Magic Moments

Last night we went to The Heritage Farm's event "Christmas Way Back." We've been to Heritage Farm before and it's really a great place. It's probably one of the best things in this town. For Christmas Heritage Farm had all it's buildings and museums open, all it's buildings lit, and Christmas attractions like crafts, bonfires and s'mores, cookie decorating, sing alongs, visits with Santa, artisans selling their homemade crafts and a live Nativity. We've toured the buildings before so we didn't spend much time doing that, but we very much enjoyed their live nativity. The narrator read the Christmas story in Luke 2 and actors played along. With it being night time and with the hills as a back drop it was so pretty and honestly moving. They incorporated several Christmas Carols into the drama and the narrator didn't end the story with the Wise Men. He continued on about Jesus, his sacrifice for mankind, and his crucifixion. At the end th...

Just like years past we celebrate Advent by a Christmas activity each day (or so ;) ). I just keep telling the boys the season of waiting for Christmas is a season to be cherished. People before Christ were waiting for a Savior and we are waiting for the second coming. It's a season to be reflective and worshipful. Each year Tom and I tell the story over and over and each year we pray it sinks into their little hearts. And even though they know the story well each year they seem to ask questions that surprise me. As many times as I tell them the same story sometimes I miss explaining things. I forget they are hearing all this for the first time and their brains don't hold much historical context yet. Tonight Sage asked, "Mama, why didn't Jesus live in a house or something? Why did he have to live in that barn?" So there was my short coming. I must not have explained Jesus was only born in the manger, he didn't live there forever. So, we talked about why a Kin...

My parents and my sister came for Thanksgiving and that might just be the thing I was thankful for most this year. It was wonderful for our house to be full and to see the boys having such fun with their grandparents and Ami that they miss so much. West Virginia is fairly lonely. Making friends takes time. And my boys are very much feeling the separation between them and our family. So having family here for Thanksgiving was the sweetest thing. While they were here we also celebrated Christmas and Sage's birthday. It was a jam packed but wonderful three days. We even crammed in gingerbread houses and cookie decorating. This week we've been trying to get back into our routine. When family leaves it makes us sad and we all stay kind of down in the dumps for a few days. Thankfully we've had Advent to cheer us up and Christmas to look forward to. I suspect January will be the pits after all the celebrating is over so we're planning a trip to see Pappy and Marme sometime tha...

I'm back tracking in my posts. I'm behind (as usual) so I've got a list of things to post here. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went to get our Christmas Tree. Tree farms are not in abundance here but we decided to go to the farm recommended by a few people. I'll be honest, Tom and both had our doubts about the place simply because this is West Virginia afterall, but we set out with good attitudes and lots of hope that this would be the perfect place. As it turns out the place wasn't that perfect. The trees that were of acceptable height had all already been reserved by others. And really, that was probably only about 20 trees. The rest of the trees were under 3 feet. We searched over 3 different fields of trees and finally just went home. Tom was really disappointed and vowed to transfer back to Minnesota the next day. ;) If only it were that easy. Anyway, after we spent the 30 minute car ride back home venting our frustrations and wallowing in our sadness, we e...

Updates coming soon.......

Sage is reading. Just typing that sentence gives me such relief and makes me so proud. We've worked so hard. And we have a lot of work left to do but I think the foundation has been laid and now it's just more phonics and more practice and more development. Honestly, teaching the boys to read is a just this huge, stressful thing. And it's not the actual work of teaching them to read that stresses me out, it's the fear I carry of "what if they can't learn how to read?" I know the mantra of all my Elementary Education professors was "every child can learn."  I repeat that truth to myself daily. But, I know full well all the things that have to fall into place for a child to read and all the different diagnoses that could result if they can't. My brain is a swimming pool of truth and fear always fighting a battle and I'm thankful for so many years of school because as I try to find peace when I'm worried the truth and instruction of my ...

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and admittedly we have already begun decorating our house. I like to have all our Christmas tasks done before December 1st so that we can celebrate the whole season and not have a long to-do list. I probably won't have all my shopping done by the 1st, but thankfully Amazon makes that really easy. :) While we look forward to the holidays and seeing family we are filling our time with school, bike rides in the neighborhood, swimming at the Y, a field trip here and there, and spending cozy evenings by the fire. Tom's hours have been long...but he's happy about working so that's a positive because long hours at Target brought about an extra amount of unhappiness and stress.  I have started to fill our December calendar with our 25 Days of Christmas activities and I will say this season has brought about a new season of mourning our Minnesota home. It's been a little hard on all of us. This week Sage has started to tal...