Christmas 2012

This is just going to be a random post of the memorable moments of Christmastime this year.

The Gingerbread House

Each year, the kids love to decorate gingerbread house, and I’ve always just bought the kit which has you assemble the house with the pre-packaged icing and then decorate with the candy that’s included. It’s interesting how they’re making these kits easier and easier in recent years. The last couple of years, the base that’s included (they didn’t used to include a base) even has groves to stick the walls in so it’s less likely to fall over. I noticed last year, you could just buy a kit with the house all ready assembled -  just decorate with candy and you’re done. I was craving a little bit more of a challenge this year so I decided to tackle a homemade one. I was a little uneasy because I’ve heard stories of how difficult and messy they are and how they are these long, drawn-out affairs. But I don’t mind the mess (things get messy when kids help out in the kitchen) and I usually cook from scratch, so the length of time didn’t bother me either. Mainly, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to bake something that would hold together. I imagined the whole thing collapsing in a heap of gingerbread, assorted candy, and royal icing.

But I was pretty sure I’d be able to find a lot of good tips on the Internet, which I did. I ended up using a recipe from the Food Network’s website. They even included a 5-minute video clip of the chef putting together the batter and baking the gingerbread, which helped.

It ended up turning out really well, and with Mick’s help, is even structurally sound. :-) Now that we’ve done it, I think we’ll probably go the homemade route from now on -- as long as we can squeeze in the time! The only problem is, it looks so nice, the kids haven’t wanted to start eating it yet! :-)

For fun, we decided to create a movie of the photos that were taken of the process.

 

The Dollhouse

I don’t know why it took us so many years to buy a dollhouse for the girls, but we finally got one this year. It looked a little intimidating when Mick first took it out of the box, but it came together very well. The instructions were easy to understand and all the pieces were included. I think it took Mick about 2 hours total.

We wrapped the furniture sets also and stacked them beside the house. We have the nursery, the master bedroom, the dining room and the bathroom. Still need to get the kitchen and living room sets to be complete. They have had hours of fun with this so far and have already made some blankets for the beds.:-)

   

<cough, cough, cough>

It can’t all be Norman Rockwell, right? Much of December found at least one of us dealing with a strange virus that caused a mild sore throat, followed by a persistent cough and fever. Grant, Brooke and Rachel had it the worst the weekend before Christmas. In fact, on Christmas Eve and early into the morning on Christmas Day we spent a fair amount of time with Grant, who could not stop coughing, poor guy. I had spent hours on Saturday wrapping gifts. I got down to 7 or 8 gifts to go, but they were big gifts, and I decided to finish up later. Fast forward to Christmas Eve (Monday) and I still hadn’t gotten around to finishing up those gifts. We were going to do that right after we laid the kids down, but that was about the time Grant woke up. Plus, Trent had slept in the car during our caroling and the trip up to church for our Christmas Eve service (probably 1.5 hours total) and he was not at all tired at bedtime! Once we finally got both boys settled back down and in bed (nearly midnight) we sat down to wait a few minutes to make sure Trent was asleep. He still sleeps in our walk-in closet, which is where the dollhouse was, and all the other gifts were in our bathroom, so we didn’t want to risk rousing him back up. But, of course, we ended up falling right to sleep and not waking up until Grant started crying again at about 4:30. We gave him some medicine and Mick laid down on the couch with him in the piano room while I finished up the wrapping. Thankfully, Courtney and Erica were the first ones up at 8:00 (right around the time I was finished getting the gifts, stockings and the breakfast table ready and about to get myself ready). Even though they were excited, they stayed relatively quiet, reading and talking until closer to 9:00, when the others started waking up.

And here it is, December 29, and we’re still dealing with this virus! Now Claire is the one coughing and having an on again/off again fever.

