Merry Christmas from Anybody Home!

There is still much that I need to do before I will be ready for Christmas tomorrow, but I thought I'd pop in to post a picture of the gift THGGM and I gave to ourselves.

It's an old beveled mirror. It looks like maybe in its former life it was part of a wall panel. It fits perfectly in our entry way.

The grid of bird pictures that were in this spot for years has now taken up residence on the opposite wall.  They weren't up yet when I took this picture, but from where I am sitting presently I can see them reflected in the mirror.

I moved the small tree I had in the living so the light can be reflected. Of course, since the tree is now in the entry way with the bird pictures, I added little birds to the tree as in years past.

It looks more magical to me done in Sketch Effects!

Oh, and my laptop (actually two of them) have come down with some serious problems.  Without warning the keys will stop working! I'm finding this a bit difficult to deal with because all of my pictures are held hostage between the two computers.  This one started working again after an upgrade, so I'm hoping it might last. Hoping, but just not sure.

I'll be taking pictures all day tomorrow, but if they don't appear on my blog, that could be the reason why.

Brunch for tomorrow is prepped and ready to go!  Just a bit of cleaning up to do.

Merry Christmas!

More Fun On the First Snow Day of Winter

Today was also Uncle Oldest Son's birthday!
He came to spend the day with us too!

This game is Head Bands, and it is just TOO much fun,

The snow day was great for celebrating a birthday too.
There were cookies, donuts, and pizza.
And the watching of A Muppets Christmas Carol well into the evening.

Siblings

It was Hertsje's turn for the trampoline.  Broeder was having none of that.

A Few Pictures of My Littlest Peeps

In case you have been wondering, it's been business as usual around here.  And oh what a BLESSING to be able to play outside again!

Those two kids on the left?  There are times, many times, when they remind me of an old married couple.  They have been together for four years, and know each other very well.

 One of my favorite things about the warmer spring weather, is that I get to see their cute little legs again.

No more chubby baby legs on these kids.

Broeder would like you to know that he now goes potty on the big boy potty.

How did that happen?

Wasn't he just born?

Isn't he the BABY?

Oh, my.

Feintsje is a deep thinker.

He thinks deeply about hockey and baseball.

Those are his favorites.

He wants to be a hockey player who drives a garbage truck.










Hertsje loves her gymnastics class.  She wants to be a princess.  A princess that does gymnastics.  I really like how these pictures came out.  They weren't really great pictures, but I used a new setting at Picmonkey.com, called Silverscreen, and then faded them to about 40%.  That made all the difference.  Of course, my subjects are adorable to me just as they are, but this brought out something, not sure what, that I like.

After School

This is what it looks like around here after school.   There is drawing, homework, reading, and piano playing going on.  It is winterish now, the time of year when I am tired the hour before the sun begins to set.  And pretty much all the time before that too.  I was born to hibernate, of that I am sure.

When They Don't Nap

On Wednesday, while we pretended that Broeder was napping, although we all knew that he wasn't, Feintsje and Hertsje took turns with the kinetic sand and Playdoh.  These two have great fun together. Hertsje buried money in her sand, and then dug them out again.  Feintsje made imprints of whatever he could find, and then served them to me as "pancakes".  Then they traded seats and did all of the amazing things they saw the other one do plus a few ideas of their own.  I think they could have done this all day long.

Broeder is just two, and LOVES to throw things.  This doesn't work out well with sand or Playdoh.  So we only do these things while he is napping, or in this case, when we are pretending he is napping.

What he was really doing was knocking on the bedroom door saying, "Guys!  Guys!  Hey guys!  I'm not in my bed anymore! Guys!"

It also seems he opened up a jar of dried lavender and spread it around.

So much for lavender and it's calming effects as a sleep aid.

After he got up for real, he didn't seem any worse for not having had a nap.

And, at his restaurant in the toy room he makes me whatever meal I want.

As long as I want coffee.

Which works just fine for me.

Because when he doesn't nap, all I want is coffee.

Yay!

Pake relaxes by the pool while the big kids "swim".   Yay!  Overtime is over!

We Ventured Out Today

 It seemed as if I had allowed enough time to recover, so out we went!

 Our first stop was Sutton's Bay.  I love this shop.  Even in the rain.

 Fishtown in Leland was just too rainy.  Everything everywhere was gray.  We didn't eat at The Cove.  I am sad about that.  But fried food was out of the question.

 Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor looked lovely even in the rain!  Some places just do.  And I don't mind rain very much.  It tends to clean things up nicely!

That pretty yellow flower?  It is a popcorn flower.  Apparently, it smells like popcorn.

Our only purchases of the day happened at Cherry Republic.  Maybe someday I will be able to eat them!

Next we drove to Empire and stopped at the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor Center.  This bear startled me.  It wasn't there in July when we last visited.  No.  There was a cougar there then.  I remember things like that.
Our last stop was dinner for our anniversary.  By the time we got there I was running a fever again.  Day six of fevers.  I'm getting a bit tired of this.  But it is our 37th anniversary, so I soldiered on.

St. Nicholas Eve Party and Gift Basket Exchange

 Dinner was White Chicken Chili and everything that goes with that.  For dessert we had Oreo Ice Cream Dessert with candy cane ice cream.

 But between dinner and dessert, there was some SERIOUS cookie decorating going on!

Kado decorated this cookie just for me.

And it was just as delicious as you would imagine it to be!

Look At What We Made Today!

 Feintsje was very pleased with the funny faces that he made today.  Usually he is happy just making pancakes.

 Hertsje made a birthday cake with a lot of candles on it.

Kado continues in his quest to perfect Olaf, but he did make some different things too.

 Using this old table as a bench works out very well.  It will comfortably hold four kids and no one is tipping over backwards in chairs anymore!

 I don't even bother to put away the vacuum anymore...

Those Eyes. Those Blue Blue Eyes!

Today this sweet little face peeked out from around a corner and said, "BOO!"

A Week of Sickness

 Today Jonge and I made Cootie Catchers!  It was fun.  What wasn't fun was that all six of the grandchildren have been sick this week.

 I'm sure they all have had the same bug, just manifesting itself in different ways.

 Poor little Broeder even spent some time at the hospital due to his persistent vomiting.

 Ugh.  It is so not fun to be sick.

 I've finally gotten rid of my cough that lingered on for weeks after I was sick.

 I do not want to catch this bug.  Even though I have had extremely close contact with all six of them, so far I have not caught it.  And I do not want to.  No.  No.  No. And again I say, NO!

Surprise! More Pictures!

 Just a few more pictures from the family Christmas party.  I seriously am related to the nicest people.