The Holidays, Part 4: Kirby Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving, we packed up and headed to North Carolina to see Greg's side of the family. Because we wouldn't all be able to get together in December, we celebrated Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. As always, we had so much fun. Jack and Luke have a ridiculously tight bond for being so young, and Anna thought that Grace and Amelia were the coolest girls in the world:). And now, the weekend in pictures:

Our attempts to get a picture of all the cousins were predictably disastrous. *Sigh* Why is it always my child screaming? (Right now, all my relatives are answering: "Because it was always YOU screaming in the pictures. The apples don't fall far from the tree:).") Regardless, both of them are always happy to fill the "screaming child in group pictures" role, like in this "cousins" pic from Christmas, 2007:

Oh, well...moving on:):

When Anna first opened the bassinet and blanket for her baby doll (from Uncle Rob), she decided to try it out herself. But she soon caught on.

All of Anna's gifts were a hit with everyone. This toy blender (from Uncle Chris and Aunt Jill) is a great example.

Grace and Luke helped Anna open her last present. She had completely lost interest, and they were still in full present-unwrapping mode.

The girls (and Gigi) bonded over baby dolls....

...while the boys connected over trains. They each got a train book from Gigi and Papa, and after finishing up with "Christmas," they quickly headed down to spend some quality time with Papa's trains. Here they are making a "bridge" over the train:

Whew! What a fun week we had! We are so blessed with such wonderful friends and family. Man, we have it good:). And now...I am caught up on blogging!

The Holidays, Part 3: Thanksgiving

[I went back and counted, and there are 27 million pictures in this post. Consider yourself warned:).]
This year, my family (including my parents) spent Thanksgiving with our friends, the Noe's, the Prettymans, and the Turnbulls. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, the Noe's are extremely good friends of our family and have been ever since their daughter, Amanda, dated my brother, Mike, while they were both in high school. Amanda eventually married Stephen Prettyman, and we love him and his family also. So, for those trying to keep track at home, we spent Thanksgiving with my deceased brother's ex-girlfriend's eventual husband's extended family. I love how God works. You never see it coming:).
The Noe/Prettyman Thanksgiving tradition has evolved into a pretty elaborate affair in the few years since Amanda and Stephen's marriage, and it was a lot of fun to be a part of it. Most importantly, there was a lot of food:

The Noe's also busted out their chocolate fountain from Amanda's wedding. Do you see why we love them?:)
There were also a lot of kids:

And a lot of adults, too:
This picture was taken from the center of the "L" shape of the table. There is a whole other wing to the right. The Prettymans (sitting nearest in the picture) have five children, so it's a big family. And this big family likes to play games and plan activities. For example, they had a scavenger hunt for the kids.
Luke's team. He was by far the youngest participant, and he spent most of the time trying to track down/keep up with his own teammates:). But he did find one clue himself:
In the end, both teams found their prizes:

Next, it was off to a hayride at our church's property, the campground where I used to live:

Leaning against Mr. Noe.

Whew, is this day still going? Yes, it is. After the hayride, we went back to the Noe's for pumpkin carving...

...and singing.
The Prettymans are a "worship pastor" family (the dad, two sons, and a son-in-law are all worship pastors), so in addition to being amazingly nice, they are also very musically inclined. And we are, um, a Church of Christ family, which means we like to sing, and we own our own collection of hymnals. So it worked out. We taught them "The Greatest Commands," and they saw our "Greatest Commands" and raised us one "Hallelujah Chorus." Wow. Both sounded incredible in a room full of such talented people.
So, it was a good Thanksgiving. Still oddly emotional b/c of Mike, but a good day nonetheless. I could not have picked better people to spend it with.

The Holidays, Part 2: Fun with Granddaddy

Some of my kids' favorite time at their grandparents' house is spent jumping and rolling around on their bed.  Usually, there is at least one grandparent there to join in the fun.

