'Tis the Season

The day after Thanksgiving, which was later than usual this year, we set to work setting up our Christmas trees in the house.  The kids were itching to do this -- especially because there was predicted snow moving in by the next day and they wanted to have the house lit up and cozy.  

I love that the kids are able to do so much of it on their own now -- the hauling up of branches from the basement, lugging around totes of ornaments, testing strings of lights to make sure that they work before actually putting them around the trees and even vacuuming after the floor is covered in tiny (fake) green needles.

They even turned on the 'fireplace ambience' on the TV while playing Christmas music on the speakers.

Sam went 'all-out' and donned her Christmas sweater, socks and earrings.  Like I said, the kids were really excited to help. 

They were quite the team.

Not a single ornament got broken ...

And they were so careful not to ruin any boxes from the ornaments (and we have A LOT of them).

Yup, the snow was starting to move in ...

Even Mia made it into a picture with her honorary ornament with her name on it.

And the angel ... this did cause a bit of controversy.  Every year, I have to look back to see who put the angel on the tree the year before to determine whose 'year' it is now.  One year, for some reason, the order got mixed up and now it is not as easy to discern the pattern.  After a bit of bickering, we settled on Sophia and had her stand on a small bench.  Up until now, Steve has always lifted the kid up to reach but we have hit the point where they are just too big for that.  Ha!

Now, I just need to work on the rest of the trees for the house.  I think that we will limit it to just 3 main trees this year with a small one in each of the girls' rooms.  Maybe the boys will ask for one in the basement (where their rooms are), but I am not sure ...

Frankenmuth - 2024

Before Thanksgiving, we decided to take the kids to Frankenmuth for a small day-trip.  We wanted to go before it got too busy for the holiday season and I was hopeful that we could take a few pictures and find one that would work for our annual Christmas card.

It was much colder than we anticipated and some of the kids (who will remain nameless for now) did not bring a coat with them for some reason.

We spent a bit of time inside Bronner's -- the largest Christmas store in the world.  While it was warm, I was surprised just how crowded it was and we all agreed that it was time to move on.

Obviously Jimmy was one of the few that brought a coat.  I have trained him well.

We ended up using this photo for our Christmas card picture this year:

Afterwards, we walked the streets and made sure that everyone got some hot chocolate so that they could warm up.  This picture turned out so nice that I almost considered it for our Christmas card picture!

By lunchtime, everyone was hungry so we stopped for a family lunch on the way home and talked about our plans for decorating for Christmas.  Thanksgiving is late this year -- in fact, it is the latest date that it can ever be (November 28th) -- so we won't be setting up our Christmas trees until NEXT weekend, after the holiday.  I know that a lot of people like to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving, but I am not one of them.  While I love Christmas and all of the magic and sparkle, I also love Fall and want to make both of the seasons last as long as they can.

Samantha's 16th Birthday

For years, we have celebrated the kids' birthdays with both friends and family.  Consistently, I have based the birthdays around a theme (with no duplicates!) and have always chosen something that the kids are interested in and love at that time.  

As they are getting older, they are deviating away from that and opting for a smaller celebration.  Some things will never change though -- we always have cinnamon rolls with a candle and sing happy birthday on their birthday morning.

Samantha's only request for her birthday this year was to have me make a cake (obviously!!!) and she asked for a 'jeep cake' since that is what she is driving now.  I added her to our insurance policy the morning of her birthday because she is officially a certified driver.

I did not use a mold and simply created her jeep cake from scratch and it turned out pretty good for something in 3D.  She loved it and it truly looks like the jeep that she is driving since I tried to match the color as closely as possible and make it only have 2 doors.

And, in true fashion, I couldn't just do a cake and not bring in a few streamers and other decor, so I surprised her with some sparkly silver.

She is almost as tall as Steve now, like only shorter by 3 inches or so.  Obviously she surpassed my height a long time ago.

New converse shoes.  Converse shoes have now come back in fashion and she asked for red ones for her birthday.

Sophia picked out a jewelry organizer for her because it was a hot mess up in her room with random necklaces, rings, earrings and whatnot scattered about on her vanity and dresser top.

Of course, Ainsley was over from next door for the festivities and I love how serious they are in this picture separating some of the jewelry that I had picked out for her to add to the organizer.

Happy 16th birthday to my first-born; the girl that made me a momma and who is becoming more and more independent every day.  We are so incredibly proud of her!

(A side note on the cut-out '16' on the wall: I drew and cut the numbers out myself by hand and when I originally cut out the '6' it was slight disaster.  I am not even sure where I went wrong when drawing it, but suffice to say that it is not very easy to cut out a '6.'  I discretely threw it into the trash and made a second/better one.  Sophia found the embarrassment and showed it to everyone ... which made for some great laughs.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered a couple of days later that my family was actually saving it to randomly pull out whenever we needed a chuckle.  It has since been properly disposed of, ha!).