A Cape Cod Christmas

Fudge. Divinity. Mini pecan cups. Frosted sugar cookies. Wreaths made of cornflakes. From about 9 p.m. on Dec. 23 until 2:40 p.m. on Dec. 24 - we made these things. And we made it to Church on time on Christmas Eve. It was quite a feat. Christina was able to go too - even though she felt a little bit nauseous and had to excuse herself to the church library before everybody held little candles and sang Silent Night. Our church handed out those snap and shake glow sticks for the kids, which the boys really enjoyed.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's in Savage for time with the cousins and Christmas Eve activities. It was an honor for me to read The Night Before Christmas - like my Dad has always done.

We had a pre-Christmas celebration at our home on Wednesday when Mom, Kirb an Isaac and the dogs drove down from GF and spent the night with us. They brought manicotti, presents, cookies and the spirit of the season with them. We didn't get a chance to visit much or to do any singing around the piano or anything, but it frankly wouldn't have been Christmas without them.

So, Levi and I were discussing what our favorite gifts were - and for me, it wasn't a gift I received this year. Instead, it was one we gave.

Levi and I made a photo book for Christina - she hasn't had time to do the usual printing and inserting of photos into a photo album, so we went through a year's worth of pictures and then made a small photo book on Shutterfly for her. I had fun, and it really wasn't very complicated - and the company did a great job rushing the order so we had it in time for Christmas - I was a minute past the early-order deadline - and they made an exception and rushed not only the processing - but gave me free overnight shipping. I was floored. It was such great customer service.

Click on the book to go to Shutterfly.com to see our year in pics:

That is all for now. We're playing it by ear for next weekend. I instructed Kirb not to pick up my tuxedo until after we have our OB appointment here on Thursday morning. We won't know until then whether or not I should go - the chance of bad weather is also beginning to be a worry too. Hopefully it will all dissipate and not be an issue for us, or any of the other wedding guests as well.

More later; with some pics of kids playing with their presents.

Levi's favorite present was his Leapster Explorer - that he got from us. I bet the one that gets played with the most is one he got from Santa; a knee hockey set with 2 goals and 4 little sticks that we're going to set up in the basement.

Good night.
Sam

Getting along great

We've been getting along pretty well lately and adapting to our little situation of bed rest.

It's been fun for me and the boys because we've been able to spend so much time together. Fortunately, my job has been flexible and so have our primary caregivers- grandma and grandpa.

Last Friday, for example, I worked from home from about 5 a.m. until 10 a.m. and then Jim and I took the boys to the Minnesota Children's Museum in downtown St. Paul. Domo's mom then stayed here with her at home. Folding laundry and cleaning our fridge and being good company. Awesome.

So, a quick narration of some of the pictures I've posted today.

At the top are pictures of the tree decorating at our house. Ezra saw me cut the bottom off the tree, and then he wanted to do it himself so he ran downstairs and found his own pretend saw.

Then there's the Children's Museum trip. The highlight of the trip was supposed to be the Exploradome - an indoor, traveling star show. We had fun doing the regular children's museum stuff - i.e. the turtle and the play kitchen and the block factory. The highlight of the day, I suspect, for the boys, was eating at the McDonald's right outside the museum.

Then we had the snowstorm. It was fun. Thank goodness we have nice neighbors that helped plow us out of our driveway. Levi (pictured) and I tried to keep up, but we just couldn't.

Finally, we had another teddy bear picnic. It was an early christmas for the bears. "At Christmas we have other things to do," Levi said. "We needed to make sure that the bears would have a nice little party, with a few presents and food (cashews and goldfish crackers).

Levi gave his bears some nice colored pictures, including one of his build-a-bear friend Rocky playing basketball and a card that said, I (heart) YOU BEARS FROM LEVI!!!! Mommy even brought her own table.

We also have had some success getting an early start on Christmas cookies, as you can see. It helps to have a deadline - we have Levi's christmas program for preschool at our church tonight and needed to bring a dozen cookies.

Finally, there's a photo of Ezra sleeping on his floor. He's sort of migrated there some nights because he's not a huge fan of his big-boy bed yet. And he has use of a santa-theme sleeping bag that he likes to use.

That's all for now. Got a lot to do before pre-school starts and Uncle Wy comes over for the day.

The Big Red Chair is Back in the Spot Light

Well, apparently a week of laying around wasn't enough so now I'm more or less on bed rest. UGH what timing!!! We have moved the red chair out of Ezra's room (sniff, sniff) and into the living room. Not ideal, but at least it lets me remain in the action. I don't think Ezra seemed to mind too much. He has a lot more play area now anyway. And, both boys were able to rock with me this morning before heading out to preschool for Levi and daddy's office for Ezra.