The Holidays, Part 1: Christmas Confession

I have a vivid memory of Mike and me at Lipscomb University the week before Easter.  He was a Freshman, and I was a Junior.  Because we are spoiled rotten, my mom still sent us big Easter baskets in the mail while we were at college.  Of course, she sent it a few days early, so we would have it to open on Easter Sunday.  Thus, our baskets arrived on the Thursday or Friday before.  The previous two years, I would take my Easter basket back to my room, not even opening the box it came in until Easter.  So I was shocked--SHOCKED--when Mike took his Easter basket box from the postal worker, walked right into the adjoining student center, and started tearing into it.  I stood paralyzed, mouth agape, until I could find the words.  "Mike!  What are you doing??!!"  Mike looked at me, surprised.  "You can't open your Easter basket!" I exclaimed. "It's not EASTER!"  At that point, Mike smiled calmly, got up, walked over to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said in mock earnestness, "Kim.  You're free.  You're free."

He was mocking, of course, my strict adherence to rules of all kinds, including holiday rules.  Like, you open your Easter basket on Easter.  And you don't set up Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving (or, at most, three days after Thanksgiving.  You have the weekend:)).  I thought of this memory several times as I succumbed to Luke's pleas and put up the Christmas decorations the Thursday and Friday before Thanksgiving.  He was so excited, and it made sense to our family, since we were going to be out of town the whole week of Thanksgiving, coming back tonight (Sunday) to start a busy week.  It was wonderful to come home to Christmas decorations.  Even though it did break "the rules."

I must say that having the kids participate in the process was a huge help.  For one thing, they helped me haul the boxes down the stairs:

They helped me get out the ornaments:

And unload the rest of the decorations:

And hang the ornaments:

After years of being neglected, the bottom of the tree finally got its due!

They helped me put the Christmas sheets on the bed:

And they thought the whole process was loads of fun:

And now, we're all finished!  Let the holidays begin!

Dreams

On most mornings, we ask Luke what he dreamed about. He always says the same thing: "Trains." I don't think he has dreamt about trains every night of his life. I'm not sure he understands what dreams are, despite our attempts at explanations. Either that, or he doesn't remember his dreams.

One day after Anna woke up from her nap, I asked her if she dreamed. She immediately responded, "Yeah." Since that's what she responds to everything, I asked her what she dreamed about. She paused. "Ganddad." "You dreamed about Granddaddy?" "Yeah." Aw, that's nice. We were silent for awhile while I played with her hair. Then she said, "Ganddad fish." "You dreamed that Granddaddy was fishing?" "Yeah."

Hmmm. That was interesting. But the next time we asked what she dreamed about, she again responded, "Ganddad." "Were you and Granddad fishing?" "Yeah." "Were you out on the lake?" "Yeah." "Were you in the pool?" "Yeah." "Were you in the house?" "Yeah."

Again, hmmmm. :)

But the "dreaming" has continued. Yesterday morning, I asked what she dreamed about. She immediately answered, "Hop." "Hop" is one of her classmates at church. Most other people call her "Hope." :)

Then this morning, she volunteered her dream, before I even asked. Out of nowhere, she said, "I jeamed bout Miss Lindsey, Mama."

Wow. I don't know what is weirder: that my not-quite-two year old daughter remembers and relays her dreams to me, or that she remembers to make up what she dreamed about. Both possibilities baffle me:).

Project Life

Anyone who I talk to on even a casual basis probably knows that I am doing a scrapbook called Project 365 this year.  I even blogged about it here. 

And now, as the year is rapidly drawing to a close, I have to gush about how much I have LOVED Project 365.  It was work to take a picture every day, but it does get easier once you are in the habit.  I only missed five days, and each day, I was able to go back and take a picture of something representative of that day.  For instance, I forgot to take a picture one day when Anna was sick all day with a mystery fever.  Well, the next day, I just took a  picture of the Tylenol and Motrin that we had been alternating throughout the day.  And that was my picture for the day before. 

