Cookies!

Katie Mei had the fun job of unwrapping Kisses for cookies Friday night. She took her job very seriously. There was initially a struggle not to eat the Kisses she unwrapped, but she withstood the temptation and got them all into the container unharmed.


She was hesitant to let Merrilee get too near the home turf, so she just passed individual candies to her from behind when she felt Merrilee was ready for another one. If Merrilee dared enter the counter space, there was immediate response from Katie Mei.

Once the cookie dough was complete, Katie Mei was allowed to lick the beater. Apparently the dough was tasty, but I'm not sure how much she got in her mouth because she had it from her chin to her eyelashes!

The cookies turned out pretty, and have been a tasty treat with my coffee for a couple days now! 'Tis the season!

Can it get any wetter?!

Scenes from the Montgomery Swamp

The pecan trees might need floaties

Can't tell where the driveway stops and the lake starts

This is where Jay parks (or used to park) his car in the grass

And to think we're expecting "heavy rain" until this evening. Isn't his heavy enough? My toilets won't flush anymore!

I've got snow-envy regarding our friends back in MD who are expecting the beautiful white stuff this weekend. Trade Ya!

Soggy Hugs,

Petrie

Almost Ready For College!

Katie Mei fans can never get enough, right? How about one more video of our morning school activity? I can hardly believe I didn't think of it before this morning! It was so easy, and it kept her busy for at least 10 minutes, and it involved more than one skill.

I love listening to her voice, so I had to make a video in addition to my hundreds of pictures of her!

Who Loves Katie Mei?

Just wanted to let you know!

Best Little Library Ever!

Last week we went to the library to renew our Christmas library books that we hadn't finished reading, and as usual, there were little flyers on the counter for upcoming events. One of them caught Merrilee's eye...'The "Twas the Night Before Christmas" event. The flyer said something about wearing pajamas, bringing a toy, and listening to stories, poems, songs, and even a puppet play. So we grabbed the flyer, stuffed it in the bag with our books, and went home. Needless to say, I forgot about the whole thing somewhere between passing the IGA and turning left next to the county jail.


But this Sunday, on the way to church, Merrilee asked me "Is there something we're going to do on Tuesday?" All I could think of was Crafternoon, and that's what I answered. But she pressed on and said "But wasn't there supposed to be some other thing going on at the library where we can wear our pajamas?" That jogged my memory, and I felt my shoulders grow heavy with one more thing the kids wanted to do and I didn't feel like cramming into my schedule. So I told her to get the flyer out of the bag when we got home and put it on the counter so I could look at it. I was hoping she'd forget all about it by the time we got home from church.


Well, she didn't forget. She found the flyer. And she mentioned it again on Monday. And she mentioned it again this morning. And this afternoon. Twice. She was really looking forward to it. So I managed to throw together a quick quiche for an early dinner, get everyone into pj's, and got us out the door by 6:30 for the 6:45 pm event.


As I've mentioned before, our little library is just a hole in the wall. There's a kids' section, which is about half the library, and an adult section, which consists of about four rows of shelves, and a few walls of young adult books and videos. Then there's another large, empty room for activities or meetings.


So we got to the library and I could see it wasn't just a little event. I think half the town's kids under the age of six were there. The place was packed. I was blessed to find a parking space when someone was leaving. I have a feeling it was an adult who was trying to use the library in peace, but saw the herd of kids arriving and wanted to high-tail it out of there! The kids all sat on the floor and the adults were given chairs around the perimeter of the room. I got a seat in the second row from the back. Katie Mei didn't want to sit on the floor with Merrilee and Jacob; she's not much for crowds of strangers and preferred to sit on my lap as she assessed the situation.

The theme of the night's stories was Christmas Mice. Each story had something to do with a mouse, and there are little wind up toy mice all over the library this week.


Towards the middle of the program, as some families were leaving (it was only a 45 minutes program! Who would take their kids home that early?!) we got to move up to the front row. Katie Mei loved the puppet show with a talking Christmas tree, Santa, and some talking mice. She kept pointing to the puppets and telling me "Mouse talk!", "Santa talk!" She has never seen puppets in action without seeing the actual person holding the puppet, so I think she didn't realize they were puppets. I think she thought the stuffed animals really were talking. She was riveted! Once the puppet show was over, she spent the rest of the program asking me "Santa Go?" She demanded to see the Santa puppet one more time before we left. I took her up to the stage and a kid behind the stage had Santa on his hand and made it talk to her. She reached up to touch it, and when it spoke, she was startled and grabbed her hand back immediately. It was so funny. I wish I had a video of it.

After the puppet show and a few stories, Ms. Gloria, the children's librarian, did her own little skit of The Gingerbread Mouse. Ms. Gloria loves kids and acts like one herself. She made her own costume, even down to to huge peppermint candy buttons.

