A very tired boy will sleep through a lot.
He’ll sleep at his Grandma and Grandpa’s house (a magical place filled with loads of kids, toys and pink lemonade) …
He’ll sleep through the tremendous din made by the loads of kids …
He’ll even sleep through a roll right off the couch!
Yes, he was a very tired boy!
May your days be merry and bright!
Rachel – 15, Courtney - 13, Erica – 11, Sarah – 9, Brooke – 7, Claire – 5, Grant – 3, Trent - 1
I had to look back through my photos to jog my memory on our December activities thus far. Here’s a recap of the highlights:
Snow. Or lack thereof.
Little did we know back on November 29th that this lovely dusting of snow would be the most snow that we’d get before Christmas. Although there are still 2 days until Christmas, the forecast is calling for sunny and 40 deg. for both the 24th and 25th. I prefer snow, but I’ll take the sun in lieu of that. ;-)
Birthday Dress-Up Fun.
Here are Erica and Courtney all dressed up for a 50’s-themed birthday party for cousin Kate. They had great fun, as Kate and family had hatched an elaborate mystery for all the party-goers to solve. It was a whodunit, with Kate’s favorite doll, “Mary Linda”, as the missing person.
Advent Gifts.
For the past few years, Mick and I have given the kids a gift for each Sunday in Advent. I try to find pjs for their first gift. I looked and looked for some Christmas-y nightgowns. It’s very hard to find (a) nightgowns and (b) nightgowns that don’t have some goofy cartoon character on them. I was just about ready to give up (rather than spend $40 per nightgown on some decent ones I found online) when I happened into a Meijer and found these lovely red flannel nightgowns for about $7 apiece! They are just what I had in mind.
Happy 70th to Dad
Seriously? I am not old enough to have a 70-year-old dad!! But, that’s what the calendar says. Yes, December 7, 1941 – our Pearl Harbor Day dad. His birthday fell on a Wednesday and the four of us kids who live in Indiana and didn’t have to work spent a lovely afternoon sharing lunch and his favorite Mocha Layer Cake. What do you give a dad who has given so much and means so much to his family? His favorite gift: our time (oh, and a couple of giant Hershey Special Darks). We love him dearly and I challenge anyone to find a more youthful 70-year-old.
Trent.
Trent continues to grow in chubbiness, cuteness and personality. He’s inquisitive, a fast crawler, sensitive and perceptive. And at 13.75 months, still not walking … which is, of course, fine by me. :-) He’ll get there. He’s recently started pushing around his high chair, boxes, carts, etc. and discovered the joys of toilet paper.
He also has started making car sounds whenever he sees a toy car, which makes us all laugh. I remember Grant doing that at an early age. Boys are so funny!
The Christmas tree.
We made our annual trek out to Dull’s Tree Farm and found a very nice tree. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so I didn’t get the usual pictures of the tree-picking/cutting down. It’s such a fantastic place to visit – we’re blessed to live so close. Mick and I have been going there since before the kids were born, when the Dulls were just starting out. The last couple of years, the farm has gotten quite a bit of good publicity (our secret is out!), so we have to get there early to find a decent tree. To keep the tree fresh, we keep it in our cold garage for the first week or so. For some reason, it’s hard to get the decorating momentum back if we don’t decorate the tree the day we bring it home. But after spending many days in our living room, first with no lights, then with just lights, the kids did finally manage to put decorations on it. Grant is most excited about the train that runs under it!
Rachel’s piano recitals.
We are so very proud of Rachel, who finished her first semester of piano lessons under the teaching of Mrs. Jeeyoon Kim. She performed in 2 recitals, the first one on November 20th and the second one on December 10th. For the second recital, she played Clementi’s Opus 47, No. 2, the first movement. When Ms. Kim first assigned the piece, she was doubtful she could learn it. I think her exact words were “I’m supposed to play that?!” :-) But, not only did she learn it in a bit of a time crunch (she played three other songs for the November recital), but she performed very well in a packed recital hall. Great job, Rachel!
Shopping til my fingers drop.
Except for a bit of Black Friday Christmas shopping the old-fashioned way, I continued my recent tradition of online shopping. I did all the rest of my Christmas shopping in one night about 3 weeks into December. Earlier this week, Courtney made some chocolate-covered pretzel rods, which were from a kit she received from Grandma and Grandpa. (I’ll explain how this ties into my Christmas shopping momentarily.) They turned out very cute, and we even wrapped them in the individual wrappers that came with the kit. While Courtney was making the pretzels on Monday, I started receiving some of the gifts I’d ordered online. We had 2 or 3 separate deliveries between about 9:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. At some point, I thought of an idea I’d read several years ago about giving baked goodies to delivery people during the Christmas season, so we decided that might be a good way to use up some the 16 chocolate-covered pretzels. We also decided to attach the scripture verse “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” to each pretzel rod. The girls were pretty excited about this humble attempt at outreach and eagerly looked forward to the next delivery. I had received notice that my items were being shipped separately, so I expected maybe 5 or 6 separate deliveries, plus a few deliveries for what Mick had ordered for me. Around 8:30 that night, someone noticed the UPS truck pull up. We weren’t expecting a delivery at that time of the night, so there was lots of excited screaming, shushing and mad scrambling for one of the pretzels. I don’t know what the girls were more excited about: the nearly half-dozen boxes of Christmas presents that were delivered, or our delivery of the chocolate-covered pretzel to the UPS driver. :-) The funny thing was, that first day we had 3 separate deliveries from 3 separate drivers. In the three following days, we have only had two deliveries -- and it’s been the same driver we gave the first chocolate pretzel to! :-D So, now we have 15 individually-wrapped chocolate pretzel rods. <tee hee>
Things that we have no pictures of, but are noteworthy.
