Happy New Year

On New Years Day the Alexander Clan assembled for the annual Christmas/New years Party. The house was bussling with activity and food - soups, sandwiches, and what is now know as Chris's crack-pot chili. Outlaw Chris brought chili in a crockpot, but was having trouble getting it heated up, so he took the ceramic insert out of the crockpot and placed it on the stove burner to heat up a little faster. At some point, I noticed that Lisa, Laura, and Martha were creating quite a fuss around the stove, and kind of whispering to each other like they didn't want to draw attention to whatever was happening over there. I thought that some chili had bubbled over onto the burner, which to me seems like no big deal, but to the Alexander set, it's major cause for alarm. Turns out that what really happened was that the bottom of the ceramic pot had broken and the chili had expelled itself all over the burner and top of the stove. I took this photo after most of it had been cleaned up. Of course, the cleaned it up so well, the stovetop looks better than it has in two years.

 Luckily, we weren't about to go hungry.

 The Star Wars conversation table.

The hunting conversation table.

The girl talk table.

 Lounging in the livingroom.

Patches enjoyed lots of attention.

Time for dessert.

 Then a Star Wars Christmas play, written by Jacob. Jacob is Luke Skywalker and Cole is Obi Wan.

 Heather as Princess Leia. Jacob was also the voice of Yoda.

 A clone trooper and Darth Vader.

More Clone troopers move in to attack. In the end, Darth Vader is lured from the Dark Side when h e learns the tru meaning of Christmas from his son, Luke.

A song to the Star Wars theme.

 The audience, clearly enjoying the show.

When Elijah first arrived at the house, he hid behind Sandy's legs and didn't want anyone to look at him, but once he discovered the spotlight, there was no getting him off the stage.

 Happy New Year!

Jacob, Sliding

Cousin Jacob is here to spend a couple of days with Wayne, Cole, and Heather before the big "Christmas" party on Saturday.  They spent a good part of this afternoon sliding.

 Jacob shared a big sled with Cole.

 Wayne went solo.

 Jacob and Cole ended up in the prickle bushes.

 The hard way up

 The easy way up.

Merry Christmas

Hope Santa brought you everything you wanted.

Good night!

Heather is 4! And the Kids Meet Santa!

It's been a whirlwind weekend. There's tons of photos and not much time for me to be online, so here's a quick recap of recent events in our household.

On Thursday we had a little birthday party for Heather. This poor quality photo is the only one I managed to squeeze out of my dying camera batteries. On the left is Heather's friend Anya, from up the road.  They will eventually enter kindergarten together. Cameron is in the center, and of course there's Heather.  Missing from the photo is Gavyn who preferred playing the electric keyboard in the basement to dressing up in costumes.

On Satruday, Glover Recreation had our annual Santa on a Fire Engine event. Guess who got roped into being Santa this year.  The kids always knew that it wasn't the real Santa on the fire engine.  In the past it was always Frank D. and they recognized his voice.  They got a big kick out of seeing Daddy in a Santa costume.

At the fire station there were some simple crafts and activity pages to keep kids busy while they waited their turn to ride the fire engine with "Santa."  There's Spencer (the boy I took care of last year) and his mom, Cathy.

The kids ride on top of the engine. Sorry for the poor photo below, but you can sort of see a group of people and "Santa" up there as it departs.  It looks kind of scary but it's actually safer than it looks.  Santa asks the kids what they want for Christmas and there is some singing of carols. The engine drives very slowly through the village and people come out of their houses and wave at the children.  It's all very sweet.

Wayne and Cole during their ride. Heather was sitting on my lap beside them so I couldn't get her picture.

Earlier on Saturday, we were busy decorating the tree.

It's a disaster, I know.

Also on Saturday, we worked on gingerbread houses. Cole's was a gingerbread Monster House.

Heather made a castle.

Wayne made a gingerbread Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

The finished products: The Millenium Falcon,

Monster House,

the castle.

Sunday at the gingerbread contest, sponsored by the library, Wayne and Cole do some origami.

There was music with puppets.

Sophia played the violin and also sang a little.  She has a beautiful voice.

All children who enter the gingerbread contest get little stockings filled with goodies, but both Heather and Cole won real prizes. Wayne's ears turned bright red when he heard their names called.  I had to remind him that he won the pie contest last summer and they did not.  Heather won a gift certificate to Parker Pie and Cole won a large bottle of maple syrup from Waltzing Bear.

The birthday girl in an outfit from Martha. She's working on an activity that Cameron gave her for her birthday. It kept her busy while she was getting impatient for presents, cake and ice cream.

Opening gifts.

Blowing out candles.

Another event that happened this week and escaped my camera: Martha dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder and came to Wayne's thrid grade class.  They've been reading the books and learning all about life during that time period.  I heard a lot of glowing feedback from the kids and the teacher, so Martha, you may have to do this again when Cole and then Heather reach 3rd grade.  Thank you Martha, I know everyone enjoyed you very much.

Thanks to everyone who sent cards, emails, gifts, and phone calls for Heather's birthday. She had a great day.

Letters to Santa

Last night after getting ready for bed, the kids wrote letters to Santa.

Wayne had his in an envelope ready to mail before I had a chance to take a picture of it, but he asked for some big kid toys like a DSI and a wii  and some Star Wars stuff.

This is Heather's letter, as transcribed by Cole. It says, "a doll, a baby with a stroller, a sticker book, a paddle ball." Heather wrote the big "from Heather" herself.

I didn't know that Cole wrote a letter of his own last night. I thought he spent the whole time helping Heather with hers, but this morning I found this on the floor by his bed. 

It looks like he wrote 20 dollars at the top of the list, but then tried to erase it.

 It says, " Dear Santa, I want new shoes, a better Darth Vader (costume, I think he means), a spring action saber (light saber), a watch, a real star fish, a robot, a wish, no more homework, a DSI."

I've been feeling like quite a Grinch lately, but these letters are beginning to give even me the Christmas spirit.