Love Traditions

I wanted to re-post our Christmas Tradition list from last year.

I love holiday traditions. Here is a list of our Christmas Traditions. Some are silly, some are small, but they are all done with love.

1. We start our Christmas off by watching the Nutcracker, which Tony plays the trumpet for.
2. Paint Ceramic ornaments
3. Make (or buy if it's cheap) an ornament with each child's picture in it.
   
4. 25 gingerbread men. We have 25 foam gingerbread men that we string up along the stairs. We have names of friends and families on them. For 25 days of Christmas, we take one gingerbread man family & pray for them through out the day.
5. Wrap 24 Christmas Books. I wrap them up. The kids get to pick one book and unwrap it then we read it each night.
6. When Christmas cards come in, we pray for that family. We also do this when we are addressing our Christmas cards to send out.
   
7. We (try) make crafts for our teachers and some family members. For a homeschool family, we sure do have a lot of teachers. (Church and extra curricular activities) Many people don't give a little gift anymore to their teachers. I feel that it is important to do this as well as send a card of encouragement along with it. There have been many times when I've wanted to quit because I thought I wasn't getting through to the kids. Then someone sends a little gift and or a card & that was the encouragement I needed to keep serving the Lord.
8. Look at the Christmas lights while singing Christmas carols.
9. Dance crazy to Christmas music.
   
10. Having a family Christmas tea with all the trimmings.
11. Write a letter to Jesus.
12. Watch Christmas movies with popcorn with just the TV and Christmas tree lights on.
13. Christmas scented bubble bath. (I can't smell, but the kids really enjoy this.)
14. We make a Christmas paper chain with parts of the Christmas story & the count down on it. We take one down each night and read it. Then we imagine what it would be like to have actually done the part that we just read.
15. The last 3 years, we've taken the 23rd as a day of celebrating Jesus' birth- a birthday cake, read the whole story, act it out, and sing only Christmas carols through out the day. I've tried and tried to do it on Christmas day, but it is so crazy. When I wake up on the 26th, I felt guilty because we really didn't celebrate. No one really knows when Jesus' birthday was.
16. We started this last year & will continue it each year.  On the 23rd, we do The Adornment Tree.  Mrs. Ann our pastor's wife does this every year with the Sparks.  I asked her for a copy.  It is ornaments of: Baby- name Emmanuel, The Door, The True Vine, Living Water, The Light of the World, Bright Morning Star, The Lion from the tribe of Judah, The Lamb of God, The Good Shepherd, Crown - The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, The Bread of Life, & Cross- Savior.  A small story goes with each.
17. We put out sheep food for the shepherd's sheep on Christmas Eve.
18. We have a Christmas breakfast on Christmas Morning.
19. We go to the grandparents house and meet up with the cousins.

I do love Christmas. For me, it is really important to instill into my children what Christmas is all about. I like to spread it all through out the month.

I would love to hear about your Christmas traditions.

The Dos & Don't of a Tea Party

We love having tea parties. Even the boys like to join us. I try to use this time to teach manners, proper etiquette, a time to talk about our blessings & praising God.

Today, the boys went with their daddy to help work at their aunt's new house. So Faith & I cleaned the house and then, as a treat, had a tea party.

Faith said that she wanted to show & tell everyone what to do and not to do at a tea party. So without further adieu....

Set the table and get the food ready.

Never, never put the food on someone else's plate. You bring them the tray and let them get what they want.

The hostess pours everyone's tea.

Always pray before you eat.

Never stuff your mouth & then try to talk with food in it. Knees are not allowed to be up in the chair.

Never put your elbows on the table.

Never wipe your mouth on your sleeve. Always use a napkin.

(Faith's addition) Ladies (and only ladies) must always hold their pinky up while drinking their tea.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We celebrated Jesus' Birthday today. I don't have it together enough to celebrate His birthday on the same day as the events on Christmas Day. 2 years ago, we started celebrating His birth on Dec. 23.

This morning, I woke up to Will playing Christmas Carols. What a marvelous thing to wake up to.

The early bird catches the worm. Will got to make the cake by himself since he was the only one awake. After everyone woke up, the cake was ready to decorate.

It's round to show that there is no end to God's love. (John 3:16)
The cake is dark to represent our hearts filled with sin. (Rom. 3:26)
White icing- Jesus washes our sins white a snow. (Rom. 6:23)
Angel- to remind us of the good tidings that were brought to the shepherds that
night (Luke 2:10)
Star - to represent the star they followed to worship Jesus.
12 red - Candles. Red to represent the blood that Jesus shed for us (Rom. 5:8)
The light - He is the light of the world. 12 candles to remind us to celebrate His light all 12 months of the year.
Evergreen- something living and growing. If we accept Jesus, we'll grow closer to Him and live for evermore. (John 15:5)

We played a game about Jesus' birth story.

