The Night Tree

One of our favorite children's holiday books is The Night Tree, by Eve Bunting. It's a simple story about a family who make a yearly trek into the woods and decorate a tree for all the little woodland animals. They make popcorn garland for the tree and bring other goodies for the animals. Once they decorate the tree, they sit down and sing Christmas songs and have hot cocoa. Then it gets cold and they head home imagining how happy the animals will be when they find their special tree. We made a little tree ourselves for the animals this year which was such fun for all of us.

Sela and Nina made garland out of popcorn, dried fruit, and orange peels.



Destroy
We packed up the goodies and followed Zig and Rollin around the yard to choose the perfect tree. Sela carried her lantern she made out of paper mache.


Hot apple cider kept us all warm, and happy in Nina's case.


After finding just the right tree, it was time to hang the garland.

Nina and Rollin sprinkled popcorn and nuts around on the ground.



We sang some songs and the girls danced around the tree. Then we headed back into the warm house. The best part of it all was driving home from church today to see several happy squirrels gathered around the tree filling their little tummies and enjoying an early Christmas.

Advent Activities....

Each day the girls open a little envelope with a simple Christmas activity written inside. Some have been simple, like making cookies for friends or choosing toys to donate to charity. Nina's favorites so far have been endulging in Peppermint Ice Cream from Thenos Dairy and going on a night walk and having hot cocoa with whipped cream and peppermint marshmallows. Sela loves the crafty ones like making dough ornaments or snowflakes. Tonight the activity was a visit to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens Light Display. It was so cold, but it was clear, and I was ready for a little girls night out. I am so sick of cleaning. Our floors are finally finished and I spent all day putting the closets back together. So, at 5:30 the girls and I headed out. The light display was really impressive, and we had so much fun walking around. We sang Christmas carols to cheer Nina on the long walk back to the car. I knew she was going to complain about being cold, not wanting to walk, being tired, so the singing worked great. She was happy and sang loud the whole way back. We stopped by Whole Foods on the way home. We have so much fun going there late at night. We just take our time and try on makeup and perfume, and the girls play with the little toys. We ate dinner at 10 pm and came home. Bedtime was easy tonight.

Be careful what you wish for

I wished Zig would join me in doing a deep cleaning.... one involving all of our pillows, comforters, duvets, etc. Trying to maximize his time, he thought putting two huge down comforters in the dryer was a good idea.

It didn't work too well.


Still smoldering an hour later, in the rain.










Well, I guess you could look on the bright side...we have two less down comforters to clean. Oh, what a weekend.

Sela's Birthday Weekend

Sela's 7th Birthday arrived with a bang. We had a great weekend full of anticipation and celebration. Friday night Sela performed with the Hollywood Hill Primary Choir at the Woodinville Light Festival. They sang a beautiful Christmas song, a lively Hanukkah song, a lovely Winter Solstice song, and a funny song about Christmas socks...clearly the children's favorite. They joined the Senior choir for Silent Night.






Then we met Mrs. CLaus and walked around looking at lights and trying to find Santa. We finally found him in the Retirement home where lots of festivities were taking place. Zig and I both thought it was such a great idea to have Santa in the Retirement Home. All the residents were mingling with people from the community which brought the excitement of Christmas to them. I loved that aspect of the night. We rode the little train back to the car and headed home.
Nina and Noah
Nina and Mrs. Clause
This was a very nice Santa.
Rollin no likey Santa
My friend Suzanne and all the kids















Sela's birthday party was Saturday. We met for icecream at Coldstone with 8 of Sela's friends and then walked over to see the movie, Enchanted. I have to say I was really surprised, it was such a fun movie! I know Zig enjoyed it as well. Rollin ran all over the theater, but that was to be expected. We filled little purses with movie snacks for everyone which was fun for the girls. This was definitely the easiest birthday party yet, and I think it might be Sela's favorite.
