Project 365 is the easiest "scrapbooking" I have ever done.  In fact, I can hardly call it scrapbooking, though I do have a scrapbook to show for my efforts.  Here is what it looks like:

And here is a sample layout from a week in June:

The convenience of it is one of the things I love most about this scrapbook.  The other thing I love most is that it tells about our lives.  I mean, REALLY tells about our lives.  I have been a scrapbooker since high school.  I have scrapbooked wonderful baby books for the kids, and one "family scrapbook" that picks up where Luke's baby book ends and continues a year and half, up to where Project 365 starts.  I put a lot of time into that 2007-08 family scrapbook.  And now, when I look back, I realize that I still don't have a great idea of what our life was like then.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I see all of the holidays and birthdays we celebrated.  I see the trips we took.  And there are some wonderful pictures from those events.  But I have no memory, and no record (other than my blog, of course) of day to day life during that time period.  And since I'm a historian, as opposed to an artist, that bothers me.  I want to record the blessings of my family's days.

THIS year, in 2009, I know what happened.  I know what life was like.  I know what parks we went to and when my kids got sick and when Gaga visited.  I know our schedule and when we struggled with nap times.  I know when Luke took swim lessons, and when he started preschool, and when he played soccer.  I know when we had good days and bad days.  I know how my kids changed every day.  I know about the phase where Luke always had to wave goodbye to whoever left, and about the time he walked into preschool with no shoes and the teacher had to call us.  I have pictures of his different train layouts.  I will remember the car carts we got at Publix and the cute dresses Anna wore to church and my first experience teaching 2-3 year olds at church.  I will remember because I have pictures.

I have pictures of every time we saw Uncle Mike before he died.  I have a picture of him and Luke holding the lizards they caught together, Luke's first lizard-catching experience.  I have a picture of him and Luke in the attic, where Uncle Mike had hidden a "treasure map" for him.  I have a picture of him lying on the floor with Luke stacking up blocks. 

I have a picture of every day, and that is amazing.

"Okay," you might be asking, "What does this have to do with me?"  Well, I'll tell you.  The woman who designed Project 365 has designed another scrapbook called, "Project Life."  It is very similar in concept except that it is much more flexible.  You can easily do the picture-a-day route with this new kit, OR you can be looser.  I must say, I am SO glad that I did Project 365, but I can't aim for a picture a day again.  It is just too much.  BUT I love that I am taking pictures regularly instead of just once or twice a month.  So I think I'm going to do a spread for the week, just like I did with P365, but this time, I might have all pictures from one or two days.  Just 7 pictures a week, not one pic a day.  Believe me, that is a BIG difference.  And it will help when I get a bunch of really cute photos one day, but nothing for the next two.  With P365, so many cute photos fell by the wayside, because I didn't have enough room.

Project Life just went on sale, and it is less than $40.  Since my finished Creative Memories scrapbooks have cost around $150 (once you buy the album, the pages, the protectors, and the yearly kit), I view that as an amazing deal.  Plus, you don't have to actually "scrap," and yet, you have a beautiful album at the end.

So that's my commercial for Project Life (and I didn't even get paid!).  You can read all about it for yourself here.

Lazy Saturday

Okay, this morning wasn't very lazy because Greg had a flag football game at 8:00 (8:00!!!  WHAT were they thinking?!), and Luke had a soccer game at 9:00.  But now that they are over, we have a totally clear day.  The teen's soccer game that Greg was supposed to go to was rescheduled for last night, so now we have total freedom.  And I think we are going to putter it away at home:).  As an example of our puttering, Greg took some pictures of the kids sharing Anna's rocking chair.  The room is a mess, and Luke is wearing the remnants of his soccer uniform (having ditched the jersey and socks), but the faces are priceless:

The standard, "Cheese."  With Project 365, my kids are so very used to getting their picture taken.  Can you feel their enthusiasm?  Well, Greg decided to try to make them laugh.  See if you can guess what he did: