Christmas morning at our house was really nice. I'm still really wrestling with the whole Santa thing. I mean, I have no problem with Santa really, per se, especially when his story is told in the light of St. Nicholas...what I do have a problem with is the complete and utter commercialization of Christmas. The fact that to so many people, Santa IS what Christmas is all about. This bothers me. A lot. BUT, I'm not going to turn this post into a rant about Santa, I just wanted to give kind of a background so you'd know just how pleased I was with the sequence of events at our house Christmas morning.We decided to go to Christmas morning Mass at our parish, that way Jesus was the first focus of the day, and "Santa" left his gifts while we were at Mass. It just worked out beautifully. Everyone was happy, everyone had fun, and the first thing Gemma talked about when she woke up Christmas morning was Happy Birthday Jesus.She was very excited to finally light the white candle.
Putting baby Jesus in the manger.
Climbing on the table to blow the candles out (her favorite part), the last link from our chain is sitting on the wreath!
I posted quite the motley montage of pics of the kids in front of the tree a few days ago. Click here to check that out. And here's one of our family after Mass, all dressed up!
The presents were all arranged just so when we got home. It was fun and exciting for all of us. Well, Kolbe was pretty indifferent. He was just happy to have more wrapping paper to eat (he enjoyed it immensely on Christmas eve). We decided to do three gifts for each child, just as the wisemen brought three gifts to the Christ child. (plus a big gift for both of them and of course stocking gifts). For the three gifts we did an educational gift, a religious gift, and a fun toy. Gemma got some Melissa and Doug puzzles/pattern blocks, a new children's Bible and the Hideaway Hollow Cottage and furniture. Kolbe got a puzzle, a book about Jesus, and some balls to play with in the basement. And now for the pictures!Stockings (thanks Aunt Lorrie!)
Gemma trying to figure out the trampoline, the "big" gift to both kids (hey Gemma, now you can bounce on this instead of your bed....)
Clarice was by her stocking, and Kolbe got a very soft teddy bear for his crib. She may or may not only be wearing underwear in this picture.
Opening presents
She thought the "mouse house" was pretty cool. It seems like a neat toy. Reminds me of some of the Fisher Price Little People toys I had as a child.
Number puzzle
Singing ("Hark the Herald Angels Sing", I believe)
It was a great morning. Like I said, I was just really pleased with the way everything went. We were able to go to Mass together as a family and then come home and relax and enjoy our morning together, open gifts, eat, just be leisurely and hang out as a family with nothing in particular to do. Doesn't happen very often. ;-D I have to share one more picture. This is Gemma after getting up from her nap. I'm still not quite sure what happened to her hair. Apparently she was dreaming too hard or something....
Next up, Christmas with my family...
Christmas eve we always celebrate with my in-laws. It is a fun, relaxed, enjoyable time and I always look forward to it. Lots of good food and drink, hanging out, chatting, listening to Christmas music, opening presents of course, watching the kids play (Gemma, Kolbe and their cousin Cooper) and just enjoying being all together as a family (one of Aaron's brothers lives back east and he has a sis away at college). There was no one around to take pictures of the whole group, so we had a guys picture and a gals picture, which was kind of fun.The guys
The gals (I felt under-dressed, everyone else had just gotten back from Christmas-eve Mass, whereas Aaron and the kids and I went on Christmas morning.)
Me and my sweet girl. 
How she's changed since last year and the year before.And of course my honey and me!
My belly is much smaller than it was last year (and three years ago) at this time. ;-DAll three kids had fun play with Kolbe's new Zany Zoo from his grandma and grandpa.
My sis-in-law made a cool slide-show of pictures from the past five years, so we all had fun watching that. Except Kolbe. He was so worn out from all the festivities that he decided to conk out for the evening. Here he is snuggling with grandma while mommy and daddy got Gemma ready for bed and loaded the car. As you can see, grandma was more than happy to hold a sleeping baby.
Definitely another great Christmas eve in the books!
