Merry Christmas!

Twas the night before Christmas and over at our house

were the Johnsons and Weatherspoons and thankfully no mouse.

The wise men rode a camel in our Nativity play.

And everyone gathered round where the wee baby lay.

We sprinkled food for the Reindeer, right out on our lawn

And left muffins for Santa, hoping they'd soon be gone.

The stockings were hung, though two names were missing,

And children sent to bed, tucked with hugging and kissing.

And then it was Christmas, and while this was fun,
I can't keep on rhyming, and so I am done

At 5:15 am Mer, Max, and Jack were awake with the light on in Mer's room, "waiting until we can go open presents." I sent them back to bed and we opened presents at about 7:30.

I tried to get a pic of all of them lined up, but Luke wouldn't cooperate.

Once the "choo choo" was opened Luke wouldn't open anything else.

Everyone spent the morning putting Lego together and playing with everything else.

Luke loves to stand on skateboards and do "tricks"

And that was our Christmas.

It was a nice lazy day,
spent with our lovely family.
Merry Christmas we say!

It's about time to update the blog

Things have been busy over here, I've been using all my blogging time getting ready for Christmas. I set up a big table in my bedroom next to my sewing machine to house and work on all my present projects. Mer was in there the other day and said "hey, it looks like Santa's workshop in here" So right you are little Mer. I'm about done so I'll take a minute for a quick update. The kids are home from school for the next two weeks, and so is Doug. His vacation started last Friday. I walked in from dropping the kids off at school to a house full of Christmas music. I love when Doug is home. I can't believe he's taking the whole week off before Christmas. It has been nice to have him home to help.

It was our anniversary on Saturday. 12 years!!! To celebrate, Friday night we went rock climbing and out to dinner. It was our most adventurous anniversary yet. It's cold here again it was 57 when we left church yesterday. Tonight there is a Freeze warning in the county north of us. Since it's been getting colder over the last couple of days the kids asked, "does that mean it's going to snow for Christmas?" Uh, no kids. Jack and Luke improvised for a little Florida sleddding the other day.It didn't work so well. but fun anyway.
Max made a sweet diorama for school of the Delaware indians.

Mer started her science fair project. Growing plants from seed under different colored lights.
Jack made gingerbread houses with his preschool friends

We kept up the Markos tradition and went Christmas caroling tonight. The Tsarks came with us and I have to say it was fun to see all the kids singing because they wanted to. And now there's just three days until Christmas and there's so much to do. Merry Christmas...Gotta go!

Mer's first violin concert

We attended Meridith's first violin concert last night. She did excellent and will be glad to be moving on to more difficult songs. I will try again tomorrow to upload a video.

Outside play and Tasty Oranges

We have been enjoying our warm Florida weather and playing outside a lot this week. Yesterday they painted the sidewalk in the rain.

and got really messy. Sidewalk paint is just for the sidewalk, Jack.

And if you think Max had some good ninja moves, You should check out his dance moves in this little video.

Our oranges are getting ripe and we picked a few to eat today. They are surprisingly good this year. I think they are honey bells. Whatever they are, they are super juicy.Luke sure loved them.

Luke learned a new phrase this evening driving Mer to the church tonight. We were pointing out Christmas lights and we kept saying "there are some" as we pointed out the window. He quickly caught on and repeated his own version "dare some" over and over. Which caused the other kids to giggle with delight.

I used the last of my farmer's market earnings (btw friday's market was rained out) and bought a writing desk from Crate and Barrell. It was on sale and I got a thanksgiving weekend discount. It came in the mail today we assembled it tonight. We are oohhing and aahhing over it. It is so pretty and solid.
And though it will come in so handy to handle our papers and daily paraphernalia, what really sold me on it was the drawer. I couldn't find another one like it. I can finally get rid of the kitchen junk drawer. It also provides a nice home for our laptop when it's not in use on a lap. (not to mention the phone and cup holder that have inhabited the kitchen counter for the last 5 1/5 years.)
I should be sleeping but I'm up finishing this post because I can't sleep. We have a funeral to go to tomorrow for one of Jack's little 4 year old friends. She passed away last week from a late diagnosed meningitis. I laid in bed tonight wondering how we are going to make it through it tomorrow...what my kid's reactions will be. When Jack's first heard the news his response after he thought about it was "What is her Mom going to do? have no kids now?" I reminded him that she has other kids and a new baby and he was relieved. Interesting perspective I thought. We are praying for you dear Gordon family. Jack will miss playing at the park with Sarah.

