and now get BACK to work...

This morning, things began to get back to normal.

Dave left for work at 5:30,

Jarrett left for North Carolina at 9,

and Alyson left to babysit at the same time.

It was a treat to stay home for so many days. I loved having all the kids home and not having to wait on the late train to bring our Dad home each day. All good things must end, I suppose.

Here are a couple pictures of our sweet, quiet Christmas:

Get to Work

Jarrett got home from school yesterday so everyone is now together! He was quite surprised at the amount of snow there is. Thankfully, the road crews finally got to our neighborhood and completely cleared the streets so he was able to make it up the hill in his rear-wheel drive pickup.

There is still work to do, though, so everyone buckled down and got right to it.

The container of cookies was brought out, the icing was mixed, and the sprinkles were assembled.

It takes a lot of concentration

Here are some of the more impressive entries this year:

What is Christmas without a Star Wars villian?

the Nintendo entry, as offered by Joshua:Pretty impressive resultsWe celebrated afterwards with a holiday classic and big bowls of popcorn

blog robbing.....

ok, this is shameless but Alyson and I loved it so much we had to "borrow" it. Thank you to Kate, here.

"As the healthcare bill gets ready to pass the senate, I think this picture says it all."

Since we've no place to go.....

Today was an incredibly beautiful day! The sun was out, the air was crisp, and it looked like a wonderland....

Since church was cancelled, the roads were still blocked, and our vehicles were buried in snow, there was nothing to do but enjoy it!

We took a walk through the neighborhood a bit. The kids had fun playing in this snow fort until the guy who owns the enormous bush came out and yelled at them about the possibility of breaking the branches...
Snow angels?

This part wasn't that fun. Dave shoveled the porch and the sidewalk and the top part of the driveway. Nick and I helped a little. We got about two-thirds of the driveway shoveled.
This made it worth the work:
The best news of all for Alyson: NO SCHOOL MONDAY!! Since Dave is off work this week and the boys and I are already home, it'll be another fun family day! Too bad some of us still have some Christmas shopping to do....

Oh, the weather outside....

When it looked like this outside:

Inside it looked like this: We had a fun day today. We watched a movie tonight to finish it off. Looks like we won't be going to church tomorrow (if they are having service, which I doubt...) because our neighborhood roads are impassable. Alyson's holding out hope for no school Monday! :)

Here is how it went down today:

10 AM

NOON

2 PM

The final measurement we took was at 6 pm. 18 inches deep was the report. WOW!

Slowing Down.....please?!

Today I was at Target and saw they have a big Valentine's Day display out!! Really????
I almost started crying right there in the aisle.
Can't we please just enjoy this season before rushing off to make a profit on the next?

At church tonight the pastor spoke on the parable of the sower. (Matt. 13) His point was that when we sow our seeds in the middle of so many thorns, the seed is overwhelmed and can't take root. No matter what our good intentions are, if we don't care for and nurture our seed, taking special care to keep it clear of things that want to encroach upon it, we run the risk of losing what good we planted in the middle of a big mess of weeds.
I want our Christmas to be a beautiful, healthy, little plant that is nourished and grows deep roots, not one that is crowded by all kinds of distractions or overwhelmed by to-do lists and obligations.

The weed outgrows the seed. If we are not careful, that will be true of our Christmas as well....

Reptile Repose

I am sorry to announce that two of the 4 possibly-viable eggs we were incubating have collapsed and the last two are not far behind. Everything we read said that bearded dragon eggs were very difficult to keep but we figured it was worth a shot. These 4 made it about halfway through gestation.
Yesterday we cut open the two eggs that collapsed and saw teeny tiny little dragons inside-complete with tails. It was a neat testament to God's creation and a sad thing to see as well.

So we are left with one female dragon. I think we may all be ready to move on to something new around here and I'll be listing her on the pet exchange shortly....

The rest of the week

Here are some shots from the end of the week:

Thursday Joshua and I went with our good friends to see the Nutcracker at the Performing Arts Center in Annapolis. They did a shortened version of the ballet for younger kids. It was fun to dress up and go see it. Joshua had never seen the Nutcracker before so it was a special treat for him!

Here are the two of us.....

and Joshua and his friend Meara...

Thursday night Dave and I went to a holiday ball at the Fort Belvoir Officer's Club in Virginia. But I forgot my camera and we forgot to go get our pictures taken there--so no pictures. :( Oh well, you can just imagine that we looked dashing. :)

Friday we were invited to a party at Dave's old work at Fort Meade. It was fun seeing everyone again. The boys won the scavenger hunt so Joshua came home with a "first place" ribbon on his chest.

