Christmas Has Begun

For some people Christmas doesn't truly begin until they've heard Handle's Messiah. For others it's reading the account of Christ's birth in Luke, or setting up the tree, or reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Caroling, seeing the lights, putting up the tree.

But for me? For me, Christmas doesn't truly begin until I've listened to this:

Thanks for making my childhood so awesome, Mom & Dad. :)

p.s. Lest you think I'm a horrible person, all of the above also play an important part in my Christmas. This one just holds an especially important part in my childhood heart.

Friday Night Lights

On Friday night we decided to try out a new Christmas activity: the Faith Baptist Living Nativity. They've been putting this on for years and lots of people had told us it was really worth seeing; I'm not quite sure why we waited so long.

So we got there a few minutes before they opened, which meant we had to wait a bit. In the cold.  I mean, it wasn't FREEZING, but it was pretty chilly. This made Cole angry. (Big Surprise.) ((Not a Surprise.))

Lance just loves activities like this: out in the cold, whiny kids, on a Friday night when he could be gaming...

So this nativity: it's not just a nativity.  There are something like 14 different scenes depicting different parts of the bible, starting with the fall of Adam and Eve and ending with the resurrection of Christ.  It's all done outside and all done with volunteers. Hundreds of volunteers. It was pretty impressive!

Here's Spencer in front of Moses and the burning bush. (The fire was in a fire pit decorated with metal leaves.)

As you walked along there was a short recording that told you about each scene and then would tell you when to move on.

There were even live animals involved!

They had a scene from Bethlehem with tons of little kids dressed up and walking around, acting as if they were in a marketplace. It was pretty cute and you could tell those kids were having a great time.

Cold Tess, however, was not having a great time. She was having a scowly time.

It took me a second glance to realize that the baby Jesus in this scene was made of rubber. It looked really realistic and I was starting to get nervous that he didn't have a hat on! Too realistic.  Creepy realistic.

Here's the Angel talking to the shepherds. I'm... not sure why his arms were stuck out like that.  I liked the cute sheep. The kids liked the smoke.

This was my favorite scene because CAMELS!! They're my favorite animal, in case you didn't know. Who knew I would ever see camels in Lafayette, Indiana?!

Look! This camel smiled for me. He knew I was a fan.

I tried to take a camel selfie, but it didn't work.  Lance to the rescue! (I feel like I look weird. And not just because I'm standing in front of a camel.)

This scene of Jesus calming the waters was pretty cool. I even took video of it.

Okay, I'm not gonna lie. Lazarus was a little weird. He looked like a mummy to me.

I didn't take any pictures from the crucifixion scene - it seemed wrong. (They used statues, in case you were wondering.) This guy was talking about... something... I don't know. By this point the kids were pretty cold and whiny and we just wanted to get done!

Annnnddd... then we saw disco Jesus.  I know, it's supposed to be Jesus resurrected.  But the lights kept flashing and there was lots of fog and it was a little weird. And Josh asked, rather loudly, "WHY DOES HE HAVE A GOLD CROWN?!?" And I had to explain that it was because Jesus is known as the King of Kings, and that was their way of representing that.  He started to ask about the lights and fog but I shushed him and distracted him with the thought of hot chocolate and cookies.

We went into their community center and enjoyed some very hot chocolate and cookies. There were lots of volunteers there to welcome you, chat, invite you to church, and make you feel rather uncomfortable sometimes. (What do you chat about when their main job is to get you to come to their church and you're not interested. And your kids are eating ssoooooo ssssslllloooowwww...)

In all, it was a pretty interesting experience. As we drove out of the parking lot I tried to talk to the kids about the differences between what we saw and what we believe.  There weren't many - we believe in the Bible and all that good stuff.  I pointed out that there were no references to the Book of Mormon, which the kids thought was weird. (I totally get it; when you're a kid, of course everyone believes the exact same things you do!) They all agreed that they would like to do it again next year and I think we probably will.  Even if it's not our church, all of us could do with a little more religion! :)

After the nativity we decided to hit our usual light show up in Battle Ground. (We were already halfway there, why not?) We waited and waited and finally got to see the show and Josh whined and Spencer was mean and Cole was impatient and Tess danced... so, pretty much like every other year.

