Christmas!

Figured I better post this before the year ends! Have I mentioned that I love Christmas? Always have. As a kid I always wanted to be the one to bring in the mail so I could be the first one to see the Christmas cards. I have a December birthday, so I sometimes get Christmas things as birthday presents, which is fine by me. The more the merrier! Although, I've been joking a lot this year about the number of Advent calendars I have. There are lots of little drawers and windows to open, paper chains to tear, a little chalkboard to write on and wooden blocks to turn to the right number. I'm pretty sure I tell myself every year that next year we're going to countdown the number of days until we go "home" for Christmas, since that's when Christmas really starts, but it never happens. Add that to my list of things I ought to remember...

 





This year my mom, a few sisters and one SIL went shopping in Carytown on Small Business Saturday and I found something I have always, always wanted; in fact that is what I sad when I saw it, "I have always wanted one of these!" I think there might even have been a gasp in there. My very own jingle bells! We had a plain leather strap with bells on it that we used every year during our Christmas carol singing on Christmas Eve. I always thought it was so cool, but I'd never seen one anywhere. They had all sorts in this Christmas shop in Carytown. One of my sisters bought one too. Coincidentally, mine pretty much matches my front door. And the little Joy School boys had a good time taking turns with them while we sang Jingle Bells. Fantasy fulfilled! (Yes, I'm a dork, these are the things I fantasize about; I also realized a few weeks ago, while listening to organ music for fun, that the coolest thing I've ever done in my life is listen to Gregorian Chant in Notre Dame Cathedral. Lame to some but completely awesome to me!)

I think I will take that down last and miss them until next year.

And here is my now very sad looking tree. It fell over once and I couldn't reach the angel to straighten her out again. And there are ornaments (or ONaments as Cakes used to say,  but finally grew out of it and now Silly says it) all over the floor where they have slowly fallen off.

On to Christmas!

Part 1: Christmas Eve breakfast followed by presents with Scott's family. This year his mom and dad disappeared after breakfast and came back wearing matching camouflage shirts just to see what Silly would say. Gummy always gives the kids clothes first because she knows they just toss them aside and wait for the real presents. And Aunt Jodi was quite a success this year; Cakes has barely taken this vest off since she got it, Bubba loves his watch and Silly has been looking at his book quite a lot.

 

Part 2: The Ramsey family Christmas Eve festivities; eat, sing all the fun, silly, Santa-related Christmas songs, act out Twas the Night Before Christmas, sing all the Christmas songs about Jesus, ending with Silent Night in German, acting out the Nativity while Dad reads it then open a present and off to bed! I mentioned this to someone the week before Christmas and he asked me if we're up until midnight to get all of that done.

And finally, Part 3: Christmas Day! I wake up way to early and then wait and wait for my kids to wake up (that was never the way it went when I was a kid!) they give their gifts to each other then open their presents from Santa.

And then back to Mamie and Papop's for our stockings, open the presents from them and

exchange family presents, and finally follow our strings to the string presents.

Typically the rule is "wind as you go" but we had to make an exception this year; Santa's helper had a little mishap. My mom and I spent about an hour untangling that lovely knot.

And there you have it! Christmas is a little crazy, but we like it that way.

December Traditions

We have a few local events we attend here in Chesapeake every December; we started seeking out some local fun several years ago to counterbalance the fact that our children will most likely never spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in their own home. Decorating was lots of fun this year, deciding where all our Christmas things should go in our new house, plus some new things, but I didn't take any pictures of any of that! It's not too late, they're all still up. :-) Tonight's goal I guess...

We start with the city parade. Note to self: there are a lot more people there when the weather is nice!

Bubba had his little Joy School party at our house. He participated more than I expected. He played the innkeeper(s) and did a nice job hopping from one inn to the next, shaking his head at Joseph.

He also thought the innkeeper ought to come and worship the baby Jesus along with the shepherds and wisemen, and why not? Surely the innkeeper came back to check on the little family during their stay in his stable.

Hilarious story: during Joy School Thursday morning we were making a treat for their party. Bubba and C were in the learning tower, and for some reason C said he wished Bubba were a woman. When I asked him why, he said so they could dance. Then somehow tutus came into the conversation. I told Bubba to tell C who he knows that has a tutu. Answer: Granddaddy. He has two, every time we're over there he talks about his tutus. So then R pipes up and says, "My daddy has a tutu too!" C (who is the oldest of our little group) looks at R, then Bubba, then me, and says in this deadpan voice, "My dad has three swords." I nearly died laughing. It's like he was thinking the conversation had gone too sissy and he needed to bring it back to more manly territory.

Our other event we really like is Christmas in the Country at the Triple R Ranch. They have free horse rides for kids up to 9 years old, Cakes is the only one who ever rides a horse, and this was her last chance. We kept trying to talk the boys into it. Silly is not the slightest bit interested, but Bubba is thinking about it. He told me he will ride a horse one time, as in one time ever in his whole life. I guess I'll have to really talk it up next year and get him to try it.

What Bubba was really waiting for was the hay ride. He kept telling me he wanted to do the loopy-loop, which was apparently his way of describing the tractor's route. He was just grinning from ear to ear the whole time. What made it even better was being surrounded by tractors; there were three hay rides going at once, and we were in the middle, so not only was he being pulled in a wagon by a tractor, but he never took his eyes off the tractor that was right behind us. He was just giddy with happiness.