The kids absolutely loved the evening out. There were all over Miss Gloria telling her thank you. I had them stand next to her for a photo so I can print one out later and give it to her to with a thank you card. All the way home Merrilee and Jacob kept saying "That was SOOO much fun!" and "Mom, Thanks for taking us!"

I'm glad we went. It was a pain for an old stick-in-the-mud like me to get myself in gear, make an early dinner, and go out on a rainy night with my kids in pajamas. (And yes, germs creep me out, so I made them all throw their pj's in the laundry and put on fresh ones for bed.) But my children had such a great time that it was worth it just to make their day. I was such a hero, and it was a whole lot cheaper than taking them to a movie!

Thanks, Leesburg Library and Ms. Gloria! We love you!

This Production Brought to You by Planet Mars

Merrilee has been waiting for several days to do her project after studying the Mars chapter in her science book. The largest volcano in our solar system, Olympus Mons, is on Mars, and the book gave instructions for making a volcano out of salt dough. We made the volcano on Thursday, but it took awhile for it to dry.

Today the dough was dry, Mommy wasn't too busy (well, I was, but the poor girl would wait forever if she had to wait until I was no longer busy with something!), and the camera battery was recharged. Daddy and Grandma wanted to see a video of the eruption, so here it is.

Katie Mei's first Christmas tree

I'm slowly getting the blog caught up with real life. I'm only about a week behind now. We decorated our tree last week, and unfortunately, Jay had already left so he wasn't able to enjoy it. He really doesn't like decorating the tree, anyway, but I think he likes watching the kids and I make our mess.

This was Katie Mei's first tree, and she already had a pretty good idea what to do. She has been to Lowe's so many times that she was quite familiar with the term "Christmas Tree" so she knew exactly what we were doing when Jay put it up the day after Thanksgiving. The folks that lived here before us left a 9-foot artificial tree in the attic. Though I'm not a fan of fake trees, I was delighted to have the pre-lit monster, and gladly look forward to not having to clean up needles like we did last year, and the year before, and the year before. And, for that matter, every year of my life thus far. I can still remember Mom and Dad making us pick needles out of the berber carpet when the tree came down when we were kids. The majority of the needles had to be up before they'd run the vacuum. How I hated feeling those needles press into my palms and even my knees through my pants. And just to carry on the tradition, I've made my own kids pick needles out of the carpet. Well, this year there will be no needle picking. Not only do we not have pine needles, we don't have carpet! Yay!

Back to my original train of thought....

Katie Mei really enjoyed getting the ornaments out, and was facinated by the angel tree topper. We have two angels, and the kids ended up choosing the red angel, not the purple one.


The kids each have their own boxes of ornaments that have been gifts or of their own making. When they eventually leave the nest, the plan is for them to take their boxes with them and start their own Christmas tree decorating traditions. So I started Katie Mei's collection this year with a little nativity ornament. She got to put it on the tree first before any other ornaments were hung.

It was kind of nostalgic for me to watch them decorate the tree this year. It was only five years ago that I had my first little girl with excited lit-up eyes, watch me as I showed her how to hang a hook on an ornament and then put it on a branch so it wouldn't slip off. Now, I look up to see that same little girl being the leader as she helps Jacob and Katie Mei get their ornaments on the tree. Merrilee is just growing up so fast. I have such mixed feelings~I'm so proud of her, yet so unwilling to let her grow up. I don't have much control of the latter, so I just have to stick with the former and rejoice in the fact that she such an awesome young lady already. A mom really couldn't be more pleased than I am with her!

Once the tree was pretty much done, Merrilee and Jacob left the scene to watch a Christmas TV show. I remember when we were kids and the week before Christmas there were a few Christmas "Specials" on TV. They really were special, too, because they weren't on every stinkin' night for two months before Christmas. My kids have now watched "The Year Without A Santa Clause" about 62 times and have the whole thing memorized. They've probably seen it more times in their short 5 years in country than I've seen it in all my 44+ years on the planet. The concept of a TV "Special" just isn't there anymore. So sad. It really was special to be able to look forward to watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, and know that if you missed it, you had to wait another entire year before you could see it again. Now ABC Family has got "The 25 Days of Christmas", and prior to that "The 21 Days Before The 25 Days of Christmas". Good Grief, Charlie Brown!

Katie Mei wasn't quite as thrilled with the Miser Brothers, but she really was taken in by the tree. She grabbed a pillow and settled herself in front of the tree to absorb it all. It was such a beautiful moment. I wish my photos had come out better. But at least the memory of it was captured.

So Katie Mei's very last first time decorating a Christmas tree was so sweet. We've had the tree up for a week now, and the boxes are back in the garage until we pack it all up. Hopefully Daddy's shoulder will be doing better! All those boxes gotta go into the upstairs attic behind Merrilee's room once we're done with them. We're still moving in....

Wishing you a Merry 9 Days Before The 7 Days Before Christmas, Everyone!