This Years Christmas Photo Attempt: 1st Try

Pose 1


Ann looks a little crazed in this one.



Will's eyes are closed in this one.



This one is not bad, but it looks like my kids have little slits for eyes. It was a tad bright outside.



Bob's eyes are closed in this one.

Well, no winners here. Come back tomorrow for pose 2, it get's better folks.

Sunday

Some of us here on the Hilltop are home from Church today. Sir D is on call this week and he has not been sleeping much so I let him sleep in. Seems every time we go to church when he is on call, which is only really once every 6 weeks, he gets paged in the middle of Church and has to spend the rest of the morning working in the car. Seems just easier to stay home.

I was planning on taking the girls to Sunday School at least, but my hands and fingers are killing me today so I wimped out. (consequently, that is why this will be a short post, because typing with throbbing fingers is a bit tricky).

This afternoon after the boys get home from church we're going to attempt a family photo for our Christmas cards.

Oh, boy.

I'll show you the results; the good the bad and the ugly. (I suspect there will be a lot of those last two.

Homeschool Stuff

FYI,
I have a few new reviews up on my Homeschool Curriculum Review Blog. They are all things that would be appreciated by parents, whether you homeschool or not.

Go see...

Tradition

We have a few traditions here on the Hilltop around Christmastime. We have traditions other times of the year, but for this post we’ll stick with the Christmas traditions. Otherwise this might take all day.

We do Advent and that entails a wreath and lighting of candles daily, and nightly scripture readings. We bake and decorate cookies for the neighbors and make gifts for Sunday School teachers and other influential people in our lives. The weekend before Christmas we have hot coco and drive around and look at Christmas lights. We also read a special book that has coordinating ornaments that explain with scripture the various names of Jesus. (Adornaments) This lasts the last 12 days until Christmas. We do Proclamation Ornaments nightly along with our Advent readings starting on Dec 1st. We hang the proclamation ornaments up as we read them. On one side of the ornament it has an Old Testament prophecy scripture, and on the other side it has the scripture explaining the New Testament fulfillment of that prophecy.



This is our Advent Wreath



This is where we hang our Proclamation Ornaments.



This is where we hang our Adornaments after we read them.

I don’t like to hang them on the tree because they get lost in the chaos of tree ornaments, and also, I don’t like to have a timetable by which we must have a tree to hang all these things on.

I used to always put a little stuffed animal in the kids stocking every year, but we became overrun with stuffed animals so I tabled that one.

I think I might be a little over the top with the tradition. See I don’t remember any Christmas traditions at all in my family growing up. Well, except the sheet cake. I love the sheet cake, but no real meaningful traditions. Nothing that I felt like meant something. Not something that made me identify with my family. Something that made me say 'We’re the ________ Family and that’s what we do'. I want to provide that for my kids. When someone says Christmas, I want my kids to think ‘We’re the _____ Family and we always do this or that.’ I want them to want to take some of these things into their own families and carry them on. I guess I want Christmas to mean something. We have a lot of traditions surrounding other holidays and special occasions as well, and I think it’s a family identity thing for me. I want my kids to grow up thinking; on birthdays we did this… On Easter my family does … I want them to identify with The Family. (And I don't mean that in the strange and Mafiaesque way it sounded.)

Now don’t get me wrong, we do all the scripture readings because I want them to understand the eternal significance of Christmas. Emmanuel; God with us. The biblical training that his behind the tradition is very important and I don’t want to discount that, but I also love the tradition of it all.

Sometimes tradition can feel like a burden. I didn’t have time last year to do the homemade Christmas cookie and decorating and the kids were very disappointed.

Tradition does not bring salvation. We don’t become Christians because we participate in religious traditions, I know that and my children know that. We are saved because of the Lords redeeming work on the cross and our acceptance of that gift. But tradition helps us remember.

I love tradition.

What are some of your family’s favorite traditions?

The Cursed Crayons

Okay, we are a strange homeschooling family. I think my kids need better entertainment. Perhaps more tv, but less violence. Don't other girls play with paper dolls and ponies?

This is what she does when she is bored. It also answers the question; where the heck did my camera disappear to yesterday? When it was returned to its spot, there were a few surprises on it. Including this video.

