It IS a Wonderful Life!!

We just had a wonderful Sunday of very special Christmas tradition.
We went to Mass and then, in the afternoon, the boys and I watched the George C Scott version of "A Christmas Carol". They had never seen that one before. It is so good. Even Paul enjoyed it.
After dinner we watched "It's A Wonderful Life". John had never seen all of it and it was such a nice time together as a family. I think all the boys really got a lot out of it.

It is so nice to relax, break the cycle of business and concern over what needs to be done. What needs to be done is that my guys all need to have the special memories of times like that as they grow up. There are so many messages in both of those stories. I have watched them every year for years! They are a part of what I love about Christmas. Capturing the heart of each story and holding on to them is a part of what I want to take into the coming year.

Some vacation fun!

We love Christmas vacation! It is so nice to be able to do all the fun stuff that we think about on school days.
Today we had tickets to a play in Towson. It was a great musical version of " A Christmas Carol".
It was really well done, I can just see Paul getting into that kind of thing when he is older.

Then we headed into the city to spend the afternoon at the Science Center. The boys just love it there. We found an almost empty parking garage. Big Bonus!

Then we found a Science Center that we had pretty much to ourselves. Awesome!
It was so much fun. I found out that one of the IMAX movies that we had been wanting to see, "Dinosaurs Alive", was showing and went ahead and forked over the money to see it.


We visited the dinosaurs, in the dinosaur exhibit. It is always a great time. The docents are so nice and so interesting. The boys just have so much fun running all over the place. They have full sized skeletons of T-rex, the prehistoric rock star, and many others. Brendan just amazes me with what he knows from studying dinosaurs. He can answer so many questions with information that he has tucked away in that little head!

Then we went and played in the hands on area. They love the leverage machine, and the really cool "mousetrap"-like ball run.Oh, and the "bed of nails".

After that we went and saw the movie! It was SO cool!! I love IMAX. The dinosuars were right in our laps. Paul really WAS in my lap a couple of times!

Traffic was nasty on the way home but it was SO worth it! We need to use our membership a LOT more! Next time we are going to try to stay longer!

....and we're ready!

I am so amazed! We are ready for Christmas and it's still a week away!
I even did Christmas cards, which I NEVER do.

I started with planning to have the bulk of the shopping done before the beginning of Advent.
We actually did most of it on Thanksgiving weekend, in Laura's apartment, from this computer!
Amazon and Kohl's provided a wonderful stress-free evening of wandering the virtual malls.
We even bought the Fridge that night.

I made most of my pumpkin bread that week too. Then as the orders started arriving, I put them into boxes to ship, or wrapped them and put them away. We did spend a Saturday with the boys, each out shopping for the others, mom and dad and grandma and grandpa. That was fun.

I made Stockings for Johnny, Lilly and Lucy.

We did the tree on Saturday and the boys did most of the decorating! They did such a nice job!
I am very proud of them.
Tim and Lilly were quality assurance.

Sunday I went to do a bit of shopping for dinner and found the ham. I think we even have most of the other yummy things for the day! I got the Lil' Smokies!

The boys and I took all the finished boxes to the PO yesterday and sent them off. That was a good feeling!

All I have left are a few incidentals for dinner and the stocking stuffers, which I can't do with the boys along.

School is out until January!! We have some fun stuff planned.
Thursday we are going to a play and then to the Science Center. I am hoping to go to Philly the week between Christmas and New Years to go to the Franklin Institute.
It is just nice to relax and have a break from all of our studies.

Well, this should be an interesting week. The sugarplums are already dancing!

A few Pictures...

Just a short update on what we are up to around here.
We had a lovely snow last week. The boys enjoyed the snowday that I gave them.
They were outside for hours!

Today Nina was here most of the day with Lilly, taking care of Christian. It was a very busy day but Lilly found the time to make a quick fashion statement.
Poor sweet little Christian was not at all himself. I think he must not feel well. He is always such a cheerful little guy...

Yesterday in our Homeschool art group we started Gingerbread houses. Ours was taking so long to dry that I had to bring it home and finish it tonight. We can use it as a decoration for the season.

Sorry little Blog...

Well, I had planned to blog a long and newsy post. But it will have to wait.
Lilly and I had a very thrilling evening last night. We hung out and talked and giggled and had a regular "girls night"!
It ended at 1:45 this morning. I heard Lilly got to sleep in, but I didn't. I was up with the boys and doing school as per Monday. I am bushed, and Lilly, Nina and Christian will all be here at 6:30 in the morning. Nina is going to do a trial run babysitting Chris. I will be on the treadmill at that hour.
So, tomorrow is another day. I'll blog the babies.

A G.E. Christmas

Tim and I got our Christmas present early.
We decided this year that the big item that we really needed to give each other had to be a new fridge.
We got the old one when we moved into the house. It wasn't the most expensive model and it was rather inconvenient, but we could live with that, and did. Well for about the last nine months the old fridge has been making an ominous clunking sound every time it quits running. It was getting kind of scary lying in bed at night and hearing that horrible noise.
So we moved the old fridge into the pantry, where it can clunk away until it dies, which may not be for years!
I decided that I wanted to replace it with a bottom freezer model so that I don't have to get on my hands and knees to look in the back. So we hunted around online and found a GE in black that would fill the bill.
I ordered it online and it was delivered yesterday. It is a little hard to get used to the color, after the white, but I do love it!!
What a blessing to be able to have two fridges, for the time being. It will be so nice to have a place for extra milk and the things that we like to do ahead when we have a large gathering.
Thank You Lord for making it possible!

Is that what they mean......?

Saturday was Brendan's first Reconciliation..
We have been working hard to get ready and he has been studying and preparing.
I told him how it would go and what to expect and he wasn't nervous at all!
He felt very grown up.
The Penance service was really nice and Fr Jay did a wonderful job with the kids.
After the songs and a couple of readings and the Gospel, Father gave a very nice Homily.
Then they walked the kids back to their respective places and Brendan was first in his line.
The priest that he went to is an older priest and a very sweet man.

After he came back from doing his penance, I asked him how it had gone.
He looked at me, rather quizzically and said "He told me to sin no more."
I could tell he was wondering how on earth he was going to manage that!
My literal son.