Thanksgiving in Chicago

Thanksgiving in Chicago was incredible!  My sister put on a flawless first Thanksgiving...for 16...3 months pregnant..in a new house.  I think the hardest part for her was putting up with my bossing.  I am not used to not being in charge.  I was so busy bossing helping that I didn't take many pictures of the actual day.  But please enjoy these pictures of us hitting the town.  Friday we went to the Kris Krindle Market...so beautiful and the kids got to see Santa.  Saturday we hit Michigan Avenue and the weather, decorations everything was perfect.  My brother-in-law and sister can get us around that city with no trouble.  We were hopping on and off public transportation or finding great parking spots like no body's business.


Untitled from Political family on Vimeo.

Cincinnati Cousin Turns Four

Right before Thanksgiving we went to Cincinnati for our favorite little Cincinnati Cousin's birthday.  Isn't it funny how kids love birthday parties?  My girls were so excited for days as we looked forward to it.  Of course PD and I were too, but in a different way.  My girls are crazy for cake.  My goodness..what is it with kids and cake?

Poor little Cincinnati Cousin also had a full leg cast.  He had a stress fracture.  He is so cute and such a good little sport about it though.  If you ask him about his leg he would say, "It huhts." But he would say it rather pleasantly.

The cousins loved playing together:

And he even wanted help blowing out the candles.

He got so many presents.  A lot of it was Thomas the Train stuff.  He loves Thomas and plays with it for hours.  It is so cute how he knows all the names of the characters and everything:

I had to chuckle a little at the Paparazzi!

He is a well adored grandchild on both sides.  He is the only grandchild on his father's side and the only boy on our side.  Who wouldn't adore this kid though?  He is a doll!

Happy Birthday Cincinnati Cousin.  We love you.

Chicago for Thanksgiving

We are headed here for Thanksgiving:

We are so excited because although Chicago is beautiful at the holidays, we are really going to see this:

Yes, my sister is expecting #3!  Doesn't she look darling?  We each have two kids, exactly the same ages, but she went rogue on this pregnancy.  She always has to outdo me! Oh well.  I can't wait to hold her baby next summer.  Especially since her babies look like this:

Traditions Old and New

I love traditions.  I think it is because I like things to be the same.  People tease me about that a little.

Here are a few things that are new and old around here for the holidays this year.

We did the Thankfulness Tree again.  It was wonderful to count our blessings each night in November at the dinner table.  I was struck that every night I wanted to name the same few things.  I don't think that means that I don't have a lot of things and people to be thankful for, I just really love a few of them a lot!  The PKs wrote down their cousins almost every night because we are going to see them soon.  So about half of the leaves say, "Puffs and Sammy." Feel free to click here "Thankfulness Tree" to see last year's tree and get the full story.

A new tradition this year is the advent wreath.  I grew up with this, so it isn't new to me.  In fact, this is the exact wreath we used in my family growing up.  My mom gave it to me last year.  Either because I am the most reformed theology/homeschool daughter she has, or because I mentioned it.  It had the same candles she last used in the box so I just used them.  I wonder what year she last used the wreath.  If you remember mom, write it in the comments.

Another first for us is doing Operation Christmas Child.  What a great experience this was.  The girls were old enough to understand what it was all about.  I let them watch a video about it. Jane kept asking why some kids wouldn't have Christmas presents.  If you think about it, that is a pretty deep question, one that I still wrestle with myself.  We printed out a list of suggested gifts and I pretty much let them choose the items for the boxes.  I just walked around the store behind them sort of sniffing and wiping my nose because it was so precious.  If you want to tear up too, here is a little video link about Operation Christmas Child:  Operation Christmas Child.

I have been searching for a Christ-centered Nativity calendar for awhile.  I finally broke down and bought this one custom-made on etsy.com this year.  This actually isn't ours.  Ours only has a nativity scene, not a Christmas tree.  And ours is blank because we haven't started yet.  But otherwise it is the same. You add a piece of the nativity every day of December until you put baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve.

