The Post Christmas Post!

Festivities with the family
Cousins and best friends
Annual gingerbread house building with our best friends
Icing, yum!
Getting creative with the mixer!
Twist it! Can't beat a classic!
One of Sweet Pea's favs
Something for Pun'kin Head and daddy!
Kids church Christmas musical
Pun'kin Head's Christmas carols
If it goes above the head that's code for a great gift!
Thank you, Auntie for the American Girl stuff!

Here's the random montage of our MANY days of Christmas celebrations. And we are STILL celebrating with more get-togethers with our wonderful friends and family.It was a very special year for us and the last Christmas in this house where our kiddos have grown so beautifully. We look ahead to a New Year of blessings and BEING a blessing. Hope you all made some fond memories this Christmas season. For we don't remember days or seasons, but rather moments!

A Very Merry Christmas To All!

In between, cooking an early Christmas Eve dinner and baking yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cake for Christmas morning breakfast, I thought I'd write a quick post to say Merry Christmas!
In the midst of all the chaos the next few days may bring, while visiting and gathering together with loved ones near and far, may you hold those dear to you a little bit closer. I pray that you would feel the incredible love of the Savior, whose birth we are celebrating, in a very REAL way. That the lyrics to all those great Christmas songs we sing will have new meaning to you as you hear them. That in the midst of all the giving and getting, that you do not forget the One Who gave up everything to come to earth to live and die for us. O' come let us adore Him, for He is Christ the Lord. My kids have always said, "Jesus is so awesome, even though Christmas is His birthday, we get all the presents!"
Merry Christmas :)

Eating and Staying Healthy Through The Holidays!!

It's that time of year again! Every direction you turn there are treats a plenty, treats galore! Offices are brimming with countless plates of Christmas cookies and every party has a feast spread out before you. Everyone else is digging in. What's a person, who is trying to be a healthy eater, to do?

My answer might surprise you, but I say get in there and ENJOY! It only comes once a year and if you've been faithful to eat healthy ALL YEAR LONG, than indulge a little and celebrate! Of course, use common sense ie: All things in moderation. I can tell you from personal experience, that all too recently, I OVER-INDULGED at a holiday gathering and paid for it the next morning! My body naturally couldn't handle digesting some of the rich foods, that I don't normally eat, and sent my intestines on the fast track to removing the offensive foods. You get the picture, I'm sure.

Are you worried about the inevitable sugar-high your kiddos will get when they indulge in sweets that are normally not readily available at home? It's my experience that at most gatherings, the only foods which seem "kid-friendly" ARE the sweets. My kids are afraid to try fancy hors d' oeuvres and appetizers that they are not used to. My suggestion is to feed your kids healthy all day long and fill them up with an early, healthy dinner before you head out to a holiday party. They won't be so hungry and will have something healthy in their bellies first. Then they can have some guilt-free treats of their own. Be careful to monitor their trips to the buffet table so they don't end up with a tummy ache. They often don't know when to stop snacking, because the food is readily available, much like many of us adults! Allow for a couple cups of punch, then when they are thirsty (as they usually become while running around excitedly and playing) tell them only water then to help flush everything out.

Also, allow for proper rest for kiddos who have been up later than normal at parties, as their little bodies both heal and grow while they sleep. We'd be wise to follow the same advice. Make sure you remind them to wash, wash, wash their hands, especially before eating. Proper and often hand washing is just as effective as an annual flu shot. So LOTS of bubbles! If they don't see many bubbles, they need to repeat. Teach them to sing the ABC's to scrub long enough and rinse well. Antibacterial soaps don't do much. It's the act of rinsing that actually causes the germs to slide off our hands and down the drain. Regular soap is fine. Try not to overuse alcohol-based hand sanitizers, which can be extremely drying. Use only when a sink and soap are not available. Keep an eye on your kiddos hands. They don't think to apply hand moisturizer after washing, like we do. Keep some on the sink where little hands can reach it. Cracked and broken skin on hands can invite infection, as hands pick up more germs than any other body parts. Switch from alcohol-based hand sanitizers to Silver Shield. It's pure silver and pure water, does not dry skin out and keeps killing germs for four hours before needing to be reapplied. Use it also to clean all surfaces that hands touch ie computers, phones, remotes, door handles etc... If you haven't read my posting on the benefits of Silver Shield, check it out under "healthy living".

The holiday season will be a better experience if we are healthy. And we can then enjoy all the special foods and activities that we look forward to each year :) May you be blessed with good health now and in the New Year!

More Christmas Decor!

Our cream and gold tree bejeweled with crystals and pearls
Angels we have heard on high...
Our mantle filled in with some fresh greenery and St. Nicholas' lining our stairs
Our word tree
Sweet Pea's tree
Pun'kin Head's tree

Well, we are finally feeling the spirit of Christmas around here and just in time!

What are the holidays without traditions?