Crazy on the Hilltop

Today was a crazy day on the hilltop. I started it off by getting my blood sucked out of my arm by a maniacal syringe wielding nurse, to determine if I have Rheumatoid Arthritis instead of or in addition to Fibromyalgia. I’m not sure which is worse actually, but at least RA has some sort of treatment. We’ll see. I’d just like to be able to make a trip to Walmart without feeling like I just climbed Mt. Everest.

After I got back from that trip I got a call from Sir D saying his building got broken into. He spent most of the morning filing police reports, cleaning up the mess, ordering new computers and borrowing some from a neighboring city’s branch, calling a repairman to fix the back door and the dock door today (great expense!) calling the ins co, and doing things that do not make the branch and consequently our family, any money. Needless to say, he was discouraged. And I am sure he did not actually do all those things, surely he delegated some of them, right?

I spent the afternoon at Walmart taking back things of subpar quality (jeans worn once and the button broke! URG!) and standing in long lines. I also bought a vacuum. Does anyone like to buy a vacuum? They’re so stinkin’ expensive and they’re plastic crap! And you have to use it to do a job that you don’t really like anyway.

We’re taking new tack where the vacuum is concerned. We’ve always bought midrange vacuums and they have worked for a year, then we limped them along for the next three or four, having to do some minor repair almost every time we wanted to use it. (and when I say we had to repair it, I think you all know I mean Sir D, Will, or Bob). So this time I bought the cheapest (still $75!) vacuum they had there. Sir D said we just ought to plan on replacing it every 2 years. I guess the alternative is to buy the $500 SuperVac. But really, who has $5oo to spend on a vacuum?



On the upside, I put dinner in the crock pot before I left so I don’t have to cook and my daughter is vacuuming because she wants to.



Who says I can’t look at the bright side?

Stunt Fabric

This is what I did today. I finally got around to making this thing that I talked about a few days ago.



Aren't they cute? Okay, I know, but they're supposed to be. I used this fabric, that I refer to as the Stunt Fabric. This is not the Actual Fabric that I want to make these out of, this is just some scrap material I have left over. It is standing in for the Actual Fabric so I can figure out what the heck I am doing. The Stunt Fabric is used to sad, uneven, and dare I say downright messy seams.



But I think I got a little better the next time. I think by the time I get to the Actual Fabric, I might be able to sew a straight line.




I will be needing a few white elephant gifts this holiday season, so I think I'll use these. They'll be the Stunt Gifts.

Woops!

Sorry, I accidentally hit publish before I was done. If you read me through a feed, you might want to go ahead and pop over here to read the last post in it's entirety. Otherwise it might not make a whole lot of sense.

It all looks so much better.

So you'll notice the blog's gone winter. I have to say that I wasted no time in taking the fall theme off. I am not a big fan of orange. Yet it was on my blog for weeks. Next fall, I need to remember to avoid the orange. *shudder*

Here are a few random shots of our day yesterday.



The best way to transport the ham.





Not sure how we're all gonna fit...



...but it sure is beautiful. I think Martha was here.



Even the kids table was amazing. But this my friends, is what it's all about.










Family.

Black Friday can be a black day indeed!

This is my first WFMW Post, because I rarely have anything useful to add, and yet I blog daily...hummm.

Anyway.

Last year on Black Friday, I did not go shopping. It is my goal really every Black Friday, to not go shopping. I hate shopping on a good day, and Black Friday is like a bad shopping day on crack. No thank you.

However, I am a sucker for a good deal. So last year, I got up early, (8am!!! Whoo Hoo for me!) grabbed a cup of the good coffee and…got back in my bed, in my pj’s, with my laptop and did me some online bargain shopping.

Here’s the trick; many stores have in store pick up. So I got many, many good bargains, and just have them hold them at the store. That way I can pick them up at my leisure sometime after the crazy-shoppers have gone back to work. Also, no shipping! Of course, I take advantage of free shipping whenever I can, but many shops require you to spend a certain amount before they’ll give you free shipping and if you overspend just to get the free shipping, well, not much of a deal anymore is it?

So there you have it.

PJ’s, the good coffee, my laptop, amazing Internet deals, free shipping, and in store pick up; that my friends is how to spend Black Friday!

You can go read more Works For Me Wednesday posts here.