That's a Wrap!

There has been plenty of wrapping and unwrapping around here lately. Between Elsa's birthday and Christmas (and Cade's birthday coming next week), we have been swimming in wrapping paper and bows and new toys. 

And since it's been entirely too long since I've posted anything here on the blog...which may or may not have something to do with the busy-ness of the season or the fact that I've not picked up my camera too much in recent weeks...here's a post to wrap-up the year!

November:

• We hosted our third annual Thanks-Singing Pie Social on the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving. We invite the whole church and usually end up having about 60-70 people here. Everybody brings a pie, sweet or savory, and we all enjoy trying lots of kinds of pie. We round out the evening singing together. Previously we've crowded into the living and dining rooms to sing with the piano. But this year we were able to gather in the basement and sing with a guitar accompaniment. Fun!! However, I was wearing a sick baby in the Ergo most of the evening, so there are no pictures.
• We also headed to Pennsylvania and visited with my family for a few days over Thanksgiving. The cousins had a fun time playing together, even the littlest ones. Good food, good fun all around! But I forgot my camera. 

December:

• Elsa turned 5! We celebrated her birthday with Grammie and Grandpa here a few weekends ago. Elsa chose to go to Panera Bread for her birthday lunch, and then we all came home and had birthday cake. Grammie made Elsa a beautiful doll cake (just like she made for me when I was young). We also celebrated Christmas with my parents since we didn't plan to travel to PA over Christmas. Elsa enjoyed the paper dolls that Grammie gave her and helped her cut out.

• Months ago I had promised to take Elsa to the ballet for her birthday, so last Saturday we went and saw The Nutcracker. I had never been to the ballet before either, so it was new for both of us. The costumes were beautiful, and the dancing was really enjoyable to watch. Of course, the orchestra's music was inspiring, and we're still humming the tunes! But I was surprised and a little bemused to learn that her favorite part of the show was...DAH DAH DAH DAH...the rats. Yes, really. The rats. She couldn't wait for the King Rat to come onstage. And after that scene was over, she really wasn't as interested in the rest of it. Obviously, she has some older brothers...

All dressed up for our date!

Waiting for the show to begin

• Advent. We've been observing Advent this year with some readings from The Advent Book as well as Jotham's Journey. We've used The Advent Book for the last several years, but Jotham's Journey was a new one. The kids loved the adventure and often begged to read ahead. We're looking forward to checking out the other books in the series next year (and there's one for Lent, too).
• Typically we attend our church's Christmas Eve service, but this year the kids were sick. So we stayed home. We dined on homemade stromboli, a Straub family tradition, and then we watched The Polar Express. 
  
  
  
• And finally Christmas arrived! Most of the wrapping was for Christmas, of course. Celebrating Jesus' birthday is a big deal! Even Caroline was excited. As I put her to bed on Christmas Eve, I told her that tomorrow would be Jesus' birthday, and she squealed, "Jesus! Birthday!" and clapped. (Melt my heart!) We celebrated at home this year. We had planned to have dinner with some friends from church, but, while we enjoy giving gifts at Christmas, we thought it better if we kept our children from giving their sick, coughing germs to the other kiddos. We try to encourage giving and sharing most of the time, but not when it comes to germs. So it was a quiet day at home. Here are a few shots...

  

  Christmas breakfast

  
  
  
  
  

  

  Luke is excited about a new Lego figure

  

  Caroline liked taking the wrapping paper off everybody's gifts

  
  
  

  

  Yep, more Legos!

  
  

  

  She's a rock star!

  

  Our resident Hobbit expert

  
  

  

  The girls enjoying some new kitchen toys

  
  

  

  Stephen, hard at work in the kitchen

  We hope you've had a memorable season of celebrating Christ's birth with your loved ones. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Beautiful Fall

The leaves have been gorgeous over the last week or two, so I've tried to get a few pictures of the kids with creation's colorful backdrop. Maybe even a few that are wall-worthy...

Of course, having dozens of trees behind the house means raking dozens of hundreds of leaves. So while we were working and playing, I snapped a few shots. Luke isn't in these shots because he was running the leaf blower. I know, he's a big kid now! 

Elsa was guarding her leaf pile from the little mess-making sister.

  

Resting on all of her hard work.

She really did have fun playing in the leaves
when we finally got a good pile stacked.

I love this picture of Cade with his two little sisters. If only
Caroline's eyes were open...

This took me back to the days of raking leaves from the giant horse-chestnut trees at my grandparents' house. The kids couldn't believe that we would rake leaves for hours with our only reward being the fun of throwing chestnuts into the burning pile of leaves and waiting for them to explode. 

What? No dollars? 

And, can we burn our leaves? 

Uh, no. The fire department would be on hand shortly if we did, and then there would be trouble. 

Oh, the joys of living in the city. Have I mentioned lately that I miss the country???

Fall Break

Fall break looks different around here in different years. But this year we made the every-other-year trip to the Outer Banks for a week of fall break. Stephen's brother and his family joined us for a fun week in the sun. We were super-glad to have been there prior to the week-long rain we've had on the east coast since then!

One morning we loaded up the cars and drove as far south as we could reaching Hatteras (the lighthouse was closed due to the federal government shut-down, so we didn't climb) by late morning. The kids then experienced their first boat ride on the ferry which took us a short way across the inlet to Ocracoke Island. 

It was definitely a SLOW boat.

 We checked out Teach's Hole which is a museum devoted to the pirate Blackbeard.

We also made a trip to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island and were treated to a presentation on sea turtles with a live sea turtle. Elsa was pretty excited given her love for turtles.

Cade with a Leatherback Sea Turtle's shell

Later in the day Stephen took the kids to the beach, and while they were playing in the surf, a fisherman nearby called them over to check out the shark he'd just reeled in! It was a small black-tipped shark, about two feet in length. They all "petted" it before he tossed it back into the waves. I was at the house while Caroline napped, so I missed the excitement. But I can guarantee you there would have been fewer children in the water if I'd been there when the shark was released!

We drove onto the beach north of Corolla to see the horses, and this year we managed to get the car stuck. A kindly local pulled us out with his tractor/backhoe, and we were on our way again. 

And the ride home was memorable too. We hardly left the island when we spotted a dead black bear alongside the road. We had to stop and check him out. It appeared as though he'd been hit by a car, perhaps the day before. It was a little unnerving walking up to a real bear!