12+ in 2014

Miss Dwija is hosting a link-up that looks fun and a little challenging. Twelve pictures for the whole year. Ok… here goes.

Soup? Seriously… I'm going to start this look back at the year 2014 with soup. Why, you ask? Because when I see this picture, it reminds me of so many things. My husband got laid off at the beginning of January 2014 and while he wasn't unemployed for very long, it was still a scary time filled with uncertainty and worry for us. I made this soup for him when he was locked in our room one day typing his fingers to the bone trying to find another job fast. I wish I could have done more to take the burden off his shoulders but I figured my job was to nourish him and keep him feeling strong when those moments of stress hit. So many times that month we thought that 2014 was shaping up to be a year we'd want to forget. 

This picture also reminds me of the heartache of knowing that my brother was suffering even more than we were having to watch his wife spend her last days on earth and there wasn't any way to make it better for him. For us, having to find a new job turned out to be a blessing in disguise as my husband is very happy where he is now but my brother is still dealing with the emotional fallout of the devastating loss of his beautiful bride. Please offer a prayer for him if you can.  Thank you. 

February… one of my favorite things about February is seeing the silly Valentines cards that my kids make for each other. I hope it's something they continue as they grow and make their way in the world. Rain's cards are always a favorite amongst everyone. Last February also saw a lot of stitching. I finally opened an Etsy shop after years of people saying that I should and kind of found an embroidery groove. Unfortunately, I also burned myself out and haven't been back in that groove since then.

March started out with illness but ended up with rainbows, fun and games. 

Easter pic outtake… I have no idea what was going on over there.

Braces, Easter and dragons… oh my! And the many faces of Miss Cupcake.

A collage counts as one picture, right?

May was super duper busy what with two birthdays back to back, piano recitals, blog facelifts and stirring up trouble on the internet about "cutesy nicknames"… whew… I'm exhausted just thinking about it. 

Playtime and parks, books and butterflies, and finding out what it feels like to host a party that nobody shows up to. Humility… that's the name of this blogging game.

It's a Zelda thing...

In July… I hosted a Legends of Zelda themed graduation party for my niece, we puppy-sat our neighbor's ginormous, hairy dog and spent all day at a sweet friend's house while her daughter helped Sunshine sew a dress... and blogged none of it because I took a break. It was restful and a little reinvigorating but I can't lie… this blog is living on the back burner and I'm OK with that.

In August, we shared our trip to Austin to film Rachel and the Treeschoolers, my grandmother's birthday, Sunshine's sweater for Cupcake and some thoughts on what homeschooling is like with kids of all ages.

Three! She turned three!!!

And Bilbo and Frodo turned... I don't even know how old.

I love this picture of my knitting ninja. This will keep the boys from stealing her away too soon.

In October we hosted a Doctor Who party for some friends and little feast day celebrations for ourselves.

Please ignore the messy background. All I see is my sweet girl's beaming face.

We took a vacation to Branson, MO (our first real family vacation ever!) that I never blogged because as soon as we got home, we all spent the rest of November in varying degrees of flu-ness. But we did rally enough to celebrate my beautiful girl's birthday London style!

For December, we escaped from Mr. Lemoncello's library and jumped full into Jane Austen's world, costumes and all. We also celebrated Advent with our favorite saints and traditions. 

I have to break the rules with this last picture though (Sorry Dweej!) because these Christmas pic outtakes are too good not to post…

That's a wrap.  Tomorrow night we will make our way to the book store early, as is our tradition, and then come home, make some pizza and puppy chow and watch a movie. Low key is how we like our New Year's Eve.

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you have a wonderful new year!

Books for Christmas

Merry Christmas!!! Christmas is not just one day… it's a whole season! And one of the gifts we love to give our kids to last the whole season is a stack of books on Christmas Day.

One question I get asked frequently is what they my kids are reading. I can't publish the books I plan to give my kids for Christmas before Christmas because all of my big kids read my blog. So there would be no surprise. My kids have always been voracious readers so they go through books like crazy using a plethora of paperbacks, ebooks, library books, and audiobooks to sustain them. We allow for a little fluff now and then but most of the books they read are classics. Some of the books we give them for Christmas are books they've already read but loved so much that they want to have their own copy. Some are books that they've never read before. Here are the books each child received this year {all links are affiliate links}…

Yes, there are a lot. Don't judge. ;) If you wanted to give your kids books, you don't have to give them as many. I started buying books (some new, some used) back in July and I try to give each child the same number. As my husband just said, "If there is one thing I will always overindulge our kids in… it will be books."

