Christmas 2019

Sadly, my husband lost his job in October of 2019, and for the rest of the calendar year we had to be especially careful and limiting with our spending.  Normally we get Chinese food for dinner on Christmas Eve, after going to the Christmas Eve service at church.  This year we cooked a meal at home with food that had mostly been given to us!  God's people are so kind and so generous.  I am writing this on January 26, 2020, and my husband still does not have a new job.  We are thankful for each bit of direction God gives us, and each opportunity God brings us.  My husband has had quite a lot of interviews, and continues to have several things in the pipeline, so we are hopeful that a new job will come along soon.

Here we are at our ham and mashed potato Christmas Eve dinner!

As is our tradition, after dinner we read the Christmas story from the Bible.  This year my husband and son L did the honors.

Secret Santa was a great success this year!  Little Man drew his sister's name, and he designed this shirt for her that had HER OWN ART WORK in each letter!  Isn't that cool?!  Perfect, since she is an art teacher.

Daughter G had son L's name, and she designed and drew this fake album cover of his favorite band, "Being as an Ocean."  He absolutely loved it!

Since son G was soon to move out, we gave him his own set of dishes and several kitchen utensils.

Son C with a new sweater.

New switch game for Little Man!

I absolutely loved our tree this year.  I sat like this many an evening, just looking at the lights, and thinking and praying.  I love the Christmas season, and the slow times of reflection it can provide.

Fall 2019 - Photo Dump!

 Despite my silence on the blog, we DID do a lot this past fall!  School, of course.  Here Little Man is working on his math.

And reading literature.

Our dog Gucci loves to do school with us!

I am going through "Who is God and can I really know Him?", a worldview curriculum, with Little Man.  We went through it with the older kids when he was a preschooler, and before I pass it on to someone else I wanted to go through it again with him.

Both our boys are in my high school English class at our home school co-op.  I developed a four year cycle of what I would do with my own kids at home, and then offered it as a class at our co-op.  This is our year for "the long and the short of it," two long novels and several short stories.  The novel we spent the entire fall on was the 1600 page book, Les Miserables! Almost every day I could find each of the boys in this type of reading situation.

 Here is my co-op class!

Of course both boys played fall soccer with a homeschool team (fall soccer is when boys play for their school, and spring soccer is when they play either recreational or travel/club soccer).  Early in the season son C was tripped during a game and ended up breaking both bones in his left arm.

Sister G, when we visited her at her apartment one weekend, had to sign his cast!

It was an odd break, and the orthopedic doctor had an MRI done on son C's arm to make sure there was no soft tissue damage.  (there wasn't!)

7 members of our home school team are seniors this year, so we designated one of our game days as "senior day."  We had a special time to honor each one, and to pray over them.

We played a LOT of games that were kindof far away.  Falling asleep on the way home was a common occurrence.

We got to go to the home school National Tournament out of state!  Super fun experience.

Son C (#19) with the ball.

Also this fall we squeezed in two different college visits for our senior.  School #1....

....and school #2.

He would really love to play soccer in college.  We are praying and waiting and trusting that one of these two schools will offer him a spot on their team.

Halloween 2019 - Little Man and his boys small group from church dressed up as the fellowship of the ring!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving weekend, when daughter G was home, we went and bought our Christmas tree!

Son C (second from left) at our co-op Christmas party.

Christmas Day 2017

My mother in law still wanted to host us for Christmas dinner (she is pretty amazing!), so we spent the afternoon and evening at her house.  After dinner we stayed for several hours, playing a strategy board game that takes a long time, so she would not be alone and we could spend more time with her.  It was a quiet afternoon, but fun.  And we were together.  Moms of all ages love it when their children are together. :)

I apologize for the darkness of this picture and the lightness of the next one.  I just switched from a dumb phone to a smart phone, and was learning the camera on my new phone.  But.... grandma with most of her grandchildren!

Christmas morning!

Our tradition of the children piling on our bed to open stockings continues!

New, cool socks.

We gave son C several new fitbit bands for Christmas.  This is the "fancy" rose gold one for church and other special occasions.

New scarves.

Art pens.

2017 ornaments.

Christmas Eve 2017

If you have been a long time reader, these pictures will look familiar.  They are just the 2017 version. :)  We started our family Christmas celebration at the Christmas Eve service at church.  I always love the Christmas Eve service!  We end it every time just with candlelight, while singing Silent Night.  So special.

At home we ate our traditional Chinese food for dinner, and then had our own worship service, with sons G, A, and C helping to read the Christmas story this year from my grandfather's Bible.
     

After prayer, we began opening our gifts to one another.  Daughter H was able to join us for the evening, and we had fun being all together!  She gave my husband this Keurig for Christmas!

Little Man is obsessed with this show.  We watch it with him....it's a little edgy (scary)....but we are all enjoying the very good acting by child actors, and can talk about each episode after we watch.

So happy that two of my boys still want legos!

Son L received these cool water speakers (behind him on the bookcase).  They light up and water spouts up with the beat.  We had fun trying out different songs to see how they would affect the water.

These are daughter G's feet.  She has long wanted Chaco sandals, and this was her year to get them!

We faked son G out with this gift....it was so fun!  He had wanted the battlefront 2 game (Star Wars, for those of you who may not know), but we packed it with a heavy book in a bigger box so that he wouldn't guess what it was by the weight and shape.  He opened it from the bottom and saw the book first, and was kindof confused....it was a book on eschatology!  Haha!  The rest of the evening, while all the gifts continued being opened, he loaded it on the xbox so he could play some before bed.  He LOVES this game.

Daughter G gave hubby and I light sabers, so we could have a light saber battle for date night!

Kyle Ren's tie fighter.

Daughter H got to open her stocking that night as well, since she wouldn't be with us the next morning.

Merry Christmas everyone!