three boxes, three continents

A couple of days before Christmas, we got the tracking email telling us where our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes had gone.  We put together three boxes, and they went to three different continents!  We had one box travel to Kenya, one to Southwest Asia, and one to the Dominican Republic.

Of course, this meant that Kiddo and I had to get the globe out.

(looking for home)

The same day, we got our first letter from the little boy we are sponsoring through Compassion.  He is such a cutie!  I would love to post pictures, but have decided not to for now, to protect his privacy.  So you will just have to trust me on the cutie part.  We are looking forward to building a relationship with him and his family as we send letters back and forth.  Speaking of which, we should probably be writing another letter soon...maybe sometime this week when Kiddo needs a break from playing with his Christmas presents.

snowed in

Despite an open schedule, the past week has been a flurry of activity, just like in most other households, I'm sure.

I've taken over 500 pictures in the past week.  I don't even know where to start.  But we are sort-of-kind-of snowed in today (we could get out if we really wanted to, but with a wind chill in the single digits, we don't really want to), so maybe I can make a little headway.

(this morning's view across the street)

We had a wonderful, but in some ways bittersweet, Christmas (details to come later, I think).  All three of us are off of work and/or school until after the new year, so we are looking forward to spending the week together.

Hope you all had a joyful and blessed Christmas and made some meaningful memories!

yum {peppermint bark}

Last year, I discovered Beth's recipe for peppermint bark.  We tried making a batch and were instantly hooked.  This stuff is addictive.  Seriously.

This Christmas we decided to share the yummy goodness, so I made several batches yesterday and packaged it up to give away to the mail carrier, teachers at school and at church, the trash collectors, neighbors. 

The recipe is so easy.  Head on over to Beth's blog and try it out for yourself.  The hardest part is finding peppermint extract, not just mint extract (although we've made it with mint extract and it came out fine).  And if you go to the grocery store during the holiday season and there is no baking chocolate to be had, the regular white chips work just fine - just make sure you've got 32 oz.

Note:  If you are clueless about melting chocolate like I was, DON'T let any water drops get into your chocolate while you are melting it.  This includes the peppermint extract, which you should not add until after the chocolate is all melted and smooth.  If you get water in your chocolate, the chocolate will seize and you will cry over the unsalvageable lump in your pot.  Other than that, you are good to go.  We do tweak the recipe a little bit - we substitute 1/2 lb of dark chocolate for 1/2 lb of the white.  We melt that first and freeze it, then continue with the recipe as usual and spread it on top of the dark chocolate layer.  Mmmm-mmm good!

celebrating advent

I've been thinking a lot about the traditions and memories I want to incorporate into our family's holiday season.  For us, a lot of those traditions have developed over the Advent season.

Every day, as soon as Kiddo gets up, he rips a link off of his paper chain to count down the days until Christmas morning.

After his paper chain, he heads out to the living room where he adds the next piece to our advent calendar.

The last of the shepherds went up today.  He's getting excited - he's only got the three kings, Joseph, Mary and Jesus left!

And then, after the Advent calendar, Kiddo heads to our Jesse Tree.  This has been my favorite part of Advent this year.

While I enjoy some of the "fluff" that comes with Christmas - the music, the decorations, the lights, etc., Hubby and I wanted our family to be able to enjoy those things while still focusing on the things that really matter - family, friends, and the Christ whose birthday we celebrate.  To focus on family and friends, we have done a few things to make our Christmas simpler and less stressful.  And to focus on Jesus and his birth, we've introduced the Jesse Tree.

I knew nothing about the Jesse Tree tradition a few years ago.  Once I heard about it, I got excited about making it a part of our Christmas every year.  For those (like me) not familiar with the Jesse Tree, the name comes from Isaiah 11, where Isaiah prophesies the coming of the Messiah and describes him as "a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse."  An ornament is added to the tree each day of Advent, and each ornament has a symbol representing one part of the story of Christ's coming - from Creation to Christmas.  Many of them also refer to the individuals in Jesus' lineage.  I love that it is teaching my son to see the big picture - to see that, from the creation of the world to Christ's birth and beyond, God has been working in the world and loving his people.

I found a silhouette of a bare tree on the web and used it to paint our tree on a large piece of butcher paper.  I cut it out and stuck it to our dining room wall with scotch tape.  I couldn't find a set of pre-made ornaments to buy, so I am making our ornaments (out of paper, mostly).  I am spending way too much time on them (Hello, my name is Kirsten, and I am a perfectionist), but I am having a lot of fun with them. 

 (Noah)

 

(Ruth - this is the one that I thought the cat had eaten.  I think it has been the most time-consuming one.)

 (Jesse and David)

Kiddo has had a great time with it - he has been studying a lot of the same stories at school, and it is fun to see him connect the dots and really absorb the stories and how they fit together.  

I'm still working on the ornaments.  Kiddo comes out each morning eager to see if I finished making the ornament for that day (tomorrow he's going to be disappointed - I've been blogging and writing Christmas cards and putting together some gifts instead of making an ornament.  Hopefully there will be time after church...). 

I feel like it has taken us a few years to figure out what traditions work for our family and are important to us - but maybe that is the nature of things.  And I'm sure they will get tweaked as the years go by and Kiddo gets older.

So now it's your turn - what are some of your family's Advent traditions?


P.S.  Details on the ornaments:

I've found a couple of websites with printable ornaments that I have used as templates for most of the ornaments.  A few others are simply stickers, and some I have had to draw myself.  Each website seems to have a different set of ornaments and symbols, so I have cobbled them together and picked out the ones I thought were most important.  Here are some of the sites I've used:

https://www.rca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=1625

http://www.eriercd.org/jessetree.htm

http://www.crivoice.org/jesse.html

hide-and-seek with a 6-year-old

If I can't see Mommy...

 

...she can't see me.

And she won't be able to find me.  Even if I'm giggling to myself the whole time.

heavenly

Today I have an afternoon to myself.  I am crafting.  On the floor of the living room.  Surrounded by twinkle lights and listening to Christmas music.  And making a big mess.  It feels wonderful.

Cinder (one of our cats) is feeling particularly affectionate and is trying to get in the middle of everything.  He thinks the best place to be is right on top of the paper I'm trying to work with.  Or making a pass in front of me and running his tail right under my nose.  Achoo.

Also, I owe the cats an apology.  I falsely accused them of eating my ornament, only to find it, safe and sound, 24 hours later.  It was stuck in between two pieces of paper.  Maybe if I cleaned up my mess, I wouldn't have had to panic in the first place.  Sorry, kitties.

clang boom crash

An excerpt from Kiddo's writing assignment last week at school:

"I was going to bed on chismas eve when I heard a big CLANG BOOM CRASH the radeators poped!"

I guess we've got radiators on the brain.