Advent Adventures

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St. Nicholas' feast day means it's time to break out the Santa hats & add our newly received Christmas ornaments to the Jesse Tree. 

 We had a rather crafty urge this season & made a lot of gifts.  Teresa had a wild spark of imagination & decided she needed to make Rebecca an umbrella!  Plastic plate, nozzle from a long-reach watering can, long lost material from the fabric bag, & random scraps of leftover fleece... VOILA!  Didn't last too long but adorable nonetheless.

 Andrew with one of the blankets he made for his cousin.

Teresa with a blanket the girls made for their cousin.  We tried "braiding" instead of tying the ends this time... lot more cutting but more stable.  I think it looks cute, too!  (And, yes, that is a necessary set of quotation marks, Staci, since it just looks like a braid but really wasn't.  ;)  )

 

I remarked one morning to the little girls that it was snowing outside as I was walking back to my room.  When I returned just a minute later, I found Sarah had dressed herself up like this & Teresa singing, "Let it snow!  Let it snow!  Can't hold it back anymore...."

 Our annual parish pancake feed with a visit from the Clauses was a hit as usual.  Their requests?  Teresa asked for a Snap & Style doll, Rebecca a sewing kit, & Andrew a baby brother!  Sarah just wanted another cup of chocolate milk to dribble all the way down her dress.

Pancakes with the Clauses

Several years ago, Santa & Mrs. Claus started visiting our parish for a post-Sunday morning Mass pancake feed.  It's so fun!  Yummy food, great friends, & free photo ops from Santa who intentionally reminds us Christmas is so special because of baby Jesus.  :)

 Playing duck, duck, goose... cocoa, cocoa, marshmallow... & chicken noodle, chicken noodle, soup! with friends while we wait. 

Sarah was intrigued to say the least!  She currently has a fascination with Darren's facial hair... even when it's just barely there... I'm sure she was REALLY wanting to get ahold of Santa's!

Santa baby

Christmas Day

Christmas morning came early! We were amazingly able to wrangle our kids downstairs for a quick breakfast & back upstairs for Church clothes before we joined the cousins around the tree.

It looked like the North Pole exploded under the tree! Here's Rebecca with a new hair brush for her doll from her stocking.

Teresa wasn't really interested in more gifts... just chocolate.

You can never have enough NERF!

New clothes for her new dolly

The dress fit great but the shoes... well she obviously doesn't get her feet from our side of the family! Grandma decided to stuff them with tissue paper to help her out.

I love little Peter. I could just snuggle those blonde curls all day long!

More new dolly duds

That's how I felt, too, Nicholas.

After Santa presents & packing most of the van, we headed off to morning Mass. The Church looked even more beautiful than usual.

Afterwards we went up to visit baby Jesus in the manger.

A quick brunch & we were on the road again. Thanks for a great time Red Family! Off to Green we go... (That's rather Christmassy, don't you think?)

Pancakes with Santa

After our Knights of Columbus pancake feed on Sunday, we were able to meet Mr. & Mrs. Claus for a little visit. :) Teresa LOVED it & kept running back to his lap after our turn was over! Each child then received a baby Jesus holy card & candy cane. So cute!