Grant's Lightning McQueen Birthday Party

Grant was so excited to have a Lightning McQueen birthday party this year!
We invited all of the boys in his Primary class at church
and Grant also decided to invite his siblings.

The boys danced to the songs from Cars, raced, played with cars on a race track and then sat down for some cupcakes with either a Lightning or a Mater ring on top and drank juice boxes.

You've got to love the blue icing on the cupcakes!

Mark read to all of the kids about how Mater saved Christmas before it was time for them to go home. It ended up being a crazy party, but Grant had fun and that was all I wanted so it was okay that the boys had just wanted to play rather than doing many organized games.

All in all, the party was a success! We were so glad to have Grant's friends over to celebrate.

Three Cedars Farm Santa

Not a particularly good picture of any of us, but we can't be too picky since it is the only picture in months which contains all of our family.
This picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus was unexpected. We stumbled upon the chance to get our picture taken together and we took it.
We piled into the car to hand deliver Grant's birthday invitations and just to get out of the house for a moment on Saturday. While delivering the invitations we accidentally missed a street and ended up on an unknown road in the middle of Plymouth, MI. We happened upon a darling farm all decked out for Christmas and had to take a look inside. They had a talking Christmas tree that was enjoyed by all and then a store selling everything Christmas as well as a loft where Santa was seated waiting to have his picture taken with visitors (for a small fee of course). The picture was poor quality, the kids weren't sure what to make of this Santa and Benjamin was in one of his moods, but I was grateful for a picture of our family and the money went to charity. It would have been a perk if it had been better quality and we had dressed up a little, but the kids all got candy canes and the picture works.

I love the Christmas season! We finally managed to put up our Christmas tree last night and I find myself stopping to admire it whenever I can. I have been painting the mouldings in the Christmas room (our living room) and loved watching Luke's amazement as he stared at the lights on the tree today. He grabbed ornaments off of the bottom of the tree, but I put bells and unbreakable ornaments there so I didn't mind too much.

Tonight, Grant dropped our snow globe with the scene of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. It shattered on the kitchen floor and water and glass flew all through the kitchen and family room. The globe was filled with glitter. Have you ever cleaned up wet glitter? It was an adventure, one which I invited all of the kids to join in. We mopped as a family, mostly I cleaned the floor while the kids wiped the glitter around on it. Still, it was nice to be working together.

Benjamin undecorated the small Christmas tree upstairs near the kids bedrooms yesterday during nap time. (I managed to put that little tree up a few days ago to help tide the kids over until we could pull out our real tree.) He broke several of the ornament hangers so they are now perched dangerously on the branches without any security. He ran for his life when I came up to investigate the sounds I was hearing. I wanted to laugh when I saw him taking the corner into his room. That tree is living dangerously being so close to the kids' bedrooms.

Peyton keeps taking all of the Christmas stuffed animals she can find throughout the house to decorate her bedroom. The only problem is that she insists that they all belong to her and she refuses to allow anyone who has had their stuffed animal stolen to retrieve it from her
Christmas display. Her intensity makes me smile.

Jackson insists on wearing a bell around his neck at all times. I can keep track of him that way and I'm not sure he realizes how much it helps me identify what he's doing.
He loves everything Christmas, just like I do. (Okay, I can do without Christmas sweaters, but that is just personal preference.)

Carston keeps fixing the Fisher Price nativity scene because the others kids mess it up when they play with it. He reminds me of myself sometimes! The whole point in buying the Little People nativity is so that the kids can play with it. I guess they'll have to play with it when
Carston is distracted.

We have been drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows almost every day after school. The kids walk home from the bus stop and by the time they get to the front door, their little faces are icy cold. I'm a sucker for their pleading for warmth. I keep thinking hot cocoa is a fun Christmas treat, especially if you stir it with a candy cane, but it might just treat us to sugar overload if we keep it up.

My phone is our stereo of choice since we don't have our stereo set up yet. It is constantly playing Christmas music, but I miss the speakers. The phone can't put out enough sound for a few rooms, only one. If only we could just pull this house together and finish moving in......