We drove home, making sure we went up 9th Street because there's this rather large house that has a TON of lit-up decorations on the lawn and a Christmas tree in every window.  Impressive. (I couldn't get a picture of it, though. Dang.)

Once we were finally in our neighborhood we saw what is Tess and Cole's favorite Christmas display: the giant, lit-up PVC star.  "GIANT STAR!!! GIANT STAR!!! HAHAHAHHAAAAAHAHAA!!" This is what I hear for a good 5 minutes every time we drive by it.  Fun.

It was a really fun evening out with our family and I love that we do things like this.  I hope our kids grow up loving these traditions as much as I do.

COLIEHAPPYMOON

Cole likes to IM Lance at work through Steam. (I didn't even know he could type.) Cuteness ensues.

Apparently last week he updated Lance on the time - every minute. For several minutes.

Things to Remember from Today

1. Cole is adamant that he will see kangaroos at the living nativity we are going to on Friday night.  ADAMANT. There will be kangaroos or there will be blood.  Or a tantrum.

2. Tess came to the dinner table and proclaimed "I know how to read coloring books!"

3. Tess says Oh Mee Gosh. And it is adorable.

4. Metronet charged me $50 for a service call that was to take care of an installation issue and I didn't think I should have to pay it because it was their fault they had to come out. So I called and told them so and they credited our account.  I love good customer service!

5. Spencer cried for a solid 90 minutes over homework tonight.  I thought we were past this phase. I thought wrong.

6. I made yummy homemade bread to go with our soup for dinner.  Spencer sat down and said "What kind of bread is this?" And Josh requested "real" bread - meaning the whole wheat stuff I buy at WalMart. I make bread a lot, especially in the winter, so it's not like this was their first experience with the stuff.  Punks.

Cake Safe

Yesterday I made this delicious chocolate cake with coconut cream cheese frosting.

I know it's delicious because I tasted every part separately. True, the batter wasn't cooked, but I'm pretty sure it'll turn out.  Chocolate + Toasted Coconut = A Little Piece of Heaven

I'm okay with having cream cheese frosting out for a little while, but overnight felt a little weird.  There wasn't much room in either of my fridges so I decided the best place for it was out on the patio table.

However, just last month I had been cooling some cookies out there when I spotted our neighbor's cat, Charlie Mittens, just about to take off with some! (Our patio is screened in, but certain children (Tessie Mittens) felt that a door was just too hard to go in and out of and chose to destroy the screen instead.) I obviously couldn't just leave the cake out there uncovered, but I didn't want to cover it with plastic wrap because then it wouldn't be as pretty and I wasn't entirely convinced it would stop Mr. Mittens.

Then inspiration struck.

Behold my redneck cake safe!

It keeps the cake safe and just warm enough so that it doesn't freeze. It also keeps the cake out of sight and reach of certain children (Colie Mittens) who have been known to use their grubby little fingers to "take a taste" off the side of desserts.

Thirty-seven (True Story)

Thursday was a my 37th birthday.  Poor 37 - it's not really a birthday that demands a lot of celebration, is it?  It doesn't end in a 0 or 5, it's not life-changing like 16, 18, or 21.  Nope, it's just kinda in the middle, happily chugging along to 40.

The day started with doughnuts and apple fritters from Mary Lou's.  Any birthday that starts like this is a good birthday.

I'm going through a chocolate and coconut thing right now.  So yummy.

True story: my birthday present to myself was forgetting to set my alarm and waking up 20 minutes late. Oops.  But because of that I woke up and thought "I don't really have time to do a good run right now.  But I do have time to go get doughnuts for breakfast!" And then I ran 3.7 miles later in the morning, so it all worked out.

