Christmas Time Is Here

Like everyone else, this is a busy time of year for us.  It seems like we are always busy no matter what time of year but the Christmas season is even busier with doing our Christmas card, making candy and goodies, watching lots of Christmas movies, going to Christmas parties, coming up with gift ideas, etc.

As the girls get older it gets even more fun because they can do more and we can do more activities with them.  In previous years on this blog I have mentioned about how we try to promote Jesus and his birth over commercialization and Santa at Christmas time. I have to admit it is harder now that we have kids and we really have to work at it but it is so worth it to us. We have been teaching the girls about who St. Nicholas was and talk to them about how Santa is not real which is hard when they get the Santa thing at school and everywhere else. We got out their little people nativity that they love playing with and fighting over.  It is always funny to hear someone screaming "Give me back baby Jesus".  And we have read about the birth of Jesus in the Jesus Storybook Bible (which may be the best version of the Bible out there).

We have been doing lots of other fun activities also.....

Building a gingerbread house

Completed gingerbread house.  Notice someone is not to happy about something. 

And here is a video of our nightly dancing.  The girls have really been loving to dance to little drummer boy while playing their drums.  This video is a little dark because Esther prefers dancing with all the lights off except the Christmas tree lights these days.

Snow

As the girls get older, there are more and more things that they are able to do/enjoy and that we can do together.  I don't want them to grow up too fast but I look forward to these things. One of those things is sledding.  When I was a kid, I loved sledding and it was one of my favorite things.  Then I grew up and I still loved sledding.

This past weekend, we got some really good snow...about 8 inches with a layer of ice underneath.  The girls were really excited about the snow and getting to play in it.  Unfortunately it was not good snow for snow balls and snowmen but it was great for sledding.  We have a great driveway for sledding at their age, steep enough to go pretty fast but not scary steep. The three of us piled on the sled and went down a few times.  The girls really enjoyed it.  We would have went a whole lot more but hauling two toddlers up the hill wears you out fast. I also got to take Esther down a few times just me and her and we laid down on the sled which is much faster and she loved it. We also got to make some snow angels and play some more before we had to go in from the cold. One thing I found out from our fun is that I am not as young as a used to be.  It hurt to sled and I was very sore the next day.
I really enjoyed our time in the snow and I look forward to even more fun as they get older and can do more.

Pulling the girls around

Sledding down the driveway

Snow angels

Our snowy view

2 years old!

Today is Clara's 2nd birthday (technically not until 8:30 p.m.)! I can't believe she is two. I know it is cliche', but time really does fly. Clara is a sweet and silly girl. She is quite dramatic and is always making hilarious faces. She keeps us laughing with her crazy antics. She is the life of the party and it seems like her party never ends. She definitely has more "toddler" tendencies than Esther did. She gets into all sorts of things and loves to make messes. She throws fits when she doesn't get her way and other typical toddler meltdowns. But overall she is very fun and we can't imagine our lives without her.

Things Clara is doing these days.

• She loves to play with her baby dolls, her play kitchen/food, and dress up clothes. Her and Esther play together really well most of the time. They will keep each other occupied for several minutes at a time, it is great! 
• She loves to color and draw. 
• She loves to be outside, though it is getting too cold to be outside much. Her and Esther will watch the chickens, we will take walks through the pasture, she loves to slide and ride her tricycle. She especially loves to play in the dirt and any water she can find. She usually manages to get her shoes and socks off when she is outside. She always comes in filthy.
• Clara loves to dance and sing. We usually have a dance party every night before bed. Her current favorite songs to dance to are "Footloose" and "What does the fox say?" She often breaks out in song, lately it has been "Happy Birthday" and "Three Blind Mice"
• She talks all the time. Most of the time you can understand what she says. There are still the occasional times when we can't figure out what she is saying, though many times Esther can interpret for us! She comprehends everything we say.
• She can say her ABCs and count to 10, though she doesn't associate the words with the actual letters or numbers yet. 
• She is still a big kid. She wears 3T clothes and weighs almost as much as Esther. We have her official two year checkup next week, so we will see if she is still in the 99% on the growth charts!

We are in the midst of a snow/ice storm (it snowed the day she was born too), so her birthday celebration will be fairly quiet. Just with our family here at home. We do have cupcakes, which she has been talking about for days! 

A few pictures of Clara from her first two years

    

 

 

 

Redneck Playhouse

So, when we bought our house this summer, I never really walked around the whole property prior to buying it.  Probably not the best idea to not walk around it all but I was not worried about it.  You could see most of it from the house and I did not see it as a big deal.  After all, what are you really going to find that is going to be shocking on farm land.  I will tell you what I found....a party barge boat. And not a small one.  Twenty four feet long and baby blue just sitting on the ground between some trees. The metal is all in pretty good shape but the decking is all rotted. I had no idea what to do with it besides sell to someone as scrap metal. But one day when telling a friend at work about it, she suggested I make a playhouse out of it for the kids. I am not sure how serious she was but I thought it was a grand idea. So, a new scheme was hatched.

This past weekend while my family was in town I decided it would be a good time to try and move it.  This thing is not light aluminum, it is heavy gauge sheet metal so it was going to be a tough move.  My dad brought his tractor out for the job.  We hooked it up with a big chain and lifted it a little with the front end loader and tried to start dragging it but the tractor would not budge it.  But we weren't giving up so we hooked up my truck to the tractor which was hooked to the boat and used both to pull it.  Even then, my truck tires were just spinning until I put it in 4 wheel drive and it finally started to budge.  It was slow going and we almost flipped the tractor a couple times but we finally got it to it's new location....at the end of the orchard inside the yard fence. It will still be a while before I have a chance to alter it and make it into a playhouse but at least it is moved.  I have lots of crazy ideas for turning it into a playhouse.  It is either going to turn out awesome or terrible.  But I have a feeling we will have the only party barge playhouse maybe in the whole world. 

Here it is in it's natural habitat.  It may have been here since this area was covered by ocean.

Here it is in it's new home

Here is a video of the truck pulling the tractor pulling the boat.