Not quite sure what we're going to do next week for child care. Doctor said I'm basically out. Glad we got the tree together last weekend. Hopefully Sam will bring it in today so we (rather they) can decorate it tomorrow evening.

I'm going to have to start a big list of "to-dos". I have it all in my head (Christmas gifts, errands, bills, etc.) which isn't helpful at this point.

On a lighter note, the boys got measured for their tuxes today for Aunt Kirby's wedding. For some reason I only have a picture of Ezra on this computer. Too bad I'll probably only see them in them through Skype.

Here's a picture from a horse race the boys had. As you can see it was a photo finish. I believe Ezra was the winner in this one.

Finally, to round it out, here is a snippet from a much earlier post when we first got the red chair.

The Big Red Chair

Sam Black, Nov. 23, 2005

One day it will need to be recovered
But right now it’s so big and bright
The red chair that came with Levi
I sit down, settle in, and it feels so right

The chair has splashed vivid color,
Infused flair and energized
Both our living room full of beige
And every aspect of our lives

I picture breaking in the cushions
Telling stories as we recline,
Of school, play and work
He has his turn, I have mine

There are nights we’ll settle down
To read Harold and the Purple Crayon
Goodnight Gorilla, Jamberry,
Clifford, and Green Eggs and Ham

We’ll sleep in it together
And talk and laugh and share
But through the years, I’m sad to say
Our new red chair will fray and tear

But an old chair is no big deal
Because it will always be new in my head
And I think how different my life would be
If the chair were blue instead.

Thanksgiving

Do you like my cabbage turkey photo?

One of the things that I'm thankful for this year, is happy thanksgiving memories. Three and a half decades of them to be sure.

I've pasted four or five others at the bottom of this post and I'll look for a few more to post if I get time later today.

The Macy's Parade starts soon and I plan to watch some of it with Levi. I may bring the little TV upstairs to watch while I attempt to make homemade pumpkin pie and a dish to bring over to Jim and Bekkie's house.

Levi and I yesterday went sledding at the water tower hill by our house. It's quite tall - we had a fresh coat of snow. We went down together the first time and then we took turns going down first on our own sleds. It was the first time that Levi's done the big hill in a sled all by himself. He had a great time. We also went to the baby ultrasound appointment in the morning. Levi and Ezra were very patient and were watching the black and white blury blobs on the screen. It was nearly impossible and we had a terrible ultrasound tech so they didn't get to see anything cool - like little hands or feet. It was unfortunate, but at least they will both have that experience of being at one of the baby appointments.

After the boy's and I left (and went to McDonald's), the doctor said Christina couldn't go to Grand Forks. This doesn't mean for sure that we won't be able to make it up to Grand Forks for Christmas (and that Christina won't be able to go for Kirbs wedding. That's still wait-and-see, hopefully a good week of extra rest for Christina will be sufficient to turn things quiet again.) I was quite disappointed we couldn't go but had to keep the reason in perspective. Plus there was bad weather up north (like six inches of snow in Fargo) and Ezra is still getting over a cold. We were all packed up and in Maple Grove and had to return back to Cape Cod to unpack and prepare for a different Thanksgiving. Which we're feeling our way through now.

Levi just informed me he doesn't want to watch the parade or any TV this morning, so I gotta go. I have some more Thanksgiving memories to create.

Looking forward to trying to Skype to GF later today too.

Starting to snow here. (Local weather dude said it was biggest November snowfall in almost 20 years.) Tonight we did a lot of work in the yard and around the house. We have some friends stopping over for brunch tomorrow so we had to get stuff ready for that. Ezra and I also went to Slumberland and bought him a mattress so that he could spend the first night in his new bed. Crib no more for Ezra. He was so cute and excited tonight. Pretended to snore and close his eyes when he first climbed into bed.

When I got home today I started mowing the yard - to crush up the leaves, right away. I spent about an hour cleaning and prepping the yard, and then another hour putting lawn furniture away and everything. I also got to play Arobe (like frisbee) and baseball and football outside with Levi. It was nice.

Oh, I have some before and after pictures of our big front tree. I'll try to upload them.

The change in how the big tree looks after we had it professionally groomed - remarkable.

Last bit of news around here: we moved the crib into our bedroom. SHORT TERM. It is a lot more cramped - and I'm sure those babies are going to be not too pleased that they don't have a room - but this is the way its going to be until we get our new addition started or better yet, finished.

Ok off to bed for me. Levi plans to get up with me and watch Toy Story 3 on DVD in the morning. We'll see.

Sam Out

Cats in the Hats

We got an early start on Halloween with an event at Mom's club. Pic is too cute to wait to post.

Pumpkin Carving!

A Century

Today we would have celebrated my grandpa's 100th birthday. Two years have passed and still quite often top of mind.