Since my birthday was on a Thursday we didn't go for dinner; I just didn't want to deal with it on a school night.  I did, however, get to have lunch at Moe's with Lance, Cole, & Tess.  True story: we totally thought Cole was going to spill his drink all over the place walking from the Coke Freestyle machine to our table, but that honor was left to the birthday girl instead. Lance had gotten my drink for me and put it on the table right next to my elbow as I was turned the other way to help Tess.  It was as explosive as you can imagine.  The lady at the table next to us laughed at me.  Happy birthday!

We didn't have cake for my birthday, either.  That's because we had doughnuts for breakfast, plus we had leftover brownies from a couple of nights earlier, plus I'm making cake for Mom's Group next week, plus I didn't want to make a cake for me.  So there.

But we did have presents.

What a lucky, lucky girl I am! Josh got me fancy campfire roasting sticks, Spencer got me the canning book (which has been on my wishlist for ages), Cole got me the paper cutting (also desperately needed), Tess got me the Cricut tools, Dad & Susie the family-sized waffle iron (also desperately needed), and Lance got me a Cricut Explore!!  Woo-hoo!!

True story: most of Friday was spent neglecting my children and playing with my new toys.

Lance made me this card.

So last week I had decided that I wanted to see the lights at Monument Circle down in Indy because I had never seen them at Christmas. And since I had a free birthday burger from Red Robin we headed down to Carmel. True story: Carmel has TWO Red Robins and one LDS temple (almost) and Lafayette has none of these things. Life is not fair.

We ate dinner about 90 minutes later than normal, so the kids were ravenous.  Spencer is particularly in love with Red Robin right now - he must be developing a palate, because he claims their burgers are better than McDonald's. (Something he probably wouldn't have even contemplated a year ago.)

And then there's Tess. Tell her to smile and you get this.  She kinda stole the show from Josh in the background. (I tried to get a picture of Cole, but he wouldn't hold still.)

This lovely picture of me.  Attractive.

So I kept hoping and praying that the rain would let up and we could get out and walk around the circle, but no luck.  It poured and poured, so we just drove around the circle twice.  True story: after driving around downtown Indy I am now bound and determined to have a couple of history-themed field trips to Indy this summer with my kids.  Much to their chagrin.  Anyone wanna join?

The drive home was uneventful.  Poor Cole did NOT want to go home. He thought we were going to see the lights that were set to music, so he was sorely disappointed with Monument Circle. (There was a building that lit up it's windows to make different pictures, but Cole was not impressed.) ((I was.))

And Tess entertained us by putting clothing stickers in weird places. True story: she's obsessed with clothing stickers that say "3T" because she thinks it stands for Tess is Three. She gets stickers like that squirrels them away, so that they're always popping up around the house.

So 37 wasn't the most exciting birthday ever. No matter - it was still a pretty great one. True story.

Growth Spurt

The other day Cole was getting dressed and I commented on his shirt. "You are getting too big for that shirt, Cole! You've been growing!"

"No I haven't. It's not my birthday. I haven't turned 6 yet."

After a brief discussion I realized that he thought you only grew on your birthday.

I mean, that's pretty cute. But also? Genius. I mean, how much easier would it be if your child only grew on their birthday? Well, I guess I wouldn't want a newborn for a full year; that's insane. So let's just say this would start when they turned three and lasted until they were around 18 or so. They'd go to bed and then wake up on their birthday morning a few inches taller.

No more guessing which clothes will fit and for how long! You'd just measure them their birthday morning and get shopping that afternoon.  Sure, their pants might be a little tight that day, but that could totally be part of a birthday tradition or rite of passage!  Wearing floods?  Happy birthday!

Little kids would only grow an inch or two per year. (Unless you're Josh, who grew more than three inches last year!) Teenagers would grow more. Some would stop growing at 16 or 17, others at 20.  Total guessing game.

True story: I had a random growth spurt in my Junior year in high school and grew a good inch and a half.  My mom wasn't too keen on buying me all new pants halfway through the school year, mainly because she thought I was done growing.