Some Christmas happenings

This year the boys have had a couple of chances at making some Christmas crafts.  I love doing crafts...but not when my house looks like a bomb went off!  So this year the house is in better shape, and the craft supplies came out.  After seeing how much fun the boys had, not to mention how serious they were in planning their creations, I felt bad that it has been so long that they had free reign to be creative!  

We went to a craft fair and the boys had a blast!  I only wish we were able to spend more time there since it was a short fair, and we got there late.  I planned on taking pictures, but after pulling out my camera to snap the first one of the day I got that lovely little message "no card" flashing on my screen.  Sigh.  

 This was Aubrey's craft gift to me.  I told him that he had glued two large stars and 8 smaller stars onto his 'wreath'...which is how many people are in our family.  He didn't plan it that way.

 Merida wanted in on the crafting as well.  She just likes to spend her time cutting things up!

 We had planned on making a new Jesse tree for our Jesse tree ornaments.  That hasn't happened.  So each night I pull out the ornaments that we have read stories to and place them on a couch cushion (the ornaments are made of felt so they kind of stick up there).

 Moira was in her second play, A Christmas Carol.  We saw it last night, and they did an amazing job.  Moira was Mrs. Fezziwig.  Here she is after I did her hair.  Thank goodness for youtube!

 The hairstyle she choose worked great for the time period, and was easy to do.  She said she's just happy that she doesn't live back then, and having to do her hair like that everyday!  Ha, ha.

 There is a family, over the river and through the woods, that puts on an amazing light display for Christmas.  They get dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus and hand out candy to the people who come by.  This year Isabella went over and asked if they would like a Christmas pony to accompany them on some nights.  They were delighted to have the pony over.  Isabella went all out decking Olaf out in Christmas attire.  She had put bells on all of his feet, except that he ATE the front ones off!!  He didn't actually swallow them, but apparently he wasn't fond of them.

 Since we don't have a way to transport the pony, Isabella needed to walk him over and Saoirse went with her so she wouldn't be walking alone.

 Isabella had Olaf doing some tricks.  Here she is getting him to smile (though I didn't catch the smile on camera).

 New to their display was this snowman shooting "snow".  The boys were thrilled, even if the 'snow' was just bubbles!  They spent a lot of time hanging out with that snowman.

 If they weren't with the snowman, then you could find them by the fire roasting marshmallows.  The couple who does this has a fire, sticks for marshmallows, bags of marshmallows, and...

 she made hot cocoa for all of my kids!  Here Isabella is telling her pony that the hot cocoa was NOT for him.

 Yeah, that didn't last long!  He got a first sip, which flew him for a loop, since it was hot.  I wish I had that on camera.  Bella thought that would dissuade him, but not a chance.  He drank every last drop!!

 A group shot.  Moira was at her play, and Flannery was home not feeling well.

The crew with Santa.

It has been unseasonably warm here, and yesterday for the Christmas parade it was a whopping 75* out!  The parade was fun.  The boy's whole reason for being there was to see how much candy they could walk away with.  The baby was in love with every dog that went by....please, NO, not *another* animal lover ;-P  We got home, hot and tired.

But there was some work to be done.  We have started pulling up carpet.  We seem to have a serious mold problem in our house.  The carpets are not the cause, but I can assure you they are only adding to the problem.  Since that is something we can actually work on, that is what we did.  I was quite surprised by the amount of work Jonah did!  That kid really and truly worked and worked and worked until the job was done!  He moved furniture in and out, he pulled up staples, threw carpeting out the window, vacuumed, etc.  The other boys helped as well, but here and there.  Jonah was like the Energizer Bunny!  One room done, as far as the carpet up.  I have a bunch of things I want to wash before putting it back in the room.  I need to find my diffuser, I had just seen it somewhere, so I can start diffusing Thieves oil.

Praying we will slowly start to see an improvement in how we are feeling.