My Kolbe boy loves to eat. Here he is chowing down on some beef/venison and veggie soup. I sure think he's a handsome little dude. Messy, but handsome.
1. Sick children (they are well now, thankfully).2. Why do the people at the health food store (at least the one I frequent) always have to be so snotty. Or at least seem that way. I'd go there twice as often (and probably spend twice as much) if they were nicer. Maybe I'm just sensitive.3. Gemma has been reallllllly trying my patience lately. Strong-willed (not always a bad thing), obstinate, tantrums, and I mean EPIC tantrums, you name it. It frustrates me. A lot. I love her oh-so much, but I am really struggling with how to patiently deal with this stage of her childhood in a grace-filled way.To join in on Whiney Wednesday and 'keep things real' on your blog, click here for more info.
Gemma is a very good little mommy. I know I've said that more than once. ;-D She can be very nurturing to her little 'friends'. Aaron has a Kelty carrier he sometimes carries Gemma in when we go on walks. Its straps make it look like a big backpack (I guess that's what it is essentially). Apparently Gemma noticed its similarity to her little backpack, because this is how she was carrying her bunny around the other day (I guess she couldn't figure out how to rig it to where she could get him on her back). Anyways, I thought it was cute (sorry, the pic is backlit so it's not very good).
In less than a month our little Kolbe boy will be one year old! My heavens!! He has started really discovering the world around him as of late. When he's crawling, he will bend his arms and duck his head to look under furniture for things. He is very fascinated with the water as it runs into and drains out of the tub. He knows how to work our toy spinning-top. Figured it out all on his own. He likes banging spoons on bowls and dishes and taking our fridge-farm magnets off the fridge. You can just see his little mind at work as he explores and discovers. I love it! He has started doing this "oooohhhhhh" sound where he inhales and exhales excitedly. You always know he's going for something he shouldn't be into because he crawls very quickly towards the forbidden item making this sound. He also does this each morning when I carry him down the hallway and he catches a glimpse of our lit Christmas tree. It's like he's seeing it for the first time each day. So sweet. He signed "more" for the first time this month and is starting to wave more and trying to clap (sometimes). He can pull up on his knees but still not all the way to his feet. He's trying more and more new foods. Still two naps a day, bed by 8 and up around 7. Likes to sleep with us for most of the night and nurses quite a bit during the night and a handful of times during the day. He is a very snuggly guy, especially when he's sleepy. He was sick towards the latter part of this month but seems to have weathered the illness fine and is doing much better each day. We are looking forward to celebrating his first Christmas with our family!
One of the things I wanted to do during Advent was have a special focus on the O Antiphons. I just think they are beautiful. But I wasn't having a whole lot of luck finding good,concise resources for this. The book I have lists them individually with an accompanying picture, so this morning we just prayed the day's "O" as our prayer. Maybe next year we'll use the pictures and make some sort of display. But anyways, I was really wanting to find the verses that correlated with "O Come O Come, Emmanuel", I know I'd seen them listed by date in a hymnal before, but no dice. As I was browsing blogs this afternoon, I came across THIS and just had to share. It's exactly what I was looking for!! Daily prayers, songs, and pictures! All right in one nice printable document. Heavenly!! And here at Catholic Cuisine are some more neat O Antiphon resources and ideas. So there you are. May God truly be with us these final days of Advent, and may our hearts ever prepare for His coming. We wait in joyful hope.
1. The Christmas letters are mailed. Yes, for those of you following me on a regular basis, this is the third week in a row that the Christmas letter has made the small successes for one reason or another. Lame. I know.2. I've survived the week with two sick kiddos. My sanity is still sort of intact. I did make a really exciting trip to the mailbox Tuesday night, and driving to the bank and back yesterday was positively gleeful. So we haven't been totally cooped up. Just glad to have this out of the way before Christmas comes.3. I've been spending more time reading lately (Led By Faith in case you're interested). It is just so easy to let this blasted computer suck my brains out. I need to be more diligent.That's all she wrote folks. Take a second to say "way to go, you!" and share in others' successes over at Faith and Family Live!
