Ordinary Time

Today was the first day that we saw G. and L. trying to play with the same toy. It was so very, very cute. Remind me I said that in 6 months when it is not so cute anymore. Toy in L.'s possession...G. is thinking she would like to play with it. L. brings it nearer to G. without realizing the consequences. G. is successful in taking it away from L...much to L's surprise.

I can finally share with you what I was so busy sewing before Christmas. Since my children all read this blog, I couldn't show you before hand. First, we have sleeping bags for A. and P.'s American Girl dolls: Next are two play mats I made for TM and D. TM's is a farm background and D.'s is a forest. To store, they fold into quarters and are secured with a strap and button so they can hang on a hook in the closet. TM and D received some appropriate plastic animals as well. Finally, I made a set of felt food for K. The set includes bread, donuts, tomatoes, lettuce, bacon, fried eggs, and whole eggs. These were so easy and fun to make; I think I may be making him even more in the future. He could also use some cheese slices, and cookies, and ravioli, and.... And because no post is complete without baby pictures, here are the girls in some cute matching overalls sent by their grammy (G. is on left and L. is on right):

Some scenes from Christmas morning...on to the presents: I can't stand mess, so it's one person opening a present at a time, followed by cleaning up the wrappings. Only then may we move on to the next gift. It takes a while to get through all the gifts this way. L. looking at her gifts... And G. looking at her top. (Grammy is great at parity, both girls received the same toys.) K. and TM playing with the play mat M. made for K. She made it out of felt...it's her own design. K. has played with it a lot. D. and TM putting together their big Lego sets. This is how they each spent 3 hours on Christmas afternoon. Both boys were able to put together their sets with little help.

We have had a wonderful Christmas and hope all of you have as well. I have a lot of pictures to share, but will break it up into several posts since it takes so long to upload photos to blogger. We'll start with Christmas Eve... Here is everyone before we left for church and the Christmas pageant. We always host Christmas Eve dinner after the pageant. We had 23 sitting down, plus the baby girls. J.'s two sisters and their families and a Japanese grad student and his family joined us. On Christmas morning everyone waits upstairs until things are ready. (Meaning the coffee is made and I have my contacts in so I can see.) Then the children line up youngest to oldest and come downstairs. This is a tradition from J.'s family; I had no stairs in my house growing up. The babies slept horribly that night, so J. and I had been up for several hours already. Everyone else started to wake up at the more reasonable hour of 7:45. Gifts under the tree being examined. The first thing we...

Two pans of cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and three dozen crescent rolls which are a gift for one of our nephews. (Because, you know, it just isn't a holiday if dough isn't involved.) This still leaves with just enough time tonight to bake the gingerbread layer cake which will be Jesus' birthday cake tomorrow night after dinner. The end is in sight! I have finished all my sewing and gift preparation and J. will finish the wrapping while I bake this evening. That gives me tomorrow morning to get the house ready, set the table for dinner, and fuss with people's clothes while J. runs just a couple last errands. Because if it isn't done by 2:25 when we leave for church to start to prepare for the pageant, it isn't getting done. But I think we'll be OK. ------ On a completely unrelated note...does anyone out there have a sewing machine that also functions as an embroidery machine? Do you use the embroidery function and wonder how you would live wit...

So this is what it feels like to be rested. The baby girls slept the whole night. That makes last night's uninterrupted 7 hours the second full night of sleep I've had in a year. I think I might be able to finish Christmas preparations today...I have one more gift to sew. Nothing like a good night's sleep to return one's (possibly misplaced) optimism.

The discussion about our "white" couch in the comment section of this post makes me realize that perhaps some of you have an unrealistic picture of our life in the big ugly house. In order to disabuse you of the notion that we rival Martha Stewart for loveliness and organization, I will share some glimpses into what life really looks like around here. I can't think the last time we ate dinner before 7 pm. We used to eat at a more reasonable time, but the babies seem to need to nurse right when I should be preparing dinner. It's hard to eat at six when that's the time preparations are beginning. There are always toys everywhere, mainly due to K. I forgot what chaos-makers three year olds can be. K. is quite willing to help put away the toys, but doesn't quite understand that I don't want them to come out again immediately after picking up. Some evenings we don't get to the last scheduled pick-up time and I briefly think it would serve a robber right whe...