Oh Gratitude.

 This picture is precious to me. Grandma made this beautiful lamp for Julia. 

 Backstage

 With Clara!

 My Angel 

 The Solstice tree

 Magic

 Delight

 Wonder

Delight. 

We had our extended party last night (the pig). Our immediate party tonight (the seven fiishes). 

I'm behind.. ...

Silence.

I can't touch it.

The beginning  is the place of wonder. The place of innocence. And the last is the place of after where it was all gone wrong. I can't write about it yet.

We had to put on a fake face

And we were just SICK, sick about our world. I can't touch it yet.

A horrible thing happened in my childrens world and I cant yet wrap my own mind around it, so I can't even write about it yet. The world is sick, and yet we are supposed to do advent. I havent been able to do it. I can't do it. I can't talk to my babies about it and I cant spill my heart here. I just can't.

We survived it!

Two straight weeks of Nate away, and we made it :)

He popped in for about 18 hours last weekend, enough time for us to entertain that night, and me to take the bigs to a birthday party on Sunday, then he showed his face again this Thursday for a few hours (literally, he was up all night studying and left in the AM), so that I could duck out for a girls night, but on saturday at about 4 we officially got Nate back for at least the next 3 weeks or so. I mean, he is still going to be working, but he is done with school until after the new year.

It was a wild two weeks.

Part of me has become so accustomed to being alone that I admit to being a little worried about co-parenting again. I am a little ashamed about my calendar for the coming weeks. Orpheus club Tuesday night with the girls. We are in DC for Riverbeds Christmas party on Friday night together, but after that it is like a litany of women's events. Julia and I are going to see the Nutcracker at the Kimmel center downtown that Sunday.... a cookie exchange here, a girls night there, a brunch with the ladies here, dinner there.......I blushed in telling Nate my schedule. It's natural, right? I mean, I can't act as though my support system suddenly doesn't exist when they are my very lifeblood, but its weird to recognize how truly different Nate and my life is at the moment. Its wild. It's great, as without this I think that one or both of us would be miserable, but when he gets a break in his life I can't just call time out on mine. Luckily he is wonderful and wise and generous and supportive of me...........but after so many years of us just being "US" it is weird to see how "you" and "me" we are! Not emotionally, if anything school has made us more "US' as we work together if separately towards the same goal, but our schedules may not necessarily reflect that :)

The kids. Julia is going to be an angel in her pageant at school. In her words:

"Not a PRETEND angel! A REAL angel! With a COSTUME!"

Luke is FINALLY in his groove with school. No more issues, and he seems to be thriving on being a "good kid", he hasn't had a "yellow light" or any issues in a couple of months. Big sigh of relief.

Jake is a ball of snot. He has been for 2 months. He isn't sick. At all. Jake is headed for tonsil and adenoid surgery, as soon as I can get it for him. Jake's snoring is a HUGE issue. The poor kid is the biggest, healthiest, SNORIEST SNOTTIEST kid I have ever seen. After talking to two different friends who had kids who seemed to be the exact same way and who told me IDENTICAL stories about how the surgery changed their kids lives, I am hell bent on getting this done for my poor Jake. Hearing him breathe through his sleep is literally painful.

He is the happiest, huggiest, kid I have ever met. He is a joy. He sleeps like a dream, he complies, he is just easy. Again, I have no interest in being pregnant or any of that again, but if I could somehow just clone Jake, I would do it in a second (but with smaller adenoids, poor lovie).

Life is good. We are not all that crazy, thanks to our adherence to three gifts/kid, amazon prime (I will get back to all local shopping next year, when I hope to have conned the school into getting Julia into AM kindy and having Jake in Preschool 3/week. Do you know what that means people. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, PEOPLE?????THREE MORNINGS ALONE????? )

Anyway. Not really digging the cold but I guess it is what it is. Nice week ahead with the long lost Nate home with us. I hope I still like him :) :)

I love this little face.

Luke's Kindergarten picture.

It's DECEMBER!

