I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the past week or so, but that’s fine with me.  I haven’t been sick much recently, and my biggest prayer was that I could get through the Christmas Eve church service without being terribly sick.  Since my prayer was answered, I’m taking my lumps with a good attitude.  I’ve been coughing and sneezing and sniffling, but nothing too serious.  I keep lozenges handy and am so glad we don’t have school until after the new year starts.  But I do feel a little lazy, as I sleep late, take naps, and go to bed early, not really accomplishing much during the day.  No doubt I’ll make up for these lazy days next week when we get back to our regular school schedule.

This morning Judah was wearing a new “hand-me-down” cloak he received yesterday, and he was so excited to be a new little person in his imagination.  He decided that now, instead of calling me “Mrs. Lyons”, he’ll call me “Master Mrs. Lyons”.  When I said I would call him “Master Judah” in response, he corrected me and said that actually he was “Master Yoda”.  No problem.  Yoda it is.

Well, if you don’t hear from me much over the next few days, you’ll know that there’s not much to tell.  I’m just laying around, eating chocolate (half-price after Christmas!), and watching t.v. (special-effects dvd from “Prince Caspian”). 

Last night we made it to our church’s Christmas Eve service without any great delays or stresses.  The service was beautiful, and it was nice to cheerily call out “Merry Christmas” to our friends and family as we headed back to our van.

Once we got home, I told the children they could dig into their gingerbread houses.  With great delight, the houses were retrieved and the children started picking the candies off.  But after sitting for a couple of weeks in the open air, the candy, the icing and the gingerbread is almost as hard as a rock.  So the kids hammered and chiseled, grabbing knives and other tools, to break into their houses.  It kept them busy for quite some time.

We told them they could camp out in the living room if they wanted to, and Michael and I headed to bed, much more sleepy than the children.

This morning I woke up early with a tickle in my throat, so I got up to start the cinnamon rolls.  Thanks to my days and days of baking, with a less-than-enthusiastic kitchen elf on cleaning duty, the kitchen needed a bit of rescuing.  So I brewed some coffee and got busy.  Now, as I type this, the kitchen is clean, and the dough for the rolls is rising.  The children are slowly waking up and eager to start our Christmas festivities.

My biggest hope for this day is that we will be patient with one another and not ruin our wonderful day with squabbling and selfishness.  With everyone so excited and giddy, sometimes it’s hard to remember to behave.

Merry Christmas to you!  Oh, and if you want to see a cute Christmas song that really resonated with me, check out this link on YouTube.

Last night we had a very nice Christmas celebration with the Walsh relatives here in town.  We stayed up way too late, getting home close to midnight with our seven sleepy children.  This morning the kids slept late, and now we’re working hard to clean house and prepare for a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I’ve promised the children that once the house is cleaned up, I’ll bake some soda bread so they can have a tea party.  After that, it will be rest time for one and all.  Tonight we’ll attend our church’s Christmas Eve service.

Meanwhile, we’re trying to keep from letting our sleepy selves be too crabby with one another.  It’s like walking a tightrope… one little slip and someone snaps and is grumpy.  I think rest time will be very quiet today.

Two nights ago I made a bad decision.  It’s the type of thing that our kids get stern lectures for and lose privileges over.  It was a downright stupid thing to do, and I knew better.

I asked Isaac to bring me a glass of water.  He did, and I set it on my laptop while I opened my pill bottle to grab my meds.  I don’t know who bumped who or whose fault it was, but in an instant the water dumped onto my computer keyboard.  Just as quickly, I flipped my computer over upside down so the water wouldn’t flow over the keyboard any more than it already had.  Isaac reminded me I needed to get the battery out.

Once the immediate chaos settled down (and I swallowed my pill), I had the unpleasant duty to inform Michael of my stupidity.  He was gone, so I used my iPod Touch and wrote him an e-mail so he would know what happened.  Much to my discomfort, just as soon as I sent the e-mail, Michael pulled up in front of the house.  Usually I’m much happier to see him, but this time I had hoped I would be fast asleep by the time he got home.

As MIchael walked in the door, his phone chimed that he had a new e-mail, so he checked it.  He read silently, and then his eyes popped open wider and he looked at me without saying a word.

Michael agreed that Isaac and I had done the right things in trying to rescue the computer, and he said it would need to air out for a while before trying to start it.

Yesterday I went without the laptop all day, waiting and wondering and hoping I hadn’t ruined my computer.

Last night Michael decided it was time to check out the computer.  To my relief, it worked just fine.  Whew! It was a happy reunion, and I’ve been delighted that my only penalty for dowsing my computer was to spend a day without it.

Laura borrowed my camera and went on a photographic journey around our yard.  Here are some of my favorite photos that she came back and showed off.

along the fence line

Sitting under the trampoline...

...still under the trampoline

a snow angel

Last night the weather forcasters started warning us that an ice storm was on the way here, and would hit by 3 pm today.  So this morning people started taking precautions.  Area schools and businesses set early closing times.  Local evening events and Christmas programs were cancelled.  Everyone was gearing up for the ice to start falling from the sky at precisely 3 pm.