Sunday it snowed again and since we live on a hill with only steep roads getting off of it, we missed church. Last week it was cancelled and I'm not sure about today. It looked scary though once we got on the road so we came back home and Zig taught a little Christmas lesson to the girls while Rollin napped. The girls got mad at me for taking pictures during "church" but I couldn't help it with Nina acting as Mary again. She takes her role so seriously.

Training the sous chefs

The girls pitched in and helped chop the mushrooms for our pizzas this week. It was fun to watch them focusing so intently. Mushrooms were the perfect food to start them on using a real knife. Even Nina did just fine.

Poor little chickens...

The girls were sad to learn that our friend, Eric, who is building our chicken coop lost most of his chickens over the weekend. He let them out in his yard for only two hours and came back to feathers. Only 4 survived the coyote invasion and one hid for two days afterwards and then emerged from beneath a truck. When Zig told Sela that Eric's wife cried, she was really sad too. She made Eric a card and I thought it was really sweet.

Big Nina and Little Nina

One of Nina's preschool friends has a little sister also named Nina. So at preschool functions, we refer to them as Big Nina and Little Nina, which is really funny given my Nina's size. Rollin and little Nina love each other and hug everyday at pickup. Today was no exception....they gave a big hug and held hands as soon as we met at the museum. We went to the Children's Museum today and it was a nice little outing.

Reflecting on Motherhood

It's been a bit of a hard last few days. Nothing major, just some hard mommy days. I haven't felt too good and I'm really tired lately. Zig's schedule this time of the year is very busy so most days I've been home all day and night alone. I'm not having a pity party at all, I am very blessed, and often this schedule doesn't phase me. But this week was one I could have used some backup. I felt like I fell short with the kids by being too occupied with other things (mostly trying to finish Christmas stuff) to play each time Nina asked, and I was not so patient with Rollin when he cracked one of our cabinets in the kitchen (he has an eye for the most expensive things to repair and goes right for them, bless his little heart), and the list could go on. But tonight I was reading on Mothering and there was a post about a woman who posts on the site who passed away in her sleep, unexpectedly. Totally healthy, two little girls, a complete shock. After I read that, I immediately wanted to go jump in bed and cuddle my little ones. Not because I feel guilty, I try hard to do my best, and it is discouraging to come up short, but guilt doesn't help much. But I just reflected on what a blessing each day is and my precious children are my most treasured gift. I don't want to waste the moments and I told Zig tonight, I just want to sit and play with the kids all day tomorrow and listen and look into their eyes. They are each such wonderful little people. I will miss these days of their early childhood, which are so quickly fleeting, when sweet Rollin is perfectly content to wear a headband and ride a horse as Mary's little Joseph.

Rollin loves to jump!

It's Raining, It's Snowing!

Yesterday we had our first real snow of the year. There was plenty of snow for sledding and Sela built a little snowman. Nina had a little sledding scare and wound up wrapped around a blackberry bush, but she was brave little girl and with the help of Treela, Noah, and Sela, we were able to find her boots and get her out of the trees. We've made a quick jump to winter weather, leaving the beautiful fall behind. The first snow is always so exciting. The girls prayed for it, watched for it, and Sela woke up first yesterday and said "Mom, there's a white blanket of snow on the yard!" She has become very interested in the weather and asks to check the forecast on many evenings. I've enjoyed watching the wonder and excitement in each of the children's eyes as they watch the snow falling all around. Rollin was even mesmerized by it. Sela wanted to get him out of his bed yesterday to be the first to show him the snow. She took him to the window and he literally just sat and stared with his mouth a little bit open for at least a minute. The best things in life really are the simple things and I feel blessed to have my children to remind me to live in the moment and enjoy the here and now.

Sela's First Rock Climbing Experience

We went to Vertical World on Friday for Noah Stull's 5th birthday. Nina was too small to climb with gear, but she was able to climb on the lower walls. The first time Sela went up, she turned white and was very scared. She came down after getting about halfway up. She tried again two more times and went to the top. She is determined and I was very proud she gave it another try. I couldn't help but notice the physiques of some of the other serious climbers who were there climbing other walls. I felt very umm, un-toned watching them.