I can't say that I have specific memories about what I received each year for Christmas as a child. But I do have great memories of our family traditions. The ornaments from the old trunk that my brothers would carefully pass down from our crawl space attic, the night we would drive down to Boston to visit my Great Aunt and go see the fancy department store window displays and the beautiful neighborhood lights. My Nana was a Portuguese immigrant and we always celebrated the Epiphany on Jan. 6th (as kids, we referred to this as "Little Christmas" as we would still receive presents on that day). Many foods evoke memories for me as well. My Nana's homemade ravioli that would stretch across her small apartment table, even the ironing board was put into service. Smelling my mom's sauce and manicotti baking. Sitting at the "kids table" and the long wait to be old enough to sit at the "grown-up table".

Over the next two weeks spend some time thinking about what traditions you enjoy with your family and think about adding some new ones to your list. It will make the holidays more special and last longer than just one day. Here are some we enjoy with our little family each year:

~Going through toys that we no longer use to give away to a local charity.

~Driving around to view Christmas light displays, while listening to Christmas music, bring along hot cocoa or make some when we get home.

~Collecting Christmas story books and display after Thanksgiving so they are more special. Read one a day to count down the days.

~Baking cookies or other treats to give to friends and neighbors.

~Teaching our kids about other holiday celebrations like Hanukkah, La Posada, Kwanzaa, etc...

~Buying an ornament each year, for each of our kids, so when they are grown they'll have some for their own family tree.

~Watching old home movies of Christmases past and remembering when.

~We both come from large families and instead of buying for everyone, we do an ornament or gift exchange.

~Teaching our kids about the Christmas traditions of our various nationalities, ie Italian, Portuguese, German, French, English, and Irish.

~Visiting gingerbread house displays, then making some of our own.

~Making Christmas crafts, ornaments and cards.

~Making shoe boxes filled with gifts for children in third world countries through Operation Christmas Child.

~Participating in a church pageant or carol singing.

~Because our house is small, rather than stress over having a lot of friends over at once, we have a few different holiday dinners, before or after Christmas, and rather than exchange gifts, just enjoy being together and playing games etc...

~Attending the Christmas Eve candlelight service with our church family.

~And we always bake Great Grandma's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake on Christmas Eve to eat for breakfast on Christmas morning. Yummy!

May you and yours enjoy a wonderful holiday season, filled with many traditions :)

Sweet Pea's Festive Piggies

She's now feeling Christmasy down to her toes!

I am pooped!

Let me give you the exhausting run down of my day, just for sympathy purposes:

Woke up

Showered, dressed, ate

Fed & watered kiddos and pets

Cleaned up dog's throw-up and took him out for duty, scooped his poop

Bundled up and shoveled walkways, cleaned off van

Set kiddos up at table for semi-supervised school work and proceeded to clean the house for a 12:00 p.m. house showing, yay!

Cleaned, dusted, scrubbed, swept, folded, hid stuff etc...

12:00p.m.-Grabbed kiddos and pupster, headed out to run errands while strangers walked through our house

1:00p.m.-Came home, made lunch, put away things that I only take out for house showings, got ready to take kids to piano lessons

2:00p.m.-answered call that someone ELSE wants to see the house at 5:00p.m., yay!

2:30p.m.-Dropped kids off at piano, ran to Kohl's to buy them much needed winter boots

3:30p.m.-Picked up kids and headed home to clean the mess I let the kids make because I didn't know I'd have to show the house, AGAIN, on the same day, UGH!

4:00 p.m.- Got home, fed dog, walked dog, scooped more poop, cleaned AGAIN!

5:00 p.m.-Grabbed kids, dog and boots (which didn't fit Sweet Pea! New motto:never shop for kids shoes without the kid!) and headed back to Kohl's while the NEW people came to look at the house.

6:00 p.m.-Got home with new boots and grumpy kids, started dinner with hunger pains.

7:00 p.m.-Finally got dinner cleaned up, (HH's working late again!) put dog out, played "coffee shop" with kids

8:00 p.m.- AHH! Sitting with feet up for a few minutes, catching up on blogs, waiting for hubby to arrive and kids to go to bed!!

P.S. Realtor called. Hoping to hear about an offer...but no, just wanted to know if I can show the house AGAIN TOMORROW. Sure, looking forward to it, sigh!

FYI- SUPER MOM IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!

Don't get me wrong...I most definitely believe ALL moms are heroes! It is an act of heroism to carry a child, deal with all of the emotional and bodily changes that take place and give life to a little, fragile, human being. Then to make sacrifice, upon sacrifice, when caring for every need of that child. Whether you're married, single, stay at home, work from home, work outside the home or otherwise, being a mom is the hardest job you'll ever have and will bring the greatest rewards you could ever imagine.

It's the "Super Mom" mentality that sneakily undermines all that we work towards everyday. One thing motherhood has taught me about myself is that I'm quite the little control-freak! My children have brought out the best and the worst in me, from time to time. I am by nature a planner. But I have come to realize my limitations and that realization alone has brought me such peace.