No pictures for this particular topic. I could go take a picture of the thermometer and the Ibuprofen, but that probably wouldn’t be very interesting. ;-)

The “Blizzard” of 2012

After a month of mild temperatures and lots of rain, we were delighted to get several inches of snow 4 days before Christmas! It stayed just cold enough to stay on the ground, so we decided it was a white Christmas, even though a fair amount of it had melted by Christmas Day. By Christmas Eve, the weather people were all forecasting a blizzard for central Indiana to hit Christmas night around 8:00 pm. To be on the safe side, we took pjs with us to Mom and Dad’s, mostly hoping we wouldn’t get stranded there, especially with our band of coughers, but there was that little part of us that thought it would be kind of exciting.  ;-) The forecast changed several times throughout the day, and we kept one eye on the radar, just in case it hit sooner than they were predicting. It ended up not really starting in earnest until the early morning hours of December 26th. We had over 35 mph winds and about 5-6 inches of snow in Lebanon, which for us means humongous drifts!

 

(and we just got another 2-4 inches of fresh, powdery snow last night!  Yay!)

Lots of music

One of the things that I love about Christmastime is the music. Not just listening to those songs that we wait 11 months to hear, but also the performing and caroling. This year, for our Lessons & Carols service at church, we teamed up with the Orr ladies to perform two songs: “While By My Sheep” and “Were You There?”. “While By My Sheep” was, admittedly, ambitious for our young “choir”, but the girls all did very well, and the 4-part harmony blended nicely. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it taped. We are used to Mom and Dad going to the service and helping out with the little ones, but of course they weren’t able to make it because Mom is still recovering from their accident. It didn’t hit me until right before we went up to sing that Mick wouldn’t be able to do it, since he was holding Grant and Trent, so it didn’t get taped. Thankfully, we thought of Glenn and got the camcorder over to him before we sang the second song. “Were You There?” by Natalie Sleeth is a song the Griffin family performed for many years at Christmastime. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of teaching it to our kids; I think I just forgot about it! They all loved the song, and our pastor asked us to perform it again for the Christmas Eve service. I had so much déjà vu while singing that song: seeing the smiling faces of our congregation and singing the words – I remembered so clearly singing it with Mom and Dad and the girls and Chuck all those years.  :-)

Rachel, Courtney and Erica sang “Still, Still, Still” on Christmas Eve – a beautiful Christmas carol. It was a little challenging for Rachel, whose voice was lower than normal due to the cold (she probably would’ve been more comfortable singing bass than tenor.  ;-), but they sounded very good. I haven’t uploaded video of that song yet, but here is a picture of them at Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Eve, getting ready to practice.

Also, for the second year in a row, our congregation sang the “Hallelujah Chorus” on the Sunday before Christmas. The pianist who accompanied last year couldn’t be at the service this year, so Rachel volunteered to learn the accompaniment. After struggling through just the first page (very difficult accompaniment!), while preparing for a piano recital, finishing up schoolwork and doing the regular Sunday playing, Rachel started worrying it would be too difficult. She decided to try to write out just the SATB parts and play it like a hymn. She made some progress with that route, but it was pretty painstaking. So, she talked with one of the other church pianists, who recommended some free software to do that task for her. She ended up getting it written in one evening and it came together pretty well after that. Here’s a little of the work on transcribing it, followed by a little practice.

The Vest

How cute is this vest?! I know, it’s not a very good picture, but the only one of him straight on. He was moving around quite a bit when I took this. Here’s another picture of him, talking to Santa.  ;-)

Mick raised an eyebrow when I first put it on him, but I reasoned that it would be the only time he could wear it: it screams “Christmas” and it’s size 24 months. No way he’ll be able to wear it next year, plus he might protest by then.  ;-)  I thought it was soooo cute!

Trent’s First Official Haircut

On December 22, just in time for all the Christmas Eve and Day pictures, we trekked down to Cookie Cutters in the snow to get the boys’ hair cut. Trent’s was starting to flip up at the ends, plus someone (Claire) did this to him a few days before:

So, it was time.

Rachel was doing her best to prepare him while Grant got his hair cut. 

But, it was still a tricky business …

All trimmed and happy now.  :-)

 

Family

So thankful most of all for our amazing family, from my parents, to the in-laws, to all the nieces and nephews … we know we are blessed beyond measure. Getting together always reminds us of that fact.

     

Snow, Sunsets and Samson …

About a week ago, we finally got our first decent snow, so Courtney took the camera outside one evening to get some pictures.

