vision problems and the eye doctor wanted to see her right away. Due to COVID, we have no sitter, and the eye doctor is about forty minutes from our house, right by Will's work, so I loaded up all the kids and met Will at the optometrist on his lunch break. He took Lucy in, while I did school with the kids in the car. Let's just say that two hours later, I was ready to sign up for a silent retreat at the closest monastery. And, the snacks that I had Lucy pack as we hastily loaded up the car were no where to be found, so I had no bribery for Opal to get through those two hours at lunch time. Even I was pretty hungry by the time Lucy emerged from the appointment. Imagine our disbelief when Lucy told us that she had in fact packed the snacks and pulled them out of a random bag we didn't see the last two hours we were sitting there. At least the ride home had food! In clockwise order below: the kids and Will pausing for a photo on our Polar Express story walk, Violet doing school in the front seat while waiting for Lucy's appointment, Emma and Opal taking a turn in the front seat as we wait, and finally, Violet, giving me a neck massage with a vibrating baby toy she found under one of the seats. Fun times. The good news though, was that Lucy's eye sight is fine and is fixable with a new prescription and some more vision therapy.
We did lots of Christmas crafts this past month....
And made some fun Christmas gifts. I sewed Opal and my god daughter aprons and play pies. Lucy helped me sew the felt fruit to go in the pies. Lucy and I made fire starters with dryer lint, empty toilet paper tubes and beautiful illustrations from a damaged book. I think they turned out quite lovely, considering it was making something from what would have otherwise been garbage.
We made beaded ornaments for Luke's grave blanket...
And made sock snowman kits for our friends and cousins, and dropped them off on their porches. Lucy made a YouTube video of how to make the snowman, and it was the closest thing we had of interacting with our friends and cousins during a pandemic when it is too cold to visit outside. Little did we know that our friends had made us sock gnomes for our Christmas presents!
We celebrated Christmas outdoors with our families. It was cooooollld. But memories were made for sure. Here we are below, celebrating a few days before Christmas with my family in my parents open garage.
My brother finally recovered from a rough bout of COVID this past month, and came to my house to drop off all of the dishes we had given him while he was sick. I'll be completely honest and he knows this too, but since he couldn't taste anything, I unloaded freezer burned items from my deep freezer on him. Don't worry, we made him plenty of other things including several varieties of homemade cookies when he regained his taste but was still sick. We had to laugh when he dropped off the dishes as he almost hit his head on our porch light. Will went to stand under the porch light for a height comparison. Will jokes that he always thought he was tall until he met my family. I also had an unexpected full time job for about a week, trying to get my sister and her partner's Christmas presents to them in time for Christmas in the UK without having to remortgage our house or be listed as a terrorist. We finally found a way to do it, only to then be red-flagged because one of the gifts was a meat cleaver. Once the meat cleaver was wrapped to their specifications, the next red flag was the neck heating pack filled with cherry pits that I had made for my sister. In fact, the cherry pits were a bigger problem than the weapon-like kitchen tool! Who would have thought! Once we moved past the cherry pits and they were satisfied that we wouldn't be importing illegal fruit, they moved on to the milkweed pod ornament the kids had made for them - worried that we would be importing some kind of hazardous mildew. FedEx demanded that we hand the package to the pickup driver (to make sure we were legit I guess?) and I took a photo of the the truck carrying away the package. With all of the delays in shipping due to COVID, I didn't hold my breath on the two day shipping guarantee that they gave us. Imagine my surprise, relief and joy when my sister text me that they received the package two days later! Wonder of wonders!! Finally, in the bottom, left hand photo below, we took a walk with my parents in an effort to stay warm during our outdoor Christmas party with them. Would you believe it started sleeting on our walk and so we returned home wet, and colder than when we had started. But memories were made, and it sure beat risking COVID or not seeing them at all.
Several days later, we were finally warmed back up and we celebrated a garage Christmas Eve with Will's family. The day was colder than it had been with my parents, but at least there was no sleet this time. Will's brother and his partner were up from Cincinnati, and they brought their dog Steve too. It was a great afternoon and again, memories were made for sure. Here's to hoping Christmas 2021 will be safe to spend indoors! But, with all the Christmas's we've had and hope to be blessed with in our life, I guarantee we will never forget Christmas of 2020.