Fall Harvest Orchard

The boys and I just got back from our third annual trip to Fall Harvest Orchard with Mom's Club. It always proves to be a good time and I think is one of the best orchards around. There is no admission price - just a donation which is always nice. They give you little bags of grain to feed the goats. Both boys did it this year and Ezra really laughed.

They have a big bin of corn where the kids can play.

Tractors that the kids can sit on.

Pigs, cows, chickens, peacock, roosters to observe.

And, perhaps the best part is they have tractor rides around the fields.

On each ride the driver stops a few times to tell us about the different crops. At one stop we all get to get off the tractor and pick our own corn for popping and a gourd.

This year it started out pretty chilly but warmed up nicely so we had a picnic lunch. We bought a mixed bag of apples and each boy picked out a pie pumpkin.

Midway to Halloween

Well, October is here. We have four pumpkins on our step. Two of them from Walmart and two of them from a fancy pumpkin train ride that we went on last weekend in Osceola, Wis. It is put on by the Minnesota Transportation Museum.
It was a short-line railroad between Osceola and Dresser, Wis. It has been restored with some passenger cars and old engines.

The boys were so excited. Especially Ezra who said choo-choo all day. The best part of the activities at the spot where we got the pumpkin was the bouncy structure where a bunch of kids under 5 took off their shoes and just burned some calories by bouncing - no parents allowed. My favorite part was seeing them have so much fun (see below).


Two weeks ago we spent the weekend in GF doing some overdue visiting with mom and helping get the kitchen ready for a big renovation. I had to spend most of the day Saturday ripping up and repairing some rotten wooden sub-floor. Fun times. The coolest thing was finding the flower wallpaper behind the cabinets. This is the original wallpaper from 1985 when my parents built the house, I think. It is quite awesome design that I used to spend hours studying when I should have been studying my spelling words or social studies homework in 8th grade. Cabinets are supposed to be installed this week - and counter tops after that - so it should be functional and put back together before Thanksgiving. I'm very excited to see again.

When we were in GF, the boys played outside with Kirby in the unusually warm weather - it was in the high 70s in October. Here's a video that makes me smile.




One more thing.
Our church guitarist, John Hermanson, from the group Storyhill, (see site here) performed recently on Prairie Home Companion. It was such a treat. You can listen to it here. Click the following player and fast-forward to about 52:00 minutes and again at 73:14 Hymn: For the Beauty of the Earth and then sang a touching song called Let us Cross over the River and Rest in the Shade of the Trees. They also sang again towards the end of the show - at 111:33 (Paradise Lost).

Glad the Vikings won on Sunday. It pains me a lot to watch the ALCS because I know the Twins should have been there. I'm rooting for the SF Giants. Go Timmy!
Sam out.

Pre-school field trip

Levi and Daddy went to a field trip at the Westwood Nature Center in St. Louis Park today with the Oak Knoll preschool class. We had a good time watching the puppet show together - and doing a short walk where we got to collect leaf samples and learn some tree-facts. One such fact was about these little bumps on leaves called leaf galls (see photos here) where insects sometimes lay their eggs - they're usually harmless for the trees. We also watched and actually helped with an apple cider press. The class of preschoolers didn't bring enough apples for each of the kids to toss one into the press, so it was kinda cute to see the nature center workers let kids take turns putting them into the big press - only to sneak it out behind their back and put it back in the bucket so another kid could put the same apple in. The irony of the apple press is that the kids didn't even get to drink that cider - they were served glasses of the pasteurized stuff from the grocery - while teachers and parents could have the freshly-squeezed stuff. It was still a memorable 2.5 hours and Levi really seemed to soak it all up. So glad it was a beautiful day - last year Levi went with his mom and it was rainy and yicky.

Big Brothers

Levi and Ezra found out this week that they are going to be big brothers to...

a brother and a sister!

Ezra said "Oh" and Levi seemed to be genuinely excited (not over the top, but there was a bit of a smile for sure). The best part is the doctor said the babies are both growing great and look healthy and perfect.

A Week Review

Last Wednesday Ezra had his first visit to the Arc - structured hourly day care at Calvary. He took his backpack and was pretty excited to go. When there, he was a bit more reticent as he stood around for a great deal of time. He warmed up a little, but was mostly observing. We plan another trip back this week.

On Friday the three of us visited the Works hands-on museum. Robots, magical harp and things like that. They seemed to have fun.

On Saturday the boys enjoyed playing with my doll house from when I was a girl. I finally set it up for them.

Also on Saturday was Levi's baptism anniversary. So we lit the candle and sang Jesus Loves Me as we usually do.

Finally on Sunday Ezra had a nice Teddy Grahams snack with his friend Bow. I think it was his first snack with a friend.