My Table-scape

About three times a month my table is overrun with Dixie cups.  Lots of Dixie cups.  Some of you know we utilize homeopathy to help overcome illness.  But we have also utilized it to treat underlying issues in two children.  One child, Jedidiah, was not able to continue on homeopathy due to financial reasons many years ago, but thankfully we saw lasting results for many of his issues.  I have no doubt we would have seen his growth hormone issue resolved had we been able to stay with the treatment.

Currently we have Isabella in treatment for various ailments that I know she would not like for me to share.  But I can assure you that her ailments have been a huge burden for her to bear, and we are very pleased that we can utilize homeopathy at this time for her.

The only problem is that Isabella is very, very sensitive to the remedies.  This may make some people balk since the remedies are already diluted beyond there being any physical remnants of the original substance, just it's energy.  Most people think that homeopathy is bunk due to this, but it would only take someone to actually see homeopathy work to be convinced that it has the ability to heal the body.

It has taken us many months to find the right dosage for Isabella so that she is not left in an aggravated state (where she is experiencing more symptoms).  There is still healing going on, it just won't be evident!  With her recent batch of remedies sent to us we will be putting her on a new schedule that we are hoping will bring even more noticeable healing for her.

But between her sensitivities and the new schedule....well, things are pretty challenging.  I have to give myself pep talks before I tackle making up her remedies.  I have to wait for a time where the baby will be asleep or being taken care of by someone else, and that we have filtered water on hand.  Those two things seem like such a simple matter, but not so!

Because once I get started with making up her remedies having the baby come along can really undo a LOT of work!  This is what my table looks like as I am making the remedies:

 I couldn't fit them all in, but behold...168 Dixie cups.  But you can see that should a little wee lass come along and knock those over....well, let's just say there will be tears shed (by me!).

 I first have to figure out which level is next for her to take.  I make a label, put it on one of the little blue bottles.  Then I take the remedy pack (the small manila envelopes you see on top of the cups) and place them on top of each row of cups, along with the blue bottle that pertains to that remedy.

I put the remedy, which is the size of a grain of salt, onto a spoon, and drop it in the first cup.  Five of her remedies have 24 cups, one has 48 cups.  I then fill each of the cups with some water.  All 168 of them!  I give the first cup, with the remedy in it, a stir, then pour a bit of that water into cup two.  I dump the first cup of water into a container, and pick up cup number two to give it 3 to 5 swirls.  Then I pour a bit of water from cup two into cup three, and repeat the process until we get to cup 24 (or 48).  With cup number 24 I give it a few swirls and pour the water into the blue bottle for that remedy.  Then I repeat the process for the second remedy, and third, until I am all done.

 With the new schedule she will be taking half the remedies (3 of them) on one day, and the other 3 remedies the next day.  So this time around I used a marker to color the tops of the labels, three with green, and three with pink. That way she can look at each day to see which color remedies she needs to take.  She can't take them all at once, but needs to space them out over the day.

This is one of the bottles up close.  I have the remedy name, which is usually abbreviated.  This one is Belladonna at the 1Q potency.  I also write on the bottom when her last dose is to be taken.  Each remedy (for Isabella due to her sensitivity) will be taken 5 times over a 10 day period.  She *knows* when she went past the 'expiration' date because she will suddenly come down with symptoms!  I kid you not.  But it always works like this:
Bella:  Mom!  I don't know what is up, but  _______________ (insert symptom) is out of control!  I don't know what is going on.
Me:  What is the date on the remedy bottle?
Bella:  Oh, yeah.  Let me go check.

She comes back to tell me the last day for her remedy was two days ago....yup, time to make the new remedies.  Now I do put the date to make up her new batch on our family calendar.  However, our family calendar is dry erase.  Two words for you....little boys.  Enough said!  Ha, ha!

So that is my table-scape three times a month!

Alien Chickens

So does everyone else's kids play Alien Chickens or Zombie Apocalypse?  No?  How odd.

Well, mine do.  And they have been playing it often (along with playing out the book they are writing).  They have set up camp over in the herb garden.  A camp complete with shelter, fire, and sometimes food they have scrounged for (like yummy ham from the neighbor).  They have it bad.