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963 by C.S. Lewis… often result in fender-benders. Or something like that. Actually, today’s fender-bender can’t be blamed on the rain. It was a really strange quirky thing. We were travelling west on 38th Street after I picked Rachel up from her piano lesson at Butler University. There are 2 lanes of traffic that travel west on 38th Street and we were in the right lane with a pack of cars in both lanes. Almost simultaneously, I noticed lots of brake lights in front of me, and a car stopped right in the middle of the left lane with a woman beside it closing the hood which had apparently flown open (it was actually laying against the windshield, so I think it must have been broken). Both lanes of traffic stopped. The left lane stopped because she had stopped. Not sure why the cars in the right lane (aka my lane) stopped. It could’ve been some cars changing lanes at the last minute. It all happened in a split second. One second I was slowing to a stop and taking in the scene in front of me, the next minute I heard a squealing of tires, looked in my mirror and saw a pick-up truck bearing down on the car behind me. The car behind me must have spotted the truck and was trying his best to turn his car, but since we were at a standstill, and the truck was coming up so fast, he could only move it partly out of the way. I remember thinking “he’s going to hit that car” and then “he’s going to hit us.” It was a very helpless feeling. Despite the grim scenario, two things were in our favor: 1) since the car behind me was at a bit of an angle, the truck caught the back corner of his car, so he didn’t get the full force of the impact. 2) since the truck hit that car first, our van didn’t get nearly as bad of a hit. Don’t get me wrong, it was still quite a jolt, and unfortunately, Grant (3) and Claire (5), who were also with us, had no idea what was coming, so it was even more shocking to them.
After I calmed down Grant and Claire (and myself), I got out and talked to the other drivers, neither of whom was hurt. Apparently, the woman whose hood flew up didn’t notice the squealing of tires and crunching of steel behind her, because she casually got back in her car and drove off.
In spite of it all, there really is so much to be thankful for:
Our 12-seater Chevy Express van may not make the cover of Car and Driver magazine, but right now I wouldn’t trade it!
I can’t let the birthday of our little guy slip by without notice! October 27, 2011 was Trent Ethan’s first birthday. He has been such a joyful addition to our family. Trent was the biggest of our babies (8 lbs. even), but was definitely a quick delivery. He has familiar features (definitely a Worley mouth, a round face and blue eyes like Brooke, not a lot of hair like all of them) but “has his own look”, as they say. At different times, I’ve thought he looks like any one of the others. Like Grant, he is a cuddler and enjoys being held (luckily, I enjoy holding him!). Like all the others, he’s friendly to new faces, as long as they keep their distance. :-)
I recruited lots of help for his birthday prep since we were celebrating at lunchtime, rather than dinner. I had forgotten to get wrapping paper, so the only choices were girly pink or Christmasy, Since Courtney couldn’t bring herself to use either of those, she improvised by using the heavy, brown paper the wrapping paper comes rolled on. Then she dressed it up with some manly-colored ribbon. I thought they turned out very nicely.
Trent’s birthday feast was “breakfast for lunch”, including homemade waffles, bacon, strawberries, scrambled eggs, orange juice and coffee cake for a birthday cake. Grandma and Grandpa came up, spreading their usual cheer and raising the excitement level several notches.
As is typical with one-year-olds, Trent wasn’t interested in opening any of the gifts. Thankfully, we had no shortage of volunteers to help with the unwrapping. ;-) Meanwhile, the birthday boy enjoyed watching their antics and entertained us with his tricks: clapping, waving, and nose-wrinkling. 
Two of Grant’s loves are (1) his Grandpa, and (2) trains – in that order. Here he is having an intimate conversation with Grandpa about trains. They probably sat there for about 10 minutes. Grant was oblivious to everything and everyone else in the room. It was so cute!
So, before I post about little Trent’s first birthday, I have to blog about our trip down to beautiful Nashville, Indiana. It was a spectacular Fall day; the temperature was in the low 70s, Mick was on the 2nd day of vacation, spirits were high.