It is cold here, but the kids are dying for snow. No snow yet. I admit, I don't wish for it. I adapted to Louisiana weather and miss it something fierce. Michigan keeps me in warm socks and sweatshirts in the house. I love warmth. I am a big fan of the sun. That being said, I do hope for a white Christmas for my little bunch. They are dying to put on their new snow pants and boots to trek out into our forest of a backyard to build a snowman. I think their dad is anxious for snow as well. It reminds him (and me) of home.
Christmas snow is magical.

I need to rush off and work on one of our many projects around the house. I should also fold the laundry piled high in the clean laundry basket.

I am so grateful for this time of year and the reminder it is for me of what is really important.
I really needed the reminder.
It helps me when snow globes shatter, tree ornaments are broken and scattered, tires are flat, washers break, water heaters don't work, furnaces need to be replaced and the munchkins are bickering over to whom the singing stuffed animal dog belongs.

I'm grateful for the gifts in my life. I have so many.
I am truly blessed.

I hope you are enjoying this Christmas season.

Decking the Halls

We decked the halls a little later than usual this year. Before we could put up our Christmas tree, Mark and I had to finish installing the hardwood floor in our living room/dining room. It was quite a project. I still haven't finished painting the crown or the base mouldings, but I was anxious to get the tree up. So, with only a small set of shelves and a rug in the room, we put up our tree as the lone decoration. The kids were anxious to help. Benjamin began offering ornaments before the tree was even put together. Peyton had the important job of watching Luke.

[To make up for the tree's absence over the past week, I put limited decorations around the rest of the house and even set up the little tree, we bought last year in Phoenix, upstairs near the kids bedrooms so they could enjoy Christmas lights as they fall asleep. The little tree is making itself useful as a nightlight and a toy. I keep having to redecorate it because it magically loses all of its ornaments and scatters them across the hallway.]

Jackson was full of Christmas cheer but wasn't particularly interested in the tree until it was ready to be decorated.

Carston helped his dad fit the pieces of the tree together and then I "fluffed" the branches out. Mark and I bought this tree while we were at BYU and weren't allowed to have a real tree in our apartment because it was considered a fire hazard. It is probably safer since I put Austrian candles on our tree every year.

Benjamin recognized he wouldn't be able to help until the tree was ready for ornaments so he retired to the ladder I've been using to paint, but he watched our moves carefully (and believe me I watched him with that ladder).

Grant put himself in charge of all of the Christmas stuffed animals we have acquired. Once the tree was ready, he spread them out on the tree skirt beneath its branches.

I finished up the tree after the kids went to bed. Here it is the next morning. Mark always makes fun of me for moving all of the decorations everyone else puts on the tree. I can't help myself. I want to give them the opportunity to help but then also want it to look right. I'm sure the ornaments will be rearranged several times over the next few weeks and it will be my struggle to let the tree take on a new, more scattered look. I'm trying to let go of these things.
BESIDES, "it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas" around here and I love Christmas!!

Luke is already enjoying the tree.

With that face, he gets away with an awful lot. I am smitten with him.

Merry Christmas!

My Brood decked out in their Sunday best

My boys

My Sweet Six

My Baby

My Girl

Sankt Nikolaus Tag

I love this Austrian tradition that we have adopted as one of our favorite family Christmas traditions. The kids have learned to put their biggest boots out for Sankt Nikolaus to fill on the night of December 5th. I look forward to filling their boots with an orange, chocolate and candies every year. We've added a small toy and a Christmas book to the mix which makes it even more fun but a bit more expensive. I filled the boots this year while Mark worked on our new wooden floor in the Study. I could hardly believe there were so many boots to fill.
Our family has really expanded. It is so great! I can't imagine life without them.

Grant and Benjamin were pleased with their gifts. They pulled out the small toy Lightning McQueens placed in one of their boots and played with them immediately.

Carston got a Christmas movie that he can hardly wait to watch tonight.

Jackson loved his Christmas book and his candy.

Mark and I were exhausted after having worked late into the night on our floor, but Mark found some treats Sankt Nikolaus had picked out just for him. Luke was happy playing with his strawberry banana puffs since he had already had his breakfast.

Peyton quickly gulped down all of her candy before she even ate breakfast. What a healthy way to start off a day! You've heard that candy each day keeps the doctor away, right?