I did my part and rescheduled the children’s music lessons.  Normally we have lessons from 1-2:30, and another one from 5-5:30.  I was able to get piano set up for 9 a.m., and the guitar lesson for 1 p.m.  But as Illinois weather is prone to do, the forecast shifted a bit, and then shifted again… and the icy weather didn’t actually arrive until around 9 p.m.  The good news is that means folks had longer to prepare.  The unfortunate thing is that schools and businesses and Christmas programs (and music lessons) could have still kept their regular schedules.

Around supper time I was settling in for a quiet evening, and Michael’s brother, Todd, stopped by.  After chatting for a minute he reminded me that this is our regular weekly babysitting night, so he was ready to watch kids if Michael and I wanted to go out.  I quickly sent a message to Michael and asked if he wanted to go anywhere.  We aren’t the type to turn down free babysitting very often, so we eagerly accepted the chance to go do our shopping for the children’s Christmas stockings.

We had a delightful, relaxing time choosing the various things for the children.  It’s rather a daunting task to choose items for six different people (Lilly won’t even realize she didn’t get anything in her stocking.), so it took us a couple of hours.  When we were finally done and heading to our car, we realized the rain and ice was here.  We scraped the ice off the windows and cautiously headed home.  The main roads were passable, so that got us most of the way home.  Turning into our neighborhood, we slid most of the way down the hill, and managed to make the turn to get on to our street, and then we were home.  Fortunately Todd lives across the street, so he was able to get home safely.

Now we are snug and comfy and ready to see what ice comes our way.  I love winter weather, and we don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow, so we’ll stay put until it’s safe to get out.  The one thing I hope doesn’t happen is any trees or power lines breaking from the heavy ice.  Having a power outage is no fun.

What is the weather doing where you are?

One by one the children have been finishing up their school work in order to have a break until the new year.  So each day I’ve been a bit more free to do other things besides school.  Yesterday we had a marvelous time, making cookies, working on our gingerbread houses and relaxing.  Today we made more cookies, and I made a big batch of hot cocoa mix to enjoy.  This evening I made some truffles, and I also made a double batch of carrot cake, which I am eating warm as I type.    So, all in all, I’m working hard to gain those five pounds that folks say you gain during the holidays.

Today we got a nice batch of snow.  It’s about 3-4 inches, I guess, and it’s beautiful.  If it weren’t so cold outside, I’m guessing the children would have spent time playing outside today.  But it’s bitterly cold, so the children are admiring the snow from inside the house for now.

Tomorrow we’ll probably make more cookies, and I think a big pot of chili would be in order.

What are you cooking these days?

Tonight we were so excited to finally be able to go build and decorate our gingerbread houses at Kelly’s Bakery.  We missed last year’s event thanks to a mean ice storm that trapped us in our neighborhood over at the Bobwhite house.  But this year the weather was kinder and gentler, and we happily traversed the path to our favorite bakery.  Laura, Isaac and Luke each had their own houses to decorate, while Miguel and Amelia shared decorating duties for their house.

The other Lyons family joined the fun and decorated a house too.  I think Hannah and Lydia were supposed to be working together, but I saw an awful lot of “help” from their dad.  Perhaps next year he’ll earn the chance to have a house all to himself to decorate.

Last time the children decorated gingerbread houses, I didn’t prevent them from snacking on their artwork right away.  So by the very next day the houses were all chewed up and not very pretty at all.  This year I decided I would like to look at the houses for a bit longer before allowing the children to gnaw away at them.  When I told the children they had to wait until Christmas to eat their candy and gingerbread, they were aghast.  Christmas is 12 days away!  How could they be expected to exercise such self control?  But I am smug in my insistence, and the houses are sitting beautifully on the dining-room table as I write this.

Another Christmas tradition has been satisfied.

I’m thinking this is a tradition worth continuing!

Oh, and by the way, if you are noticing that there are no photos of Isaac with his house, that’s because it wasn’t finished at the bakery.  Instead, he packed up all his pieces and brought it home to finish here.  Isaac cannot be rushed when it comes to the details of things.  Perhaps tomorrow I can photograph Isaac and his masterpiece.

Today I made cookies. But not my usual, easy, drop cookies. Oh, no, it was time once again to express my creativity with roll-out, snowflake, decorated cookies. It took hours to roll, cut and bake the cookies. Only a few minutes were required to calm down after a dozen or two cookies were knocked on the floor by a little boy who felt very sorry for losing his balance and bumping into the cooling racks. And then more hours were taken in a joint effort by Laura and me to frost and put details on each cookie. Now that it’s done, my back is aching, cookies are resting comfortably, and I’m ready to go to bed. What a huge project. But it was fun, in its own way, and worth doing. There’s something satisfying about being creative.

Tomorrow morning Laura and I will go to our church’s annual cookie exchange. We’ll have fun showing off our work, and we’ll enjoy getting cookies in exchange

The good news is that I made enough cookie dough for all five dozen cookies I needed to prepare. The bad news is that I made extra dough, and I have as much dough waiting for me to use as I’ve already used. I guess the children will get their wishes and will be allowed to make cutout cookies after all.

Today is Lilly’s first birthday.  I can’t believe a year has passed since I first held her in my arms.

Lilly has been a treasure, and we love her dearly.

Happy Birthday, Lilly!