What will the neighbors think?

So we went looking for Christmas light displays and look what we found. The first two are at the same house and there was a third song I somehow missed. My videography isn't the best sorry.
When you pull up to the house there are signs directing you to tune your FM radio to a certain station. Then there is a 2 minute blurb about only watching the three songs and coming back later, respecting neighbors, and how the display was made. Pretty impressive, but I'm still glad I don't live next door. (And as a special bonus you get to hear me shush my children!)

Now if you really like your neighbors you can decorate with them: (Oh and the music and commentary here is provided by us).

Merry Christmas and to all a good night

Well, I am getting ready in about half an hour to wake the little ones to prepare for Midnight Mass (the moment we look forward to every year). But we started the evening with the best Christmas presents -- Nana and Aunt Katie put together photo albums for each child and Nana says she wants each one to come over at the end of the year and do another page with her. Then we had Chinese food with Nana, Katie, Blue Truck, Aunt Nancy, and Uncle Ed. We returned home and put everyone to bed. Then I decided to decorate Jesus' Birthday cake as I really don't like to do those while the kids are hovering. And guess what I backed up the sink rinsing RED icing off of dishes. (I am very grateful for a loving and understanding husband -- although at that point I was just glad I had a husband.) So some pictures to remember the evening by:

Christmas Tree Decorating

If I don't post tomorrow,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Living by family

This past May we moved back home to Colorado. One of the biggest reasons was to be by family. My parents bought a home here last year but my mom's family lived here as well. This past Oct. her last sister moved back to Colorado. So now we are all here (except my sister -- someday).

Saturday was my aunt Nancy/Godmother's birthday. The whole family went to our favorite pizza place, Fargo's.

My Grandpa Bill (Mom's dad) who turned 90 in Oct.

My Uncle Billy (he prefers Bill and I prefer Jenni but am Jennifer to him-- it goes both ways), my mom's brother.

My aunt Margaret, my cousin--her son Patrick (behind her), and Uncle Ed (Aunt Nancy's husband)

My Aunt Nancy (the birthday girl, she nor Aunt Margaret like to be in pics) and Grandpa.

Uncle Billy and DG! Uncle Billy doesn't mind pics.

Grandma Ethel, Grandpa Bill, and Uncle Billy.

My mom, dad, husband and kids all went but somehow remained out of pictures!

The Feast of St. Nicholas

So RA asks on the feast of St. Nicholas, how come you don't see St. Nicholas in purple, or green, or white? He was a bishop after all.

For the feast, we fill the kids stockings. It is a great way to celebrate the feast and spread the traditions of the season all throughout, instead of overwhelming them on Christmas day.

I was able to find two really good books from the library about St. Nicholas: The real Santa Claus / Mayer, Marianna and A gift from Saint Nicholas / Kismaric, Carole.

So before we went downstairs, to investigate the stockings we read about the real Santa Claus.

In each stocking, they get candy and one "big" gift. In past years at Christmas, Nana has given them snow globes. This year they got their snow globes with their stockings.

Before they got to their stockings

Sorting

This is good stuff, Mom

"A chocolate penguin?"

So I mentioned before that PG's Godparents gave him this really neat Advent calendar. If you can find one on sale, they are really amazing. But one word of advice. After attending a party with an hour and a half drive both ways, returning home at 10:30, putting excited and exhausted children to bed and then filling stockings might not be the time to assemble 24 small boxes and fill them with tiny toys.

PG got a Veggie Tale movie in his stocking. For you VG fans and for those who have small children. Run out and get St. Nicholas. It is fantastic and other than not making him a bishop is really spot on. I am so impressed. There is even a religious sister in the movie. A few years back they did a bit on St. Patrick in one of their movies (Summo of the Opera) and DG now has a huge devotion to St. Patrick. They have their saints down and do them with a great message for kids.

For those of you who are curious, RA got a VG Christmas CD. Which by the way was poor planning on my part as we don't start listening to Christmas music until the third Sunday of Advent. Opps!

DG got an Altar Gang CD about Advent. Yet another plug -- I really like the Altar Gang. This was my first experience with the CDs!

And the snow globes: PG and DG got Veggie Tales ones, they are so cute. RA got a Nutcracker one as the girls (my mom, grandma, aunt, sister, RA and I are going on the 4th Sunday of Advent to see the ballet).

Advent and Some Great Feasts

Ok for those of you who know me, you know why I haven't been blogging. It is Advent -- my favorite time of year and I have been so busy creating the perfect Advent that I haven't been blogging.

So here is the update.

On November 29th, the day after PG's b-day, we put up the tree. Thanks to Target we added the purple lights, snowflakes, and ribbon. The ribbon and I had a big fight this year. It is so nice to have a big window to put the tree in front of finally. But I couldn't take a picture that night because we didn't have any Jesse Tree ornaments on. I thought, "Ok somewhere in week 2 of Advent, I'll take a picture." Two nights ago, the middle section of purple lights went out. So still no pic. I looked at Wal-Mart. They had purple lights (on WHITE wire) so still no picture. As far as the Jesse Tree ornaments, here is a big shout out to the Mothers for Children at OLMC in Carmel. Thanks for the years of ornament trading. My ornaments are so pretty and I think of each one of you as the kids hang them on the tree.

November 30th was the feast of St. Andrew. It made me a little sad. I was thinking of our Andrew and how we are so blessed to have little ones in heaven.

On December 5th, we headed out to Byers CO (an hour and a half away) for Mass the Knights of Columbus Party. We left ourselves plenty of time. Dressed in our Sunday best, we stopped for gas. It has been pretty cold here so Blake waited in the car with us while the gas pumped. When he heard the click, he got out and took the hose out of the car. It started spraying all over him. It soaked him through, so home we went to change. We got to the parking lot of the church at the gospel. We would have been ok except there was no music at Mass.

At the party, there was a special guest (Santa Claus). We had prepped the kids. For those of you who don't know, we don't "do" Santa Claus. On the feast of St. Nicholas (Dec. 6th next post) the kids get there stockings in honor of St. Nicholas. So we decided to remind the kids that some kids think Santa is real and please don't say anything if someone asks you about Santa. Well RA was so taken by him, she didn't leave his side the whole time. Then he starts into this 5 minute speech about, who believes in Santa Claus. Asking kids individually and telling them to raise their hands. I was holding my breath. I could just here DG going on some soliloquy about how Santa was not real and telling the whole story of St. Nicholas. Luckily, he followed directions. Phew.

More about the feast of St. Nicholas later. Here are some pics:

And thanks Mrs. Wrobel for the really cool Playmobile Advent calendar!

Peter's Birthday

Well another great thing about living around family is they all join you for celebrations. We had a lasagna dinner and dragon cake and ice cream for dessert. Great Aunt Nancy, Great Uncle Ed, Great Uncle Billy, Cousin Patrick, Aunt Katie, Nanna, and Blue Truck all joined us.

My dad (Blue Truck) recminising about Fruit Roll ups. The ones that say "lick here".

Aunt Katie, Uncle Billy, Nanna, Blue Truck, Aunt Nancy and Cousin Patrick chipped in on various aspects of the western costume.

One of the realitives asked if it was ok to get him a rifle. I said, "Why not? He turns every other toy in the house into a gun."