Finally I braced myself and opened the coop door. STENCH smacked me in the nostrils. There were TWO dead chicken carcasses lying in the poopy dirt of the coop floor. One of them was right underneath a heat lamp. Hence the rancid stink. Ugh, I was SO thankful for my rubber gloves because no amount of stick-tweezing would have gotten those bodies out. I grabbed the nearest one by the legs and set it in my bucket. Then I went around to the egg door and reeeeeached waaaay in past the nests and managed to grab a the other dead legs. I poked all of the living chickens out of the coop with a stick so nobody would peck my hand while I removed their midnight snack from under the heat lamp. I accidentally looked straight into the dead chicken and saw an egg yolk just sitting inside it. GAG. We now have four dead chickens in our very full trash can.
Now on to the blog post:
The last day of school before Christmas break was Friday, December 15th this year, so we had a jolly entire week at home all together before the big holiday came. Naturally we made sure to do all of our favorite pre-Christmas traditions, along with plenty of other family friendly activities.
If I had to pick one quintessential Christmas break picture, it would be this one: bedheads, yesterday's clothes, clustered around Daddy. I enjoy all of our long hours of QFT (quality family time) over school holidays, but I also enjoy a significant lightening of the parenting load with Jeff home. It is always a welcome break. After 8.5 years of parenthood, we are finally figuring out how to switch between vacation-mode and workday mode. It's all about sharing the load!
The kids played, played, played, PLAYED together and it made my motherly heart happy. One morning Rose made royalty gear out of Tinker Toys: a crown, ball, and scepter. I love seeing what they dream up with their big imaginations!
Rose and Amber have really bonded over this Christmas break. Amber is becoming such a little talker in her own little way and these sisters play so well together when they are not screeching and fighting. When Amber woke up from her nap today, her first words to me were "where's Rose?"
The standard fort: couch-to-ottoman L-shaped tunnel. Static hair guaranteed.
Way back before Christmas break on December 9th, Rose sang and danced in the elementary school's first grade Christmas Program. She called Grama Leslie and Grampa Dan and invited them to the evening performance, and we all crunched our long legs into the kid-sized bleachers in the gym and watched her do the special much-rehearsed, much-anticipated square dance. Rose felt so special.
The kids' 1st-5th grade school only had first graders perform, with a "special choir" of third graders to back them up. I guess only first grade families actually come to evening musical programs? Jay wasn't too sad to be off the hook!
Post-program smiley Rose in front of a school Christmas tree. When Rose is happy, she is HAPPY from head to toe.
Rose remembered the "elf yourself" craft we've done a few times in past years, and she really wanted to elf herself again this year. So I got out the supplies and we forced Jay to do one too. Jeff said he'd make his own plus Amber's but arts and crafts aren't the kind of thing Jeff looks forward to or remembers to do in his spare time, so that project remains unfinished.
One morning, Rose did everyone's hair in ponytails. We had to beg Jay to keep it in long enough for a family ponytail picture. I love the look on Rose's face here. That is her teasing mischievous grin.
Ponytail portrait. Jeff had the most: six tiny spikes.
Jeff's brother Sam came home for the holidays and spent an entire day at our house, helping us eat our extra eggs and watching old Star Wars movies. It was such a fun, relaxed day. Even Amber warmed up to Sam and was beating him up and climbing all over him in no time.
Gingerbread houses: this year I bought a tub of regular Betty Crocker cream cheese frosting and what do you know? The stuff was like glue. Jay and Jeff built their own graham cracker houses with that while Rose, Amber, and I decorated one together.
Jeff's ginger-graham Chrysler Building! Its only candy adornment was a sugar Santa laying on the rooftop.
While we were shopping earlier that week, Rose helped me pick out a pre-made gingerbread house. It was actually quite large and took a long time to decorate, but I enjoyed the break from architectural design for a year.
We did our best to get the traditional family gingerbread house picture, but I am trying not to be as picky with pictures. I choose my photo-battles more carefully these days and this one worked just fine.
Our kitchen table had six cookie tins, a nativity scene, a poinsettia, and three gingerbread houses on it at all times before Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I let the kids start eating what they wanted off of the houses. Well, Amber was sneaking the candies off all week.
Confession: I really missed our old house during Christmastime. I missed our bannisters especially. We got all of our Christmas decorations and garlands especially for THAT HOUSE, and it was a challenge to adapt our decor to a different, smaller, bannister-less house. It was so strange to get out all of our Christmas things and realize that last year at this time we had no idea that we were even moving! It was like some sort of time capsule, seeing how I packed the decorations and remembering where they all went in our old house. Clearly I am slightly sentimental.
We got our decorations to work and even added a new decoration...