~The Professor~
(age 16 going on 17)

Legions of Rome: The Definitive History of Every Imperial Roman Legion (recommended by his Latin teacher)

Sword and Serpent

Scribblers, Sculptors and Scribes (also Latin teacher recommended)

The Ballad of the White Horse (illus. by Ben Hatke)

The Ball and the Cross (illus. by Ben Hatke)

A Year With C. S. Lewis

The World of Odysseus (recommended by a good friend)

and some very special, mind-blowing, he never expected in a million years books...

A 50th edition copy of The Lord of the Rings (he's been eyeing this copy for years) and a hardcover copy of The Silmarillion… his two absolute favorite books in the whole wide world. He's only had a digital copy of The Silmarillion and his LOTR paperback was falling apart from near daily use. These books totally blew his mind. I love that about him.

~Sunshine~
(age 15)

Tasha Tudor's Heirloom Crafts

The Ultimate Hairstyle Handbook: Everyday Hairstyles for the Everyday Girl

DIY Braids

The Secret Garden (illus. by Tasha Tudor)

A Little Princess (illus. by Tasha Tudor)

The Cranford Companion

the whole Boston Jane Series

Sense and Sensibility DVD (this was part of a set… 

Sunshine received Sense and Sensibility, Rain got Persuasion).

~Rain~
(age 14)

The Hobbit Chronicles: The Battle of Five Armies

Tales from Shakespeare

Doodle-Stitching

Quidditch Through the Ages

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Cranford

Penengro

and Writing Magic 

(and Persuasion DVD ~ not pictured)

~BigBoy~
(age 10)

The Book With No Pictures (hilarious!!!)

Sisters of the Last Straw: the Case of the Haunted Chapel

Sisters of the Last Straw: The Case of the Missing Novice

King Oberon's Forest

The Castle in the Attic

Lord Brocktree

High Rhulain

Shepherds to the Rescue

Danger at Sea

Braving the Storm

~Cupcake~
(age 3)

Dream Animals
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Catholic Churches Big and Small
A Story of St. Catherine of Alexandria
Snowflakes: A Pop-up Book
Meet the Neighbors
One Year With Kipper
Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How A First Lady Changed America.
And…

Julia's House For Lost Creatures
(which was promptly passed around to everyone.)
 This one is definitely in the "give this away to every child you know" category.

~From godparents and grandparents~

Brick Shakespeare (huge hit with everyone! There is a whole series to explore!)
Tea With Jane Austen
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Manger Mouse
The Empire Striketh Back
The Jedi Doth Return (BigBoy's godparents gave him
William Shakespeare's Star Wars for his birthday back in May. These were also a big hit with everyone.)
and The Owl and the Pussycat (not pictured
because I think Miss Cupcake ran away with it)

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel...

Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve!

I took a meal to a family with a new little one today. Oh my goodness… it is so easy to forget how teeny tiny babies are! And how fast they grow...

We are officially on break from homeschool (except The Professor who voluntarily chose to continue working on a few subjects) and everyone is having fun just decompressing. Last Friday, my oldest two attended a Jane Austen themed Costume Christmas Party/ Book Club. Their book club chose to discuss Emma and since it was close to Christmas, they decided to turn the book club into a costumed Christmas party.

It was so much fun to see all of those kids dressed up in their Regency finery and enjoying themselves together.

We have also been celebrating the O Antiphons every night with two new Wise Men books for our Christmas book collection (O Wisdom):

 

(I had not realized how lacking in Wise Men stories we were), tiny gingerbread house cookies which quite literally flopped (O Lord and Ruler of the House of Israel), root beer (O Root of Jesse), chocolate keys (O Key of David), Texas Sunrise mocktails (O Dayspring) , and crown cookies (O King of the Nations), much like years past.

The past couple of days, I've been doing some last minute Christmas gift making. These little beauties are going to a family we know with 5 girls. I hope you can tell which saints they are.

And the one below is for a special Mass friend of Cupcake's- they like to hunt for Itsy Bitsy Spiders together and practice going to Confession. These little dolls were really fun to paint and I can't wait to see the girls open them.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Santa Claus :: the Ultimate Fan Fiction

So, the Mommy Wars have been raging I guess over St. Nicholas vs. Santa Claus. I say, "I guess", because I refuse to read all the click-bait gems that are popping up in my news feed. Most times, the title tells you all you need to know. 

I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't tell your kids about Santa Claus vs. St. Nicholas. I have no authority from which to speak, except in my own family, but I recognize that that authority does not translate to worldly or internet worldly authority no matter how amazing or awesome I think my family's traditions are.

