Last night was not a silent night.

You see, I had intended to post these pictures showing our preparations for a Christmas Eve gingerbread house-making party with good friends.


Instead, what I got was two vomiting boys.

Blessedly, it was a fairly fast moving flu-- the vomiting was pretty much over within 10 hours.Still, it left two exhausted parents, two sleepy children, and a whole boatload of laundry in its wake.

Still, it was a holy night. Praying with a sick little boy who later was able to say "Jesus helped me get better!", singing Christmas carols as lullabies, telling the story of Christ's birth as Daniel dozed off to sleep, we were able to find blessings even in the illness.

And today, we even managed to make our gingerbread houses, even though we had to cancel the party. The little boys didn't last long, though, and went back to lie down on the couch.


We dressed up

and made it to church and sang and worshipped.


And came home to open Christmas pajamas, have cocoa and cookies, and hang up stockings.

And so, I wish you a very merry Christmas-- may you find blessings in unexpected places!

Now that the tree is down

I found my camera and wanted to share some pictures.

I always love the first year the little ones can help decorate the tree.

And here is Nicholas putting the angel on top:

And my three favorite ornaments:
A little gnome from a Waldorf exchange years ago
A Mary Engelbreit Madonna and Child
And a terra cotta Mother Mary with the Child Jesus.

A few leftover Christmas pictures

Cousins! (It was a squishy sofa.)

The Christmas nature table.

And our Christmas picture, taken two Sundays after Christmas when everyone was done throwing up.

Handmade Christmas

I'm not the craftiest knife in the drawer, but wanted to share some of my handmade Christmas gifts.

When we asked Nicholas what he wanted for Christmas, he would say:
You! (Cute)
One big happy family! (Cuter)
A giant robot to destroy Michael. (Not so cute)

Giant robots being hard to come by, I made him a "Make Your Own Robot" Kit instead:








I gathered a bunch of beads, blocks, and other wood findings and painted them a metallic silver. I added a silver glitter to some as well. I added details with a Sharpie and then used adhesive velcro. I threw in some silver pipe cleaner lengths as well. I was afraid the velcro would fall off, but so far, so good!


Nick loves his robot army.


And so does Daniel!

Handmade (but NOT by me!) is this great robot shirt I bought from Bellflower Textiles on Etsy. Ignore the chocolate dribbling out of his mouth.


For Katie Grace, I made this hair accessory organizer:


I bought this great handmade-by-someone-else diaper for Daniel from Tot Wraps at the Hyena Cart website:


And my friend Lisa knit these longies for Daniel before he was even born, but I never had a shirt to go with them. Thanks to Marisa at The Funky Giraffe, I do now!




And look- I made them myself!

Long time, no see.

So, as usual, we had our usual Christmas outbreak of the plague... erm... of illness... this year. Michael threw up the Sunday before, then we had a few days off. Then Daniel started hurling, and then it was my turn. I couldn't even go to church on Christmas Eve. I couldn't even direct my own choir--my husband had to do it. I don't have pictures of everyone wearing their Christmas outfits and standing around the church tree. *weeps*

Nevertheless, we had ourselves a merry little Christmas. By Christmas Day I was well enough to cook dinner, if not to eat it. And now, two days later, we mostly seem on the mend. Here's hoping the rest of them don't get sick!

And despite my lack of photos of the children clothed in Christmas splendor, I do have a picture of them dressed up in their tradition Christmas jammies a nice church lady gives them each year:

More to come, hopefully. I hope your Christmas was merry, bright, and blessed!