 

Some of our other annual events were superseded by another very important event: the building of our new swingset! It arrived in 4 large boxes weighing a total of almost 900lbs. The instructions said it would take 2-3 skilled workers 24-36 hours to complete. The delivery man who brought all the boxes into the garage asked me if this was going to be a family project. When I said yes he asked if my husband and I drink. I told him no, and he recommended that we start! Hahahaha! Scott spent all day Saturday, along with a good friend from work and the other 2 Joy School dads building. Then he worked in the dark, mostly by himself, with some sporadic help from me and the kids, after work each night. Last Saturday another work friend came to help for the morning, then the kids and I took over after lunch. Scott doesn't like heights, so I got to sit up in the crow's nest and hold all the rails and such in place while he stood on the ladder below with the drill.

 



Cakes's first slide (it was cold!)



Silly's perch

Swings!

They have already played on it for hours and hours. We can hardly even get them to come in when it's dark. Last night they just put on headlamps and took flashlights and stayed out there until they were cold. Some people have warned us that these playsets are a waste of money because they just sit empty most of the time, but not with these kids! I think they're more excited about the playset than they were about moving to a new house...

It is the 10th...

Hmm...not sure I even took ten pictures worth looking at today, but in any case, here's some stuff that happened...

Boy in the orange penny, "It's not your team throwing the ball in"
Silly, "I know, I'm blocking you." The boy definitely likes defense!

Cakes and Bubba kept themselves entertained with hats, gloves and a soccer ball.

Silly getting his little trophy...

from the good coach we like and wish was in charge!

We're leaving the field and Cakes says, "Hey, anybody wanna bob for apples?" And then Silly found a cookie on the ground, in the wet grass, picked it up, and ate it. I just laughed and kept on walking. It's just good clean dirt, as my dad likes to say.



We retired our skeleton friend until next Halloween.



Finally decided to take her out of the box she's been in since I graduated from high school. I thought about letting Cakes have her, but I just couldn't. She's mine! Some of my friends know I have a sharing problem...

Went in and out of my "hobbit hole" (that's what Scott called it when he saw me stepping out) quite a few times today. I think I have all of Halloween put away, but something else is bound to pop up.

I went by my bathtub quite a few times today, and didn't notice until pretty late in the day that the tub still had water in it from the night before.



And then I went and spent pretty much the rest of the day doing something I didn't have the slightest intention to do when I woke up this morning - rearranged my living room and finally hung some pictures in here!



Halloween and such

Way back at the end of September the kids and I drove to Richmond for Mamie's Third Annual Fall Fest. It started with bobbing for apple. Cakes grabbed one rather easily. Silly had a bit of a disadvantage due to the absence of several teeth and Bubba sat quietly on the step, waited until all the big kids ran off the show Mamie their apples, then looked around really quick before casually reaching his hand into the barrel, grabbing an apple, and yelling, "I got one!" as if he'd bobbed for it like the other kids.

They also made some fun little monsters using candy and toothpicks, ate donuts, and the boys drank endless amounts of apple cider. It was chilly but not too cold, a perfect night for a fire to roast some hot dogs. All three of my kids really look forward to this event now and wonder what fun things Mamie will have planned next time!

Cakes participated in the swim team's wacky relay races which consisted of riding a pool noodle like a bicycle, changing clothes, swimming the backstroke while keeping a rubber ducky on your head and swimming while pushing a watermelon. It was quite entertaining.

 

As mentioned earlier, Bubba is the cutest little guy ever to ride a scooter:

Although, not the greatest at remaining seated while his brother pulls him around in the wagon. He decided to try standing, fell out, and hit the back of his head on the concrete. That led to an ER trip after he started acting very un-Bubba-like, and threw up repeatedly in the car on the way there. One clear CT scan later, I took home a little boy with a concussion and instructions to keep him as still and quiet as possible for the next 24-48 hours. Not a very easy task when his altered state consisted of being wild and crazy compared to his usual mellow self. And it made me afraid to take my eyes off of him for several days.

We all went to an air show and were extremely disappointed, Silly most especially, who had looked forward to climbing in and around all kinds of aircraft. There were hardly any planes to even look at and only one plane and one helicopter we could climb into. Super lame.

And now onto Halloween! Bubba was super excited this year and declared quite early that he wanted to be Spiderman. Silly wanted to be a ninja (doesn't get much easier than that!) and Cakes decided on a candy corn. Around here you just never know if it will be 80 degrees or 40 when it comes time to go trick-or-treating, this year it was cold so I had to go to the store Halloween morning for a few cold weather adjustments.

There was quite a lot of commentary on their trick-or-treat bags this year. I don't remember hearing anyone comment about them before, but this year just about every woman who answered the door to pass out candy commented on their super cute bags. Thanks. :-) I did finally make two more bags  this year, so they each have one plus an extra. I carried the extra bag around to hold whatever they didn't want to carry anymore if their bags got too heavy. Bubba was quite hilarious to watch with his heavy bag. He would not let us help him and I think pretty much everyone gave him more candy than they gave Cakes and Silly, because he's just so stinkin' cute! He was also funny because he was a little off on the sequence of what to say when. He would ring the doorbell, hold out his bag, then say trick-or-treat after he got the candy and quietly say thank you as he ran away. Maybe next year he'll get it right. Silly hardly said anything to anyone and we had to pretty much threaten him that we wouldn't let him go up to anymore doors if he didn't say trick-or-treat and thank you every time. Having cute dimples isn't enough to compensate for bad manners. At least Cakes did it right.

They came home and immediately dumped their bags out; there is a whole lot of candy in this house!

And that's the end of that!