It's not my job. It's not anyone else's job. It's your job to figure it out. I will tell you that I think you should sit down and discuss it with your spouse first. Decide what your goals and desires are for your family. Think long term. Discuss honestly what you loved about being a child at Christmas and what you didn't like and be prepared to compromise and make allowances. (Hopefully you have a husband who is willing to discuss this with you.) For us, all of the wonderful, fanciful stories and legend of the right jolly old elf are like the ultimate fan fiction! Let me tell you how we got here...

When my oldest was a babe, Sean and I talked about our family traditions and what we remembered loving as a child. Frankly, the whole elves and North Pole aspect of Santa Claus never made the cut. Especially Mrs. Claus. It was weird. For both of us. His family celebrated St. Nicholas Eve by leaving their shoes outside their door and finding a treat inside the next morning. He remembers vividly the year he found a note saying he had received a new baby brother instead of a candy bar. So we've done the shoes/slippers for St. Nicholas ever since the big kids were little. But in his family, like mine, Santa came back on Christmas and dumped a pile 'o stuff under the tree and in the stockings. And the one thing we both remembered was feeling that law of diminishing returns in action on Christmas Day. The more presents we opened from Santa, the less exciting they were. Maybe that wasn't the case for you, but we both felt like one or two carefully chosen gifts for each child would be more exciting than a pile of stuff.

Since we knew we were going to teach our kids that St. Nicholas was a real person who was now a saint in Heaven as part of their religious education, we wanted our children to know that St. Nicholas practiced moderation. That he could not be expected to bring ALL of whatever their hearts desired. So we limited his scope to the stocking only. If it will fit in a stocking… St Nick has a thing for foot wear, I guess… then you can ask him for it. My husband was adamant about this and I'm so glad we followed his lead although there have been a few rare years when the packaging of a special request would not fit in a stocking and so the child would find their stocking draped over it. 

Now, please don't think that our children are deprived of gifts. They get gifts from three sets of grandparents, two of whom usually give family gifts and one who tries to pick something special for each child and usually can't contain herself to just one thing. Some of them also get gifts from their godparents and then there are ornaments, books, games and hot cocoa packages that come from aunts and uncles for the whole family to enjoy. We also give each child a stack of books and usually a bigger special something or a couple of little something specials that we know they have been wanting but never asked for from Mom and Dad. Those go under the tree and they say, "From Mom and Dad".

We never liked the idea of everything under the tree being from Santa because when the "real world" runs into that "reality" that's been created, it seemed like too much of a let down. St. Nick is only one of the many generous people in our lives. And yes, we do let them believe that the stocking gifts are left by him. We don't tell them any differently until they are old enough to ask and know. By that time, we talk about the spirit of St. Nicholas still inspiring us today, because he does in very real and tangible ways the way that many of our saintly friends lead and inspire us. That has made the transition from childhood to young adulthood so nice. The older children have insisted on maintaining that spirit for the little ones because it was such a treasured part of their childhood.

Some of the aspects of the secular Santa story have made their way into our family. Our children write letters, asking for a special gift (one small enough to be left in a stocking) and leave them in their shoes on the eve of his feast day. St. Nick, much in the same vein as Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas, writes them letters in return sometimes with fantastical stories but always with a request to work on a particular virtue for the rest of Advent and a promise that he will return on Christmas to celebrate the birthday of our Saviour! We leave milk and cookies for him, although everyone knows St. Nick really prefers homemade fudge, and the stockings (his gifts) are the first things my children run to in the morning leaving all the under the tree gifts until we return from Mass. 

So you see… we do still do some of the Santa Claus traditions. But we decided a long time ago that the elves and the North Pole and the reindeer and the Mrs. Claus were like… fan fiction. Stories that people wrote about a character from history that they obviously respected and admired enough to write stores about. And we certainly enjoy writing and reading fan fiction around here, so to call it "fan fiction" is not a denigration in any way! It works for our family and it allows us to enjoy both the religious and secular aspects of good 'ole St. Nick.

My kids have seen Frosty the Snowman where Santa comes to save the day and turn a puddle of water back into the beloved snowman from New York who can only count to 5. They've watched Hermey fulfill his dream of becoming a dentist. They've set out cookies and milk and letters to St. Nick. 

But YOU have to do what works for your family without guilting anyone else to do the same or guilting yourself over choosing to do it differently. What we sat down and talked about 18 years ago has paid off for our family, giving us the kind of holiday season we enjoy most. You don't have to accept whatever the culture hands you. You are the parents. You can pick and choose. You can make it work for you or dump it all together. If you have your family's best interest at heart, you will not ruin your children for letting them believe in elves and flying reindeer and you will not ruin them if you don't. One thing is certain, you will have a lot of questions to answer, so you better be prepared for them. Parenting isn't easy whichever way you go. 

We aren't British, but there are always Christmas crackers with crowns!