We enjoyed reading books about His birth.
The 12 Days of Christmas by Robert Sabuda
The Candymaker's Gift by David & Helen Haidle
The Christmas Lizard by Cory Edwards
The Story of Christmas: The birth of Jesus
Georgie The Frog in A Christmas Surprise by Glorianne Gibbs

We acted out the Christmas story. We had lots of visiting animals. Not sure if an iguana was really there.


We enjoyed doing the Adorenament Tree. It explains 12 of Jesus' names. Emmanuel, The Door, The True Vine, Living Water, The Light of the World, Bright Morning Star, The Lion from the tribe of Judah, The Lamb of God, The Good Shepherd, The King of kings and Lord of Lords, and The Bread of Life, Savior. Our Pastor's wife, Mrs. Ann does this with the Sparks at our church. She let me borrow it. Hopefully, next year, we'll be able to find real ornaments that goes with each name.

We sang and listened to Christmas Carols all through out the day. We had such a good time praising our Savior.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Love Traditions

I love holiday traditions. Here is a list of our Christmas Traditions. Some are silly, some are small, but they are all done with love.

1. Paint Ceramic ornaments
2. Make (or buy if it's cheap) an ornament with each child's picture in it.
   
3. 25 gingerbread men. We have 25 foam gingerbread men that we string up along the stairs. We have names of friends and families on them. For 25 days of Christmas, we take one gingerbread man family & pray for them through out the day.
4. Wrap 24 Christmas Books. I wrap them up. The kids get to pick one book and unwrap it then we read it each night.
5. When Christmas cards come in, we pray for that family. We also do this when we are addressing our Christmas cards to send out.
   
6. We (try) make crafts for our teachers and some family members. For a homeschool family, we sure do have a lot of teachers. (Church and extra curricular activities) Many people don't give a little gift anymore to their teachers. I feel that it is important to do this as well as send a card of encouragement along with it. There have been many times when I've wanted to quit because I thought I wasn't getting through to the kids. Then someone sends a little gift and or a card & that was the encouragement I needed to keep serving the Lord.
7. We've been singing at the nursing home for a few years. This year we will not be able to go. They've requested that children under 12 not visit until the flu season is over. This has been very hard for the children and me, because both of my grandmothers are there.
8. Look at the Christmas lights while singing Christmas carols.
9. Dance crazy to Christmas music.
   
10. Having a family Christmas tea with all the trimmings.
11. Write a letter to Jesus.
12. Watch Christmas movies with popcorn with just the TV and Christmas tree lights on.
13. Christmas scented bubble bath. (I can't smell, but the kids really enjoy this.)
14. We make a Christmas paper chain with parts of the Christmas story & the count down on it. We take one down each night and read it. Then we imagine what it would be like to have actually done the part that we just read.
15. The last 2 years, we've taken the 23rd as a day of celebrating Jesus' birth- a birthday cake, read the whole story, act it out, and sing only Christmas carols through out the day. I've tried and tried to do it on Christmas day, but it is so crazy. When I wake up on the 26th, I felt guilty because we really didn't celebrate. No one really knows when Jesus' birthday was.
16. We put out sheep food for the shepherd's sheep on Christmas Eve.
17. We have a Christmas breakfast on Christmas Morning.
18. We go to the grandparents house and meet up with the cousins.

I do love Christmas. For me, it is really important to instill into my children what Christmas is all about. I like to spread it all through out the month.

I would love to hear about your Christmas traditions.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving, we start on our Christmas traditions- decorating the tree while listening to old Christmas music and going to the Nutcracker.

Last year we were blessed with a free piano. The only problem was the piano had to go where we put the tree. We didn't have a big tree up last year. I realized real fast that we could not do that again this year. So Tony moved everything over and we squeezed it all in. It's tight, but it works.

Tony pulled down the Christmas tree & put it up. Then he was off to work on one of our properties.

Collin had a ball helping me put up the lights. Most of the lights didn't work, so we had to jump in the van and buy some more. Lights have really gone up this year in price. We put up 4 new boxes of lights only to find out that we didn't have enough for the very top. Ugh! Off to the store again for one more box.

Faith- the dare devil. She is standing on the arm of the couch to hang her ornaments.

Every year, we do a picture ornament for each of the kids. We also either buy or make an ornament that represents something that they started doing, like that year or vacation spots that we've been to. I get a kick out of watching everyone remember special times they've had & seeing their pictures when they were younger.

The tree is up and the den is a mess. We still have the rest of the house to decorate tomorrow.