Here we are below with Will's family. Later that week my brother, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews dropped off on our porch a homemade cookie decorating kit for my kid's Christmas present, which I thought was a great way to give the kids a fun experience without cluttering up my house. The cookies were delicious! Despite COVID, there are still ways to show your family that you love them and I love the creativity that our friends and family used to show their love for us in this season.
My brother and sister-in-law who live in Florida, who we have not seen now in over a year due to the pandemic, shipped some awesome snow toys to our kids for Christmas. Snowball makers, inflatable sleds and a super cool beginner's snowboard were amazing gifts to get through COVID winter - especially since sleds became as valuable as toilet paper in the weeks after Christmas, and were priced to reflect their demand as well. Just like backyard pools and sidewalk chalk in summer, I wish I had anticipated the sled shortage as I could have had a nice little side business going. Or at least bought stock in it!
We came home from our outdoor celebrations with Will's family and launched into our Christmas eve traditions. It didn't feel quite like usual, without going to Christmas Eve mass, however we made the best of it and I did enjoy the non-rushed and comfortableness of staying in flannel pajamas, cuddling on the couch with Christmas books with the girls, and leaving out milk and cookies for Santa. The girls, Will and I also put out our gifts for each other, and it was amazing how they filled up the space under the tree before Santa even got a chance to come.
Christmas morning was a relaxed affair, since we had no place to go later that day. The only other times we have spent Christmas day at home was with sick kids, so it was nice to all be healthy and to just bask in the relaxation of the day.
Relaxation with a mix of chaos, but it was all happy chaos.
The kids got what they had hoped for with some great surprises thrown in there too.
Emma was having a hard time coming up with what to get her family for Christmas this year, so Emma and I came up with a gift together - "real" blue light blocking glasses to replace our current orange safety glasses that I require the kids to wear when they are on technology.
The glasses were a hit, and Emma and I felt accomplished.
Lucy got the entire season of I Love Lucy and half of the Harry Potter books, Emma got the other half of the Harry Potter series as well as a Hermione Granger outfit for her American Girl doll, Violet got a make-up and hair-styling doll head and a doll that pees complete with it's own little potty, and Opal got her wish, chocolate, along with her own American Girl doll from her sisters (refurbished from eBay so they could afford it).
We have so many Legos, but there is nothing to compare to the silence and peace that comes from our kids building their new Lego sets. Ahhhhhhh. During the peace of the kids playing with their new toys, Opal discovered that Violet's new baby doll had actually "pooped" in her doll potty. Will had taken some of Opal's new PlayDoh and formed a life-like turd and placed it under the doll while the four girls were happily distracted. The best part was that Opal was the one who discovered it and in her adorable two year old voice, described to Violet what she had found. "Violet! Look! Your baby has a turd!"
Violet had procured earrings for their American Girl dolls for presents this year. We found some on Facebook Marketplace, and another friend gifted some to Violet from her daughters who had outgrown dolls. Violet was so proud to give this gift to her sisters, and so a few days after Christmas, we watched some YouTube videos and Will commenced to pierce all four dolls ears with his power drill and a 5/16th bit. I bet Will never anticipated piercing dolls ears as a skill set he would one day have.
Some days were milder than others for our outdoor excursions, but no matter the weather, we were always glad we had ventured out. For surviving life during a pandemic with four kids - getting outside despite the weather is our biggest lifeline.
On Christmas Eve the girls put on a recital for family and friends on YouTube. All of our practicing and best laid plans could not prepare us for going live, and having a toddler in the equation. Near the end of the performance, Will ended up tossing Opal into the kitchen as she kept talking and knocking into the recording laptop. This hurt her feelings, and she loudly cried broken-hearted sobs as I took her into the basement to console her and get the sound away from the performers. We had hoped that Opal could do some dancing while the girls played the piano, but she refused to wear any pants and instead wrapped a play silk around her legs which she then repeatedly tripped on. I think our friends and family enjoyed the piano playing and poetry reading, but I have to say that I felt underwhelmed and disappointed that it had ended with a sad Opal and a frustrated Will. I guess this is real life, and my hat is off to the girls piano and dance teachers who pull off performances so seamlessly. It is not for the faint of heart!
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