We really have been enjoying Advent around here. As I mentioned previously, the tangibility of the daily prayer and other various activities, the waiting and hoping for the "goal" of Christmas day, it's all just a really great way for us to start anew and refocus our efforts at the beginning of a new church year. A wonderful and simple way to pray with children (and adults as well for that matter). Anyways, here are a few more things we've done. In celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego, we made these Mexican Crispas from Catholic Cuisine. I was hoping Gemma would be a little more into the project but alas, maybe next year. I'm not going to force it. We talked a little about Our Lady and Juan's visions of her using this book, and she helped me shake the bag of cinnamon and sugar to coat the fried tortillas, but had absolutely no interest in trying them. Weird. "Gemma," I told her, "it is tia (what she calls tortillas), sugar and cinnamon. What's not to like?!" No dice. Oh well, I enjoyed them. 
We were doing some painting on Saturday morning and I had Gemma paint this Advent wreath.
She had some guidance from me, but I was tickled that she was able to actually kind of paint the wreath 'correctly' rather than just doing a big old smattering of random colors (not that there's anything wrong with that). I think I'll do this project at the beginning of Advent next year and maybe hang our chain from it, then she can tape on a new flame each Sunday.This past Sunday, as I was grabbing a bulletin, holding a just woken up baby (and the coats, the hats, the bag, etc. etc.), trying to keep track of my daughter and husband as they made a beeline for the donut hall ;-D and chat with a few fellow parishioners, I happened to notice these little publications on a table in our Church gathering space. I picked one up for Gemma and she really enjoyed looking at it and coloring on it this week. She even proudly hung it on the fridge all on her own (upside-down, but hey!). It was a great tool for discussion about Mass and Advent in general. I hadn't noticed these the previous weeks, but then I wasn't looking. I am crossing my fingers that this is something they have started doing all the time and not just during Advent, I think this could really be a great thing for us.That's all for now. Can't believe we're more than half-way through the Advent season. It is exciting for Gemma to see our chain getting shorter each day as we near the celebration of Christmas, Jesus' birthday!
Putting baby Jesus in the manger.
Climbing on the table to blow the candles out (her favorite part), the last link from our chain is sitting on the wreath!
I posted quite the motley montage of pics of the kids in front of the tree a few days ago. Click here to check that out. And here's one of our family after Mass, all dressed up!
The presents were all arranged just so when we got home. It was fun and exciting for all of us. Well, Kolbe was pretty indifferent. He was just happy to have more wrapping paper to eat (he enjoyed it immensely on Christmas eve). We decided to do three gifts for each child, just as the wisemen brought three gifts to the Christ child. (plus a big gift for both of them and of course stocking gifts). For the three gifts we did an educational gift, a religious gift, and a fun toy. Gemma got some Melissa and Doug puzzles/pattern blocks, a new children's Bible and the Hideaway Hollow Cottage and furniture. Kolbe got a puzzle, a book about Jesus, and some balls to play with in the basement. And now for the pictures!
Gemma trying to figure out the trampoline, the "big" gift to both kids (hey Gemma, now you can bounce on this instead of your bed....)
Clarice was by her stocking, and Kolbe got a very soft teddy bear for his crib. She may or may not only be wearing underwear in this picture.
Opening presents
She thought the "mouse house" was pretty cool. It seems like a neat toy. Reminds me of some of the Fisher Price Little People toys I had as a child.
Number puzzle
Singing ("Hark the Herald Angels Sing", I believe)
It was a great morning. Like I said, I was just really pleased with the way everything went. We were able to go to Mass together as a family and then come home and relax and enjoy our morning together, open gifts, eat, just be leisurely and hang out as a family with nothing in particular to do. Doesn't happen very often. ;-D I have to share one more picture. This is Gemma after getting up from her nap. I'm still not quite sure what happened to her hair. Apparently she was dreaming too hard or something....
Next up, Christmas with my family...