...I picked up this large, diabolical Nutcracker at Goodwill for $3. His arms fall off every time anyone thinks about touching him, and he doesn't have a nose, but his jaw still moves up and down and the memory of cute little 4 year old Jay's love of the Nutcracker inspired me to purchase it.
Now that's a profile! We just need an evil mouse king to go with him now. He guarded our presents well.
On December 23rd, the SUN came out. Resurfaced, after 17 days of incognito, glinting off of the frozen icy canal. I left on my run just before sunrise and it had been so long since I had needed sunglasses or a visor on a run that I didn't even think about bringing either.
At just 2 miles in I knew that the sun meant business. I was running from our house to Grandview via the handy bike path. That's straight east at dawn. My eyes were in agony almost instantly, so I did some fast thinking.
As I was leaving Sunnyside, I grabbed one of the last leaves in sight (no trees along the wide open sage brushy expanse between Grandview and Sunnyside). I folded the leaf and jammed it under my hat brim to create a makeshift visor. It was rather itchy, but also very effective. Bear Grylls would be proud!
Trying not to think about the possibility that a dog had peed on the leaf now wedged on my forehead...
Dazzling ice on the bike path gave way to snow the closer I came to Grandview...
Snow is less slippery than ice.
My natural visor was nearly invisible.
When I arrived in Grandview 9 miles later and turned south, I removed my sweaty leaf-visor and tossed it to the ground. Biodegradable running gear! I walked half a mile into Grandview, then got cold and called Jeff for a ride. It was Saturday morning pancakes at Grampa Dan's house, and I used the opportunity for a long run, meeting the family in Grandview.
That afternoon, after pancakes at the Whites' house, the whole White family gathered at the tiny bowling alley in Sunnyside. For some reason our kids did not want to go! We must all be home bodies. Since this was a pre-scheduled extended family outing, we forced them to go. (it felt wrong--shouldn't bowling be exciting, new, and fun for kids?)
Rose flat out refused to bowl while we were there. So we didn't force her or even sign her up. She just hung out, playing with her cousin Layne between Layne's turns.
Cute chubby Cole. Layne knows how to get him to smile!
We had the entire bowling alley to ourselves.
Leslie, Sam, and Dan
Jasen, Layne, and Grayce.
Jay, Amb, and Tate.
Jeff, me, and... Buddy the Elf on the escalator. Our bowling poses made me think of him.
Amber was an absolute nightmare at the bowling alley: trying to run down the lanes, sneak into where the pins go, hanging like a monkey from the railings, etc. I have no interest in ever taking that child bowling again for at least three years.
Amber was a very enthusiastic little bowler, though. It was just too boring in between her turns.
They only put 4 people on our lane and 7 people on the other lane, so our game was done in nearly half the time of the rest of the family. The kids were restless by the end. I pulled through with the lowest score: 65. The kids did better than me! I didn't have bumpers to help me, but still.
I tried to get a cousins-with-bowling-balls picture before we left but it was not a good time. Layne pouted in the background, I had to beg Tate to join in, and Sam held Grayce in place while she screamed...
Behind the scenes.
Cole was relatively content.
Amber was FULL of emotions. I didn't make her take naps the entire first week of Christmas break because she was having so much fun with her big sibs, but it all fell apart during Saturday afternoon bowling: intense happiness, intense mischief, intense climbing, intense flailing, etc.
Jay came out after bedtime and requested this "Christmas Eve Eve" picture of himself snuggled up in bed.
One more day till Christmas! Our daily advent calendar had one puzzle piece per day. The last puzzle piece is always the baby Jesus, to complete the nativity scene. It gets the kids to anticipate Jesus coming/his birth! I started it back when Jay was 3, and they still love it. We also had kid versions of the Light the World service calendar in each daily advent pouch, along with a different picture of Jesus for each day.
A lot of our traditions are either continued or adapted from mine or Jeff's childhoods, but this is one of our very own family traditions: building. At Christmastime, we get out all of our favorite blocks, bring them to the family room, and build with them together. I think it started when I gave the kids different kinds of blocks for 4 years in a row (I love blocks and think they are the best toys).
The perennial favorite blocks are the cardboard bricks.
Jeff, hanging from Rose-punzel's braid.
Amber always wants a turn.
Jay built a straw creation.
Another of our very own traditions is for Santa-Jeff to visit. We started this one a few years ago when our old ward stopped having Santa at the ward Christmas party, and now it is our preferred Santa-sighting. What kid wants to sit on a stranger's lap? But the kids love when Jeff is goofy!
Santa-Jeff talks in this deep semi-creepy voice and this year it turned into a 3-on-1 boxing match. The kids could not resist punching the pillow Jeff had stuffed into his shirt. I was laughing my head off on the sidelines!
HO HO HO!
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