I love to see snow heaped up on the banks of creeks like this – it looks like whipped cream or royal icing.

 

And like all clear evenings out here, we are privileged to see some spectacular sunsets, made even more pretty by the backdrop of the snow.

And if you’re outside, and the dogs are outside, they’re right there with you. Especially Samson.

 

And apparently, we have an unusually sensitive mutt, who also enjoys the combination of snow and pretty sunsets. Seriously, he looks positively pensive here.  :o)

(On the other hand, Jack can’t sit still long enough to enjoy the sunsets. True to his usual chase-loving nature, he’s heading off down the road to see if he can catch the sunset.)

Children’s Museum

As part of our Advent activities each year, we usually try to make it down to the Children’s Museum for their Jolly Days exhibit. So, Mick took the day off today and we headed downtown. It’s such an amazing museum that it’s hard to take it all in in an afternoon!

We started off in the Dinosphere. It’s been awhile since we went to the Children’s Museum (January, I think) and I’m pretty sure Grant did not remember this exhibit. Obviously, he was a little overwhelmed with the menacing dinosaurs, growling sounds and rumbles of thunder. He was perfectly happy letting Courtney carry him around.

Trent obviously felt the same way.

From there, we headed over to the train exhibit. Once we got past the humongous Reuben Wells steam engine, with its lights and sounds (at that point, Grant and Trent were probably wondering why in the world we came to this scary place.), we walked through the caboose of the big train and sat on the benches, watching the “scenery” go past. ;-)

No, they weren’t standing at attention. They were watching one of the model trains go overhead.

It’s difficult to get them to stand still on the ramps that lead from one floor to the next, but I’m persistent and at least got four of them in this shot. :-)

Next up was the Jolly Time Slide. The girls were seasoned pros, but Grant wouldn’t go down unless he was sitting on Courtney’s lap. Some day, I think he won’t believe he was too nervous to go down that slide by himself. But today, he preferred to ride with big sis.

See Claire and Sarah getting ready to round the turn in the next picture?

Yay! I managed to get a group shot right after they all got off the slide! It only took about 47 shots, but this one is pretty decent. :-)

A special exhibit they have at the Children’s Museum this year is the Hot Wheels exhibit. I don’t know who enjoyed this exhibit more, the little boys or their daddy. :-) Besides actual hot rods, the exhibit also had a number of play race tracks with loops and jumps and a seemingly endless supply of Hot Wheels cars. It was the first time our boys had played with toy race tracks and they were entertained for at least half an hour!

When I look at this picture of Trent on the motorcycle, it makes me wish I had video footage, then you could hear his very cool, authentic-sounding motorcycle noises.

While Mick took the older girls up to the Science Works area, I took Claire, Grant & Trent to a new exhibit called “Mr. Bear’s Playhouse.” There was a lot of space to run around in here. One of the big draws was this very realistic-looking … uh … skid steer? front loader? I’m sure Grant will help me with the name of this when I show him the blog.

,

In another part of Mr. Bear’s Playhouse, there was a sandbox set up filled with sand toys. Oh boy, did they all three have fun with this! It reminded me of how much kids love to play in sand … and that we really need a sandbox … or a beach vacation!

I love to watch kids when they’re seriously into something they’re playing with. You can practically watch the wheels spinning in their heads while they concentrate.

And then for the grand finale, the thing they ask about from the moment we enter the museum … the carousel!

I clearly remember riding this as a girl!

There was also a coin-operated horse near the carousel. I happened to have one (and only one) nickel in my purse, so Claire was able to ride it. Even after the 30-second ride, Claire continued to ride him, pet him, and hug him. I stood nearby, but kept watching the other ones running around. At one point, I looked back at Claire just in time to see a complete stranger walk up and put a nickel in the horse! I thanked her and she just smiled sheepishly and said “she looked like she wanted a ride.” 

Ride ‘em cowgirl!

Trent took a turn, too; although judging by the look on his face, he’s not exactly sure what he’s doing on his turn. (He did end up enjoying it, though. :-) Again: imagine horse sound effects and you’ve pretty much have the idea of the Trent horseback-riding experience.