Here is a really good sport.....(hey I gave him a break on the Kennedy Center photo...)

And an excited boy.....

Today Alyson is coaching her first meet up in Baltimore. I wonder if she took her camera.....

The boys went to cut out Joshua's pinewood derby car and now are at the gym and I went to the commissary. Sorry, I don't have pictures from that. But I did get some great deals! :)

Have a great weekend!

Kennedy Center

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone in my family wants pictures of everything they do posted on the internet every time they do it.

So, in deference to those who wish to avoid the paparazzi, I will not post the pictures I made them pose for in the lobby. I will just tell you that we went to the Kennedy Center today to see a performance of Teddy Roosevelt and the Ghostly Mistletoe.

We had a great time-the theater we were in (the Family Theater) was beautiful; the set, which was the Blue Room of the White House, was very nice; and the play was delightful. We were all laughing along and enjoying every minute of it.

We will be going back to see a couple other performances there in the coming months and I am definitely looking forward to it!

Birthday Girl

Here is a picture of a girl in her last "official" year of childhood.....with a big bowl of ice cream and 17 candles. :)

Pre-birthday Winter Fun!

Today is Alyson's 17th birthday!!!

Yesterday we had a party for her at a skating rink in Annapolis. To our great delight, we got SNOW on Saturday and yesterday was sunny and beautiful--the perfect day for ice skating! 7 friends came and we all skated (except Dad, who ran the camera and kept guard over the cakes...). It was a great time.

In a moment of blogging shame, I must admit that I FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES of all of the cakes we made. Here are 2 that were left-not the two prettiest, but you can get the idea. We actually had 14 of these little cakes-each one decorated differently. We thought it would be more fun that one big cake. The cakes are from scratch-chocolate with a peppermint-sugar wash and dark chocolate-peppermint ganache under the chocolate fondant. YUMMY! Tonight we will have her favorite dinner (pecan-crusted chicken tenders, fresh green beans with garlic, cheesy breadsticks, and salad) then mint-chocolate chip ice cream from Baskin Robbins (with candles, of course) for dessert.

Have a great day, my girl! I love you!

Nostalgia

I clicked on the "new post" link to write this, but technically it's only partly new.....

I'm just feeling nostalgic today, I think. We were looking through some old pictures on shutterfly--some of you may remember that share site I used to use on there. We had such fun seeing how much everyone had changed and remembering the fun things we did.

This picture

is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Everyone looks so genuinely, purely happy. Joyous, really. Relieved, excited, exhausted, and thankful all at once.

Those of you who knew us "when" will recognize that bandage on Nick's leg from our visit to the Wiesbaden Stadtklinik (ER) about an hour and a half before this meeting at the hangar on the airfield. He received 8 stitches (needed about 14, but that's a German thing...) and 2 tetanus shots from slicing his leg all the way to the bone on a tin can lid in a bag of recycling while we were cleaning up the house for the big "welcome home" celebration. What a day. I love the look on Joshua's face--"who on earth are you??"

It was 450 days--and it all came down to that moment. Sometimes I can't believe it's already been 5 1/2 years since that day. The emotions come back every time I see the picture. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago--when our children were still young, our life was so different....

I guess life has a way of doing that. Moving on...without actually letting go....

Thanksgiving Day

Joshua and I had one last activity to do before we finished up our Thanksgiving unit for school. We made a bread cornucopia Wednesday night in preparation for the big dinner Thursday.

Thursday we headed down to No. Virginia to the home of some of our dearest, oldest Army friends. (They're not our "oldest" friends--just some we've had the longest....) We've had the tradition of spending Thanksgiving with them since we came back from Germany several years ago. Our families have sort of "grown up" together--when we met Jarrett and Michael were in the 1st grade! It's fun spending the holiday with them-everyone has their "jobs." The men fry a turkey (just part of the over-abundance we indulge in), the kids decorate the tables and put the colored sugar on the edges of the glasses for the sparkling cider, and the moms cook and cook. There are usually a few twists thrown in just to keep things fresh. One year Joe was deployed and Dave and the boys fried the turkey themselves. Then after dinner they hung the Christmas lights. This year Joe's parents were visiting from Minnesota and Jan's mother and aunt were with us as well. And unfortunately this year we were missing Jarrett. Thankfully the family of one of his friends was sweet enough to have him and some other stranded kids over for dinner and he thoroughly enjoyed himself. Thanksgiving is always a fun time to look forward to and such a reminder of the many blessings we have...