Merry Christmas!!

Getting a family picture always proves to be harder than I anticipate.  We now have come up with a system using the tripod where Marty gets it all set, Benjamin pushes the button then they race back to the chair and jump on just in time for the camera to go off and take the picture.  

Turned out pretty good considering the squirming and screaming that you can't see that happened at the same time.
Here are some outtakes...yes, Benjamin is the one who is typically "off" in each photo:

And a few of the kids:

And a Christmas song from Benjamin:

A Boy and His Cat

 Benjamin has always been very VERY sweet to Sophie, our cat, as well as just about any and every animal he comes in contact with.  If we see a dog anywhere he rushes over to ask the owner if he can pet it.  Even when he was going through his really aggressive, angry stage this summer he never once hit or was mean to Sophie.  They both really like sitting in the little blue chair in front of the fire.  They both really like to sit there together just soaking up the heat.

 After getting up fairly early one morning and a bit of time in front of the fire he wanted to snuggle with me on the couch and this is what happened about 5 minutes later.  It has been about a year since he has taken an actual nap and he must have needed it.  I was able to sneak out after about 20 minutes of sweet snuggles and he ended up sleeping for 2 hours.

Decorating and Rosabelle the Elf

 Since Marty is fundamentally opposed to chopping down a Christmas tree... unless it is in our own yard like last year, we headed to a local tree lot and picked out our tree.

 Josie, as usual, had a definite opinion about which tree was to be ours. Josie and her pick.

The last couple years Marty has gotten in on the decorating and it is much more fun for everyone.  I normally don't put ALL the ornaments on the tree and if I do I hide the ornaments that I don't like very much in the back.  When these three decorate all the ornaments go in the front.  It is a bit crowded but it is decorated with love and a lot of enthusiasm. 

 Most of the Christmas decorations I have gotten from my mom over the years.  This nativity set below I bought while on a family trip to Israel and this set was bought in Bethlehem back in 1995 (ish).  The kids like to use it like a doll house even though I tell them it isn't a toy.  Lately Josie yells from the other room, "Mom, Benjamin is playing with your Jesus center thingy!"

 My mom was clearing out all of her Christmas decorations a few years back.  It was the middle of summer and Christmas was the last thing on my mind.  But I took it all and now I'm so glad I did.  These candle sticks were my mom's and the advent calendar was a gift from Julie to the kids when she lived here.  The pointsettia table runner I bought in Mexico back in 1999 in Mexico City, I believe My friend and traveling partner, Marjie, convinced me to buy this and in the middle of July I thought it was a silly choice but every year I bring it out I have fond memories of our epic Mexico trip.  A journey that took us from the outer beaches off of Cancun across the entire country of Mexico where we then flew out of Cabo San Lucas.  Thank you Julie and Marjie and Mom for all of the awesome decorations and the memories.

 These snowmen.. also from Mom.

 As well as these elves and a bunch of other decorations that we put up each year.

This year Josie said all she wanted for Christmas was an "Elf on the Shelf."  I was a bit hesitant because that is a lot of work for, ummm.. the elf to have to fly back to the North Pole each night and then sneak back in the house and hide in a new and unique place each morning.  Josie received her elf for our traditional Julklapp exchange at Thanksgiving.  It was a boy, it even says so on the box.  It says "I am a boy" and Josie really wanted a girl elf so she just took a Sharpie marker and crossed out the "I am a boy" and wrote over the top of it, "I am a girl" and then proceeded to name her elf, Rosabelle. She turned out to be a bit naughty.  She often would just hide on a shelf or in the tree or someplace no so unique but several times she was caught doing naughty things.  A couple times she was found on top of the TV set.. watching it of course.  She also was found in a bag of M&M's and even once was on the couch playing the guitar.  No photo representation of those.  

Below she stole Josie's glasses and prompted herself up to watch some T.V. 

 She was also caught kissing one of the nutcrackers

 Reading to the Christmas friends.

 And trying to get some hummingbird nectar

Rosabelle turned out to be more fun and less work than I had anticipated. We will say goodbye to her tonight (Christmas Eve) and look forward to more of her antics next year. 

Weihnachtsfeier‏

The kids had a little party and performance for their final day of German school of the year.  Josie and her friend Bryn's class did a little song about a German bakery and Benjamin's class was supposed to sit up on the stage and shake some bells but he preferred sitting on my lap waiting for the go ahead on the treats and sweets table.

Benjamin made it up on stage for part of the performance

Josie does not like us to take photos of her, especially if it is during some kind of organized performance. Benjamin on the other hand is quite the ham.

Baking Elves

The kids and I did A LOT of baking this holiday season.  We started the weekend after Thanksgiving and just kept going, putting them in the freezer as we went,  up until about a week ago when arranged about 20 plates with 6 varieties of cookies and treats.  It really was a lot of fun and we came up with a pretty good system.  Benjamin always helped with the measuring out and mixing of the dough while Josie was in school.  He has always liked to "help" me in the kitchen but he especially likes to use the "power tools" associated with mixing. 

Our first cookie was my main cookie and one I have made for Christmas for nearly 20 years.  It has peanut butter, chocolate chips, peanut M&M's and regular M&M's... of course I would make these every year!!

Keeping the M&M's out of his mouth is nearly impossible.  

 Next up was a basic sugar cookie... he had fun mixing those, too.

 See, big Benjamin smiles.

 Next was classic gingerbread men, women and houses.  And more smiles.

 We also made candy cane cookies, peppermint bark and this picture is us making the last of the six, festive lime shortbread.  We have an awesome kitchenaid mixer that my friend, Mary Ann,  gave us for our wedding.  I use it all the time but I doubled most of the recipes so they wouldn't fit in the bowl.  The lime shortbread finally fit and he was thrilled to use the "big mixer"

Josie got in on the cutting and decorating.  

 Benjamin tried to decorate too but his cookies looks like someone dumped an entire bottle of sprinkles on them... because that is exactly what he did.

 Josie knows that I really like red hots... so she made this one for me and it was delicious.

 Josie loves helping to roll out and form the candy cane cookies. This was at the end after we had run out of the white dough so we just made red candy canes to use up the rest of the dough.

 She also really loves unwrapping the candy canes and breaking them up with a kitchen mallet.

 And finally near the day of delivery we decorated the sugar cookies.

 Benjamin quite literally dumped the entire cup of mini chocolate chips on one and then said "Mom, the one with all of the chocolate chips is mine, OK?"  Haha.. he couldn't even look at me for a photo he was so focused on his cookie.