There is no such person as "Super Mom". We cannot do EVERYTHING we'd like to do in a day and be ALL things to ALL people, as much as we'd like to. It's great to have goals to strive toward, but by constantly comparing ourselves to other moms (who SEEM to get everything done) we are doing ourselves a great disservice. Everyone has to make sacrifices and as my hubby often reminds me, not every day with our kids has to be a Norman Rockwell moment.

A few years ago, Chad and I took a second honeymoon to Italy for our 10th anniversary. We are both of Italian decent and it was a long-awaited and eagerly anticipated trip to the "mother land". While in Tuscany we stayed in Florence, which is a thriving city, yet unlike similar cities in the States, it had an overwhelmingly relaxed atmosphere. No one there is in a hurry to do anything. They have figured out how to be very productive, while maintaining the freedom not to be pressured to DO more than they need to. It was a real eye-opener to me and a desire grew in me to translate those simple principles into our life here.

Being home all day it is very tempting for me to be in constant motion and keep everything spic and span. But do I really want my kids to remember me as this person flitting from room to room keeping house but not really being present? There will come a day, all too soon, when the halls of this house will be void of children screeching to one another. Where the walls will no longer be smeared with little fingerprints or toothpaste (famous in our house). When chubby little arms will no longer wrap around my waist while trying to cook and wet cherubs lips will no longer be planted daily on my cheeks.

My oldest is nine and those nine years have gone by in a blink and I'm sure the next nine will follow suit until my little man is a young man on his own. It makes me all the more thankful for this time to homeschool, although it is expensive and not without the many sacrifices that living on one income presents, it is MORE than worth it. At the end of our time on earth I don't think we'll wish we had more time to work, but more time to spend time enjoying those we love and doing things that are truly meaningful to us.

I can only speak from my own life experience and being a pastor's wife, I feel I sometimes hold myself to a higher standard than I would expect of others. And, in the past, I imagined that others must be holding me to that standard as well. As women, we often put pressure on ourselves to live up to some ideal which DOESN'T exist. We need to let go of any guilt and know that we cannot BE anyone else. We can only BE ourselves and do those things that WE are gifted to do. Being a wife and mom IS a calling and I just want to spend my days soaking in my kids, taking care of myself, my family and as many others as I can. Sleep well tonight moms...and pull the plug on "super mom"...she's just a figment of our imaginations ;)

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas...

The mantle still needs a little something...it'll come
Sweet Pea's own tree
Sweet Pea's holiday tea table and mini nativity
My new Word Tree
Our nativity, which the kids set up each year and call them "the Jesus people!"
This year the question has been...to decorate or not to decorate? In the midst of selling our house we weren't sure. But the kids said it just didn't "feel" like Christmas yet without our special decorations. We've never had much in the way of Christmas decor...every year I say I'll buy things on clearance for next year. But the things that we have, I really love. We still have yet to get our big, live tree, where most of our prized ornaments go. But it has been such a cold weekend, we'll have to do it one night this week. Instead we have started to put out a few things and I must say the mood of the house now has an air of expectancy and joy. I like to put a little something festive in every room. This year I treated myself to a cute, little "Charlie Brown" tree for the dining room. With all our bookcases moved into the basement, it actually fits. Having to be frugal, I spent a few days making my own ornaments and thought I would make a Word Tree. I made paper snowflakes and glittery name tags and filled the tree with all the words that are special to me, especially this time of year; like family, celebrate, love, give, faith, peace, friends etc... I think it is such a cute tree and a constant reminder of what is most important to our family. More to come I'm sure :)

"I'm bored!"

The other night I heard, in passing, from Sweet Pea, "I'm bored!" Pun'kin Head knows those words are not allowed in our house, as boredom is a choice. There's always something you can find to do or you could join Mama in cleaning, which I happened to be doing at the time. Before I had the chance to say anything I heard big brother say "Hey, Let's do a project!" I heard all kinds of craft boxes being sorted through, not knowing what would result. This was what I found twenty minutes later, all on their own. Wishing for real snow, they created some cute snowmen! :)

Faith Like A Child

While driving in the car, Pun'kin Head usually peppers me with comments and questions of all sorts and never ceases to amaze me with his wisdom. This is our conversation that took place last night.

Pun'kin Head: Mama, I think this is going to be the best Christmas EVER for our family and I don't mean about getting any gifts.

Me: Me too, buddy!

Pun'kin Head: So many people always complain when we come to a new year. But, for us, every year just gets better and better!

Me: Yes, we are very blessed.

Pun'kin Head: People who aren't happy need to start saying that the new year will be better for them if they want to see it get better.

Me: You're right, buddy, that's what it means to be in faith and that will give God something to work with.

That's Faith 101-Hearing the Word AND accepting it as truth for your life!

Happy Birthday to Handsome Hubby!!!

In the midst of all the craziness today may bring, I pray you have a wonderful birthday! I pray that you always know how very much the Lord loves you and how pleased He is with you. That you also know how very much I love you and how happy I am that you chose me to take this journey called Life with you. You never cease to amaze me! Every day is an adventure! May you be blessed with every good gift, today and always! Love you, Mrs. xoxo