Our House

We moved into our house knowing that the front pillars were rotted out underneath their aluminum covers. After hours were spent (by Mark and his dad) repairing the pillar on the east side of the house where the house is drooping, the center pillar decided it was no longer needed for structural support and began dangling in place. Needless to say, it was necessary to remove it before it fell on an unsuspecting passerby. So, we had to call a contractor to have the porch lifted and new pillars put in. The siding had to come off in order for the contractor to check for rot in the wood of the pediment as well. So, we got to pay for some new siding as well.

We opted for round, fluted pillars and our porch no longer droops. Mark even installed recessed lighting so we could get rid of the big black hanging lantern over the front door.
The lights are so bright, they seem like flood lights.
We have also had some trees removed and branches trimmed
so that we have full use of our backyard.
I'll have to list all of the improvements to the interior of the house later. It makes me bone-tired thinking about it now, especially since we are far from finished and the holidays are nearly upon us. I've spent a portion of almost every day (and night) working on this house. I feel worn out. I'll suffice myself to say that we have new carpet upstairs and in the family room and I have painted the family room, the living room, the study and most of the upstairs bedrooms, walls and ceilings. (Some of the rooms have required removing wallpaper etc. What a pain!) Mark has replaced all of the electrical outlets and switches and patched walls and fixed a lot of random things that needed fixing in this house. We found hard wood under the carpet on our stairs, so I stained it and painted. We also had a carpet runner put down the middle. We are putting in hardwood floors in the study and living/dining rooms and have boxes full of wood planks filling our entryway as we speak. The house is in total disarray with furniture placed in the garage, blocking the front door and filling the entry etc.
I feel as flustered as the house looks.

On the outside of the house I would love to figure out how to remove the shutters without breaking them so that I can paint them black. I am also planning on painting the front door. I might have to wait until the spring. It has been hard to have so much work to do on the house, but it is starting to pay off. First of all, it doesn't smell like smoke around here anymore.
I am also really pleased by the colors in the rooms I have painted.
I am discovering how much I like color! Things will come together eventually.
I hope we'll fully move in at some point as well.

Interior before and after pictures later.

Calder's Dairy Farm

This past summer while hunting for houses in Dearborn, we found a metal cooler on the porch of a house we looked at that had the logo for Calder's Dairy Farm. We were excited to try Calder's ice cream because our inquiries resulted in praises of that cold and creamy dessert. We waited until today, one of the coldest days we've experienced in the last five years, when Mark was home and we were so tired of home improvement projects that we could allow ourselves a break.

So, we packed into the car with blankets over our laps and headed out over bumpy dirt roads and tiny paved roads, past many other picturesque farms not too far from where we live toward Calder's Dairy Farm.

Once we had arrived and opened the doors to let all of the little Calders out of the car, a goat climbed right in to greet us. He honestly tried to get his back legs up and in as well. When his investigation of the interior of our car turned up nothing worth eating, he stood dumbfounded for a moment before Grant put a stop to it and gently pulled him out of the car. The goat recognized a kindred spirit, stubborn and willful, in Grant and they played together until the goat realized he might never receive any sustenance and thought better of hanging around any longer.

We found an old milk truck made just for us and the kids climbed in for a moment but the cold soon drove us inside for.....ice cream?!

The kids each chose their flavors and then sat at antique school desks to enjoy their treat. We were only 100 yards away from where the very cows who provided this delicacy were being milked in their stalls in the barn.

I think they all liked the ice cream, but sadly, Mark and I aren't big fans. I thought each flavor tasted of eggnog and artificial additives. That was a blow. I was hoping for a new favorite haunt. We'll keep looking. One thing is for certain, no other place could have such a great name.

The farmhouse was charming and the yard vast and well laid out.

This black cat greeted and enchanted us with its mysterious eyes. It fit perfectly into this setting with its' wooden picket fences marking off the farmhouse yard and the lake near the house. We took muddy paths to view the animals as well. I had to wash off all of our shoes once we returned home.

Not sure who chose to put the cow statue here, but apparently you should keep off of it.
All in all, we really enjoyed the trip to the convenient country (only 5 or 6 miles off of the main roads). I would have preferred warmer weather conditions so we could have explored without running for cover whenever the wind picked up and it would have been nice to have fallen in love with the ice cream. I guess I should put my order in now to find a place that serves delicious Italian Gelato somewhere in the Detroit area. Hope springs eternal.

We haven't had any outings lately because of Mark's work schedule and all of the work we're doing on our house, so this was a much needed and enjoyed excursion!