Quote of the day

This was the exchange as Doug left the house this morning...

Jack yelled "Hey Dad, remember we're best buddies?"

Doug- "Oh I remember!"

Jack with a smile - "Me too."

Unofficial "Half"

I ran my unofficial Half Marathon yesterday morning. There is a real race happening this morning that my friend Abby signed up for. I trained along with her, for moral support and so I could have a little inspiration. I usually try to run a half marathon sometime after each baby is born and since I hadn't run one after Luke, it was time.

I've had a cold for the last couple of days, but I got a lot of sleep the night before and felt a little better, so I just went for it. I'm so glad I did. It turned out to be a great run. The weather was cool, I ran strong the whole time, it was exhilarating. My unofficial time was 1:53:42.

In other news, we had a nice relaxing Thanksgiving dinner with the Tsarks.

And we've spent a lot time doing this..

and this....

and this...

and this...

And now Luke and I are home sick from church. He has a cough and yucky nose. We dropped the kids off to meet up with dad at church a little while ago and Luke cried the whole way home saying "chur, chur,.... mer mer, chur." He knows when he's being left out and he hates it. It so cute, it's hard not to feel sorry for him when his little world gets shaken so. Now he's napping and I just might do the same.

Spoils of the day

Thanksgiving is tomorrow which means today was a baking day. We didn't have too much to do and the kids were home from school so they did a lot of it. We started it all with rice crispy treat turkeys. Th kids have been dying to make these since the beginning of October. Max and Mer made up the batch of rice crispy treats by themselves.
Everybody helped out with the turkey contstruction. Well, Luke didn't help, he just ate candy. They actually made it waiting until after dinner to eat them. It was the perfect pre-thanksgiving treat.
I made some pumpkin scones that I've been wanting to try. They'll be for breakfast tomorrow along with some fresh fruit. I snuck an edge and got a taste of the ginger sugar topping. Man they are going to be good.

Meredith made me a cherry pie from her Bake it Up cookbook.

Doesn't it look delicious!

With sugar being a substantial ingredient in all of these recipes, including the fresh cranberry sauce we boiled up today, I had better start the day off with a nice bit of exercise. Happy Thanksgiving!! We're ready, are you??

A little Holiday decor

I finished up a couple of projects tonight. I shouldn't technically be sewing for myself right now with christmas projects and one more farmer's market coming up, but I keep seeing all the cute stuff Liz is making and I just had to get in on the action. I made a table runner that I can enjoy for one more week...
and a Merry Christmas banner that will be officially hung after Thanksgiving. Thank you Liz for the inspiration and tips! I love how they turned out!!

What's going on

Jack's last day of art class was Thursday. Thanks to art class we have accumulated quite a bit of thanksgiving decor. His last projects were a place mat, turkey hat, and 2 edible turkeys. He was sad to be done. (though I think he was more sad that I was making him pose for the picture). I'm thinking about putting him in for the next 3 week session. We'll see.

We took a trip to the movie's last night to see "Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs." The kids have been working on filling up a marble jar for their completed chores in order to go. It took them about 2 1/2 weeks of hard work. We luckily caught the last showing before it went out of the theaters.

And finally, it is serious project time over here as I am gearing up for last farmer's market and Christmas. I have a few things in the works but this morning I finished some pajama pants for Mer and Max that they have been waiting for. Here they are ready for bed tonight.
Doug is home for the weekend now and did a little project of his own tonight. He hung his guitars. I wish I had a before shot. The shelf was where the guitars are and the guitars and amps were shoved into the corner. Good work Doug.