At Mom and Dad’s suggestion, we took a little detour right before we got to Nashville. Bean Blossom is a tiny town which happens to be the location of a log cabin Mom lived in for a short time when she was a girl. The cabin is still there, by the way, operating as a vacation rental. Instead of turning left, which would have taken us past the log cabin, we turned right and drove down a little winding road which eventually took us to a beautiful old covered bridge. Some of the girls were a little nervous to have Mick drive over it, but it handled our giant van just fine.
Shortly after we arrived in downtown Nashville, we found ourselves at the Visitor’s Center, trying to come up with a game plan of the stores to visit. While we were looking at the map, Little Grant was unusually quiet and kept his head down on Mick’s shoulder. He occasionally complained of a “boo boo on his tummy.” I had suspicions, but hoped my “mother’s intuition” was wrong. Moments later, one of the girls spotted some good friends of Mom and Dad’s. They walked right up and started chatting. I tried to keep up with the small talk, but I was worried about Grant, who wasn’t looking any better. Thankfully, the friends only stayed for a few minutes, then went on. I thought it might help Grant if we could find a quiet, shaded area where he could rest. I don’t know the area well, so we started down Main Street and I hoped maybe we could find a small park, or even an uncrowded store with air conditioning. Shortly after we started down the street, one of the girls came up beside me and said “Grant just threw up.” Yes, he did. Right in front of a nice restaurant. In the center of a sidewalk. On Main Street. He’s crying loudly; Mick is standing beside him helplessly; the girls are are starting to scatter. I grab him and bring him over to the edge of the sidewalk, right by some bushes, where he continues to get sick and cry loudly. As I’m trying to soothe him and rub his back, a group of older ladies starts to pass us, and one of them leans over with a smile and says “What a a beautiful family you have!” (Seriously?) “Uh, thank you.” I say while I’m crouched beside Grant, rubbing his back. All the while, he continues getting sick and crying loudly. She continues, seemingly unaware of what’s happening: “I love their skirts!” I’m really not sure what I said to this. Hopefully “thank you.” I wasn’t exactly conversational at that point. And finally: “How many do children? Seven?” I’m sure I responded with “Eight” (Even though it was a crazy moment, I actually did know how many kids we have.) Mercifully, she walked on after that, and I honestly don’t think she ever realized what was happening at the time. It just all seemed so crazy! After the madness was over, we stripped Grant of his clothes, got a plastic bag from one the shops to put them into, wrapped one of the girls’ jackets around him and Mick carried him to the car. Believe it or not, after about a half hour of relaxing in his car seat, he was ready to get back out and take on the world! He spent the rest of the day in a very happy-go-lucky manner, and didn’t have any problem eating. We did purposely steer clear of the scene of the crime for the rest of the afternoon. We had this crazy notion we might be identified and escorted out of town for disturbing the peace or something. :-D
We enjoyed some of our regular favorite shops (e.g., the Toy Chest and the Christmas shop) as well as some new ones. One of the last shops we hit was a beading shop just off the main street. It was a tiny shop loaded with supplies for jewelry making and we let each of the girls pick out a few beads for Courtney (our resident jeweler) to create some jewelry with.
Another thing that happened that I’m sure the girls won’t forget is their up-close brush with a criminal. In the center of downtown Nashville is the county courthouse which has public restrooms. Some of the older girls were waiting in the hall while I helped the younger ones wash hands. Apparently, a police officer walked by with someone and they stopped next to the girls for a moment. When Rachel looked at the person with the officer, she noticed he was wearing handcuffs and shackles on his feet! Let’s hope that’s the only close encounter they have with a criminal!
Most of the shops close up around 5:00 or 6:00, so we left around then and drove from Nashville to Morristown and had dinner at the Kopper Kettle Inn. It is a fabulous restaurant that operates out of an 1860’s-era building which used to serve as grain elevator, then was converted into a tavern before it became a restaurant. Since it was a Tuesday evening, there was only one other family in another part of the dining area, so we enjoyed prompt service and a very relaxing meal. We had the fried chicken dinner, which includes all the usual sides, plus ice cream sundaes for dessert. The following pictures were all taken with Mick’s iPhone, so they’re a little dark, but they’re all we have.
Trent had only taken a very brief nap on the way down to Nashville that morning, then was awake the entire time we were in Nashville, despite the fact that he was being carried in a sling and could’ve easily laid his head down and napped. Some where between Nashville and Morristown, he finally fell asleep. I didn’t think there was any way this light sleeper would stay asleep, but he did! We carried his car seat from the van into the restaurant and set it on the floor beside the table. He actually slept until we were finished eating! I don’t think he’s done that since he was a newborn. It was quite a luxury to eat dinner with both hands! 
There was an old grand piano, in one of the dining areas adjacent to where we were seated. Mick asked our waitress if anyone ever played it and she said lots of people do, customers and staff. So, after dinner, he was able to coax Rachel into sitting down and playing a song. By then, the restaurant was empty, or I doubt she would’ve complied. :-) She played “How Great Thou Art”, which sounded very good, despite the fact that the piano needed tuned. 