Lastly, I really lucked out helping Gram get ready for a yard sale last summer.  She said I could have these vintage Christmas ornaments she didn't want anymore and we are going to decorate our tree with them tonight.  I LOVE vintage stuff.  I will try to get some pictures when it is all done.

Football

Thankfully, PD is not a complete sports nut.  He does like college football though, and he watches all the
Ohio State Football games.  PK2 will watch with him now sometimes.














He sometimes has to go hunt down a place to watch the game since we don't have cable.  

This fall during halftime of the game every Saturday, he has started playing football with the girls.

It is pretty funny.

Football 2009 from Political family on Vimeo.

Dental Dilemma

This is a beautiful picture of my beautiful PK1.  Try to fix it in your mind because what I am about to show you is disturbing:

PK1 has a expensive somewhat rare condition where her baby teeth do not fall out on their own.  Her grown up teeth are coming in behind the baby teeth.

Weird..I know.  This is disturbing on many levels.  Money, hassle, stress.  I know though, that in the large scheme of things, it isn't that big of a deal.

We thought she was going to have to have a couple teeth pulled last week.  We were all mentally and financially prepared.  When we went in though, the doctor said that we could give it another six months to try to wiggle those bad boys out.  

I was relieved and disappointed at the same time.  We have been wiggling those teeth for almost a year now and I was kind of ready to have the whole thing over with.  But if I didn't have to spend the money and I didn't have to put PK1 through a bad dental experience, I wasn't going to insist.  So instead she got a regular check up and cleaning.  And PK2 got her first check up and cleaning.

She really felt like big stuff.

I left $250 dollars lighter in my wallet.  That is ok, I didn't want a new light fixture in the dining room and that J Crew sweater was only so-so.  As long as we have good dental hygiene.  Now back to that wiggling.

Fall Art Projects

My friends and family all kow that I am not crafty or artsy.  This is an understatement. I am not good at, nor do I enjoy, arts and crafts.  But kids love painting and crafts and I wouldn't want to pass on my prejudices so one of my goals this year was to be more adventurous with art stuff around here.  PK1 does have an art class every week, but I decided to supplement it a little bit at home. So with a lot of prayer and a paper bag for me to breath into and a few coupons for carry out pizza, I have gotten a little outside my comfort zone this fall.

In this one, you cut leaves out of paper towel and draw veins on them.  It is supposed to teach about the veins and about texture.  Then you paint the leaves in fall colors and glue them on a paper you have painted blue.

For this one, I just sat down to paint with them and started blending these colors and they decided to copy me.  This, I have found, is actually a really good techinique.  Better than saying..."make something like this."  If I was buying one of these in a store, I would pick PK2's version.  It is the bottom right:

This one was not fun because you the mom had to cut up all these little pieces for the leaves.  But I loved the contrast of the dark tree trunk, light paper and colorful leaves.  This was a first time the PKs used rubber cement and that was a bit of a trip.  They did cut out their trunk themselves, after I traced it, and glued all the leaves by scattering them on top of the rubber cement.

This one was the most ambitious, but we did really enjoy it.  First we read the book Leaf Man.

Then we went for a walk and chose some leaves.  It was a really good year for leaves with lots of vivid colors. I suggested they get lots of different colors and sizes and shapes.  Then we came home and started making a Leaf Man.  PK2 used so much glue.  I had to take really deep breaths and remind myself that glue only costs fifty cents.

PK1 wanted to write Leaf Man and that turned out pretty cute too.  PK2 went with a leaf lady.  I helped PK2 a little, but not PK1.  (As though she would even let me.)

The surprise with this one was that when you bring leaves in from outside and dump a bag of them on your kitchen table, you end up with a lot of dirt/mud on your white tile floor.  Who knew that leaves were not pre-washed.  There was quite a bit of clean up.  All in all, I give myself and "A" for effort and "B" for patience.  Not sure if Christmas crafts are in our future, get back to me at Valentines.