 Old fashioned christmas parade 2012 style ;). Nate was at school and literally up until the day of I was having mixed feelings about trying to attend it without him. Luckily Jeannie and Tim were able to join us for dinner and ride with us into town/help us, and we had a great night attending the parade :)

I love this blurry pic as it somehow aptures the whirlwind of the parade and Jules high fiving the WCU Ram

 The first day of advent. We were able to facetime with Nate as he was eating breakfast at school by the time that we roused from bed after our late night, and he was able to watch Luke open day one's capsule. It said "BREAKFAST WITH SANTA!!!".....and off we went to the West Chester Senior Center for a fun filled breakfast. I feel like I keep saying it lately, but things are just so much easier lately. Going to something like this a year ago alone with the kids would have been just not that much fun.... and this year it was a blast. Maybe some of it is mental, knowing that in just a few short months we will be an intact family again, but for now, it's working. I'm doing the things that make Christmas fun for the kids, even when Nate can't participate, and they are fun for me too, rather than exhausting. Good stuff. 

 Day two of advent read "Get a CHRISTMAS TREE AND GO TO LYDIAS BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!". It was a big day. It's so fun having these things all be a surprise to the kids. Julia was literally jumping around with joy. Love it. Love too seeing them talk about and remember and enjoy the ornaments, to see them start to have sentimental attachment to the kids like they do to Nate and I. Isn't this the creepiest fake elf ever? My kids have been asking why we don't have an elf on the shelf (don't get me started on that, to me its like the ultimate Jesus.........watching you.......always........judging..) but that would be a post that would probably alienate everyone I know..........(plus honestly I just get so bored with extra work things like that!) so anyway I told my kids that we didn't invite the elf into our house because they are so good and so kind that they don't need extra elfin monitoring to see if they can get gifts or not ~ they are going to get gifts just like they are going to give gifts, because they love people and people love them and that is what Christmas is about. Sharing with others, and being loved, not being bribed into temporary compliance. 

 El tree. She is a big un! This is our biggest and prettiest tree that I ever remember, and it smells better than any I remember. Nate put the lights on and was like "how does it look?" And I said "Great!" and then when he was watching football I snuck three more strands of lights onto it. :) Our house is currently sporting 6, yes SIX, christmas trees, this one, one in our family room, two in our dining room, and one in Luke and Julia's bedrooms. A huge wreath on the front door, one in the foyer, one in the bathroom, and one on the back porch door, and we have it goin on around here. We have to put up the outside lights, which is generally Nate's department, but he leaves for San Ant tomorrow and is gone through next Sat afternoon (rare back to back school weekends)...so I may try my hand at out door light decorating myself tomorrow or tuesday. The weather is supposed to be in the 60's so why not? It may be like an elfen display with no lights above 5 feet high with my limited reach....but whatever. Its DECEMBER! 

 The foyer

 Julia marvels at the tree

The dining room. 

We had a late night of entertaining last night and have been on the go all day between getting the tree, a birthday party, and decorating the tree tonight. I am WIPED OUT. 

It is crazy how much fun, yet how exhausting how much this decorating business is! I don't even want to think about the fact that in a few weeks we will be undoing all of this doing, but whatever. The kids excitement is contagious. I hope that you are all busy enjoying your homes in whatever fashion you choose....

Keeping up.

Jake hiking at Tyler Arboretum over Thanksgiving weekend. I ran into friends this morning who have two kids a similar age to Luke and Julia, and a baby of about 10 months. They asked if going from 2-3 really threw us, if it felt impossible. I had to think about it, and remembered that yes, it really did feel impossible at times when Jake was a baby....but now that he is just one of the gang, life is really easy. It is amazing what a difference there is between having three KIDS vs. two kids and a baby. 

Our first snow of the season. Puny, but enough to make for a cozy afternoon of softly falling snow, christmas music, house decorating, and hot chocolate. 

Jeannie and Tim and I went to see Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors! I was thrilled to get to meet her in person, and hearing her was inspirational and wonderful. 

The kids hard at work decorating Christmas presents. This year they are my elves, and will be decorating all of our Christmas presents. They were hard at work decorating gifts for a boy we are sponsoring through the Delaware Valley Childrens Charity. This year is the first year where they really seemed to "get" it, and took a lot of pleasure and time and concern in picking out gifts for the child. They carefully helped decorate and wrap his presents, and will help deliver them on Monday. In this season of so much getting, we are trying our hardest to keep a lot of focus on giving.  Our new advent calendar is providing a fun new way to incorporate random acts of kindness, more on that later.

They are good little elves, eh?