The Christmas Season

It's hard to believe Christmas is over and we're a few days into 2009. Below are a few photos from Christmas at home.

The kids' Christmas photo

Rosemary riding her Dora bigwheel, which Rosemary calls her "motorcycle." She has to have her pink satin gloves before riding...I guess because Jonathan wears gloves when he's on his scooter??

Matt and Stacey came through Gainesville on their way to Georgia. It was good to catch up.

After the Christmas Eve Service, Rosemary regaled us with a few tunes.

We spent Christmas morning at home before heading off to the Peine's. It was a great morning. We got up, got dressed, read Luke 2 and ate some cinnamon rolls. Rosemary was so good with helping Ben open his presents and would go back and forth between hers and his. She was very conscientious to take the bows off of the boxes so Benjamin wouldn't eat them.

Crafts for Christmas

I like crafty-type stuff. Below are a few Christmas crafts and gifts that I had time to make.

Brownie mix.

This was made at the last MOPS group of the semester. I'd never made homemade brownies before and Rosemary was very excited to help. The only thing, when we went to make them, the middle layer of brown sugar had hardened together so I had to stab it repeatedly with a knife just to get the mix out of the jar. The brownies were good, but I'm still a big fan of the triple chocolate chunk where I just have to add some water, oil, and few eggs.

Niece totes and t's

I potato stamped shirts and totes for our nieces on the Peine side. They turned out so girly. We did tractors for the Harris nephews.

Finally, I've been looking at ways to be "greener" around our house and one of the things that I'd read about was using homemade cleaners. First I tried homemade soft scrub. I really like it. It cleans my stainless steel sink better than anything else I've used. Then for fun, I made some laundry soap. It makes a ton (to be exact) so I took some down with me to give to Janice, Michelle, and Elizabeth. It was pretty fun to make.

Rosemary's Preschool Program

Rosemary had her first preschool program last month. Her class had a little party, but before we ate the kids sang a few songs. Rosemary didn't sing until the last song, but she had those hand motions down.

Singing "Twinkle, twinkle"

Jingle bells

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

This is Rosemary and her best buddy, Ian. Ian and his family moved to Texas over Christmas so he won't be there when Rosemary starts back to school. Those two were partners in crime.

Rosemary with Miss Teresa

With Miss Sam

Post-Christmas Cheer

A friend from MOPS sent me one of her family and I couldn't resist.

Merry (late) Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Cane Days

Last weekend we went to Cane Days with Jen, Nathan, and Gavin.

The boys enjoyed watching the men sawing the logs.

We saw a few friends playing some bluegrass.

The kids got to drink some cane juice. Jonathan describes it as a combination between sweet tea and apple juice.

Rosemary really enjoyed this game, but the poor guy in the shed looks less than thrilled that she's there.

Oddly, the three kids loved shucking the corn. Another little girl made Rosemary a cornhusk doll.

Ben spent the day in the Bjorn with dad.

This might have been a race. Nathan was really intense.

Tug o' war is not Rosemary's best game. I'm not sure that she even picked up the rope.

It took a little while, but Rosemary eventually started jumping in her sack. The race had finished a few minutes ago, but she had a great time.

You can check out more pictures on Jen's blog at www.alachuabremans.blogspot.com.

Ben's First Food

On December 3, Benjamin started rice cereal. He's doing really well, especially when we can use his fingers to help slurp the cereal down.

Ben at 5 Months

Five months already. Wow. Why does it seem faster this time around?

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend this year with family. The first part we spent with my family then headed to the Peine's on Friday. We didn't have our camera out the second part so I only have photos from Thursday.

It was Ben's first Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, he didn't get to chow down on any of the delicious food.

Happy first Thanksgiving, baby boy!

Rosemary loves this dollhouse at my parent's house. She can spend hours with this.

Oh, this is so Rosemary.

Pa-pa, Grandma and Ben

Jonathan carved the turkey. He's our family's new official carver--he did a great job.

The feast. Rosemary couldn't wait to eat.

What a meal!

Decorating for Christmas

We got our tree up a little early this year. It's our first year with our new "slim" tree. Since our living room is also our computer room now, we thought it might be good to downsize the tree.

The tree went up a lot faster than our old one. Yay for pre-lit trees!


Jonathan hung the star. Since this photo was taken, this star has stopped working so the kids and I went to Lowe's and got a new one today. We weren't too heartbroken. We really didn't like this one.

Rosemary helped a lot this year.

Jonathan hung up the bride and groom ornament...

...I hung up the Yacht Club ornament...

and Rosemary hung up her Minnie Mouse ears.

She also hung up a lot of other ones on the bottom half of the tree, some even on the same branch.

All done!

Computer Whiz

Jonathan has started to show Rosemary how to play games on the computer. It started out with playing a few Curious George games from the pbskids website, then moved onto playing a few computer games that my mom got her last year for Christmas. I had never installed them because I didn't think she could do them yet. I was wrong.

I used to teach basic computer classes at Housing. Rosemary is better at using the mouse than most of the adults were. I don't know if it's due to the fact that she's not scared of breaking anything or she's just so used to seeing Jonathan and me use the computer, but she's really good. Some of the games are beyond her since she can't read, but she can master the ones that involve puzzles and building things.