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The Nutcracker Ballet

My darling hubby plays trumpet for the Nutcracker every year. With that, we are entitled to special privileges. Since we have to get there so early, we get to go down in the orchestra pit and play the instruments before the ballet starts.

The 'lil Bucks and Mama eagerly waiting for the ballet to start. Faith and I love to dress up for the ballet. The boys only do it to please Mama.

The boy's favorite part is when they kill the rat with the cannonball. Faith's & Mama's are the pretty costumes and the snow.

I love it. The music is beautiful as well as the costumes.

Even though I love it, I am not a big ballet fan. About half way through the second half, I start getting very antsy as well as Collin & Faith. So this year, I told them that we would only stay for the 1st half. Will wanted to stay for the 2nd half. We were able to get him a front row seat right beside Tony.

This year I came prepared. We brought games. This was a lot of fun even though we got several funny looks. There were several parents roaming the halls with their little ones - I'm sure they were wishing they brought something for them to do as well.

While we were waiting, I asked Faith if she had a good time. The right picture above was her response. What do you think? Actually, she did enjoy it. When we were leaving, she was asking to come back again next week.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

2nd Annual Turkey Bowl

Our 2nd Thanksgiving Tradition we started last year is our Turkey Bowl. I took this idea from a friend of mine. Most of our Thanksgiving day is free, so I thought this would be fun. It has been a blast! The kids love it & have talked about it all year.

Tony is setting up our score board. Tony has had a lot of back trouble over the years. Thanks to a lot of prayers and God using our chiropractor, he hasn't had any pain in the last 7-8 months. Yay! He hasn't been able to bowl with us yet, but he said that he thinks he will be able to go with us the next time. Can't wait.

I am so thankful for this little contraption. Faith doesn't have quite enough power to send the ball down the lane every time. Let's just say, the person behind the counter gets to know us really good before we leave. This ramp gives the ball enough power to get it all the way down lane. Faith has gotten several spares.

This shot is to adorable. Collin loves to bowl. He has many different ways that he bowls. This is my favorite by far.

Will is getting to be a very good bowler. Tony was teaching him different ways to send the ball down the lane. He is very competitive . Which can be good, we just need to curve it a little.

I love to bowl with the kids. Not only is it a lot of fun, but I get to use the gutter bumpers as well. The kids think that I'm such a great bowler. They don't really notice how many times it hits the bumpers. Which means if I were to play it like a grown up should, I would really stink. I did bowl, I just didn't post any pictures of me. The only ones that the kids took were of my backside. So you'll just have to trust me.

And the winners are......

I found a funny trophy of a turkey with glasses on for 1st place. He's so cute that I didn't want to give him away. 2nd & 3rd got silver trophies. They keep these trophies until next year.

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I can't believe that I didn't get any pictures of our dinner at Tony's parent's house. It was a little crazy with 7 kids and everyone preparing food to eat. We were blessed to not only have Mammy & Papa, Aunt Leahan, Uncle Kyle, Ashton & Nathan (cousins), but we also had 2 cutie putie
girls with their mom & dad to join us. It was a lot of fun.

I did get one video of Collin & his Papa doing the rabbit dance. Collin has been performing the dance for us. He told us that Papa showed it to him. So tonight when they did it together, I had to get it on video. It was too Funny!

Traditions Through Pictures

We started 2 new traditions last year. Our first one: the 5 of us have a Thanksgiving meal on Wed. night. (Our church has our Wed. night service on Mon. night during Thanksgiving.) I wanted to use this time to teach them how to prepare for a big meal, a time a praising the Lord through song while we work, and for having a good time with family. The kids really have a great time & look forward to it.


I am so thankful we made a menu book last year. This year it saved me a lot of time in preparing.


Collin loved playing with Mr. Turkey. He cracks me up.


Collin is my hard worker. He did a lot of the work. He set the table for me.


Will created our centerpiece. Faith wanted to leave a gold plate for Jesus to sit.


Will was in charge of making our lunch. That was a big help.


The kids needed a little break from cooking. They got to hot outside and used the tree as a coat hanger.


Faith is getting really good a cracking an egg. She loves baking.


Will had fun making the dessert. Yummy!


We had a great dinner. Faith was happy that Mr. Turkey was sitting at Jesus' seat.


Tony carving the turkey. Collin carved seconds. He used the big sharp knife (as I was holding my breathe and praying.) was so excited & he did a really great job.

The kids served the food. It is always a lot of work, but the kids talk about it through out the year, so I know that they are learning. Hopefully, when the boys get married in 2050 :), they will help their wives or a least really appreciate their work. Maybe it won't be stressful for Faith to make a holiday meal because she would have done it most of her life.

I love Traditions!