I came out on the first night of camp to find Flannery trying to start a fire with her flint and steel.  She had gathered some pine shavings in an attempt to start a fire for her freezing comrades (you all know that when it gets to be 55* over here that calls for the winter gear!).  I asked if they wanted some dryer lint, as I am sure everyone will have that at hand come the apocalypse, but she declined.  After many more attempts at the fire, I went in to gather some lint (we have NO shortage of the stuff...we do now since they have been using it ever since that night), and lo and behold...FIRE.  Ooooh.  Aaaahhh.

Flannery tells me that they have resorted to using a lighter and candle to start their fires.  I am assuming that counts as cheating.  But it works to get a fire going.  Besides their knives at their sides they have added air soft guns, to keep the alien chickens at bay (that would be the roosters who actually attack).  Sad for their game, said attacking roosters have been re-homed.  This is good news for the boys who were terrified to go outside and have a rooster run after them.

In other non-alien news, Moira, Flannery and I went grocery shopping this week.  Before we started the shopping for food we needed to get Moira some new clothing for work.  She got her first job last week!!!  She is so excited.  It was a difficult adjustment as it is a demanding job, but she is getting used to it and everyone says she is doing an amazing job.  In a jam days before, we had to purchase a new outfit, which cost $35!  Ouch.  So on this particular day, with no time demands, we headed to the thrift store.  She was able to get two outfits for work.  On top of that Flannery found a shirt for herself, and I happened to find some stocking stuffers, and two full outfits, a sweater, plus some shoes for the baby...all for $28.  Now that is more like it.  I know people who can get a lot better deals at garage sales, but that isn't in the cards for me right now.  One day, one day.

 Moira did NOT get this skirt. Phew!  But she really liked it.

 Flannery, always moving!  She ended up with the darker shirt.

Two of the items for Merida.  I also got her some rainbow pants, with a cute long sleeve shirt with a cat and dog in winter gear on the front.  Last summer I got her some nice pink sandals, and found the same brand but different color (purple) for this coming summer.  They look brand new.

To end this week I finally got to the pottery place to take advantage of the gift certificates that Jeremiah gave me for mother's day!  It was daunting to say the least.  I had to find what I wanted to paint. Then figure out a design...then the colors.  This is truly overwhelming for me, so I took my time.  I had to bring the piece home with me to bring back at a later date to finish.  I had a vision of what I wanted the plate to look like, but the outer lip didn't go as planned.  I had decided to do these dots in half circles around the edges, with words in between them.  But the half circles ended up too close together to do the wording in between. So now I am not sure how I am going to put the words on there that I want.  On the lip I have, "a Family of".  I had decided to write words like, "artists, bookworms, creators, courage, hope, servants, worship, music, silly, etc".  Now I will have to find another way to put those on there.  I got a glimpse of the plate so you can see what I mean.

 See I have my plans and palette at hand.

 Too many colors to choose from, but these are the ones I chose for the dots around the edges.

The dots around the edges.  All the colors will be much darker after the piece is put through the fire and glazed.

Oh, almost forgot, we had a beautiful day before the cold front came in, and went to the park for a picnic.  My kids are goo over picnics.  I feel bad, because we have one maybe once every three years or so!  Needless to say, they were giddy.  Eating at the park, hooping, and playing.  All fun.

 Jonah takes his hooping seriously.

 Merida has found a way to swing that hoop around her three times!  Smart girly.

 Saoirse will be starting a hoop walking club.  Joking.

 Group hooping.

 Jed looks so big here!

Oh, look, one of my kids' shoes.  Fancy that.

 Look no further to see who they belong to.  It appears that Flannery will be starting the hoop jogging course.  I can barely hoop standing still, let alone walk OR run!

 There was a child there that was having a birthday, and my boys asked if they could join in the bubble fun.

 The baby being cute in the swing.

She is too cute for her own good!