sidewalk chalk greeting

My dad is very GOOD at penmanship and lettering things in a fancy way. He is an artist and even at 77 years old, no one can beat him. I'm so impressed! Here is the sidewalk chalk greeting that he made on our driveway for our neighbors to see. Very festive. I love it!

Christmas!

Christmas came and did NOT disappoint. These kids are loved by so many (family and friends) and had a lovely morning filled with presents, and Christmas songs, and cinnamon rolls, and hugs, and laughter, and magic. I love Christmas and the special spirit it brings, even when you celebrate days after the 25th, it still feels good. Merry Christmas!

A group shot after all the presents were opened. My dad came for a visit a few days before and the kids have LOVED having him here.  Our house is still pretty messy, with piles of new clothes and toys in every corner of the living room, but we're slowly working on it.

The kids were SO sweet while opening gifts and gave lots of thank-you's and hugs. This particular hug had to be re-posed because I wasn't fast enough, but there were LOTS that happened without being posed.

The biggest surprise this Christmas was not a puppy like Matix wanted, but was a TRAMPOLINE from Grandma Stacy and Grandpa Lee! They jumped forever and were very excited! Then a cold front hit and it started to rain later that day and hasn't let up, until today, so now we have time to play with everything else.

Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful, lovely, more than kind gifts. We are so thankful.

bedtime

Bedtime is sacred time around here. Although we break from tradition to do things like stay up late to watch Home Alone and eat popcorn, we usually follow the same old routine. Dinner. Bath. Books. Bed. Easy peasy. Lately though, Matix wants to read a few stories to his brothers and sister too. Everyone loves it and he has been expanding the books he will read, from the follow-all-the-rules-books, to lots of other books with weird words in it.  English is SUCH a hard language. 

hot chocolate

We took the kids to The Chocolate Bar! Get it? For REAL hot chocolate and a few other treats. YUM!! This is going to be a new tradition. SO much fun.

Paul insisted he had enough sleep the night before and wanted to go out and do something Christmas-y with the family. This was what happened on the car ride home then.  We are doing our Christmas on Saturday, because Paul had to work last night and is working again tonight. He will have tomorrow evening and all day Saturday off. So Merry Christmas for the rest of the world TODAY, and Merry Christmas to us in 2 more days!

gingerbread houses

We decorated gingerbread houses and they were adorable. I got a kit of a "Mini Gingerbread Village" and it was perfect. Each kid got their own house and Paul and I shared one.

There was also lots of sampling before they were finished.

All done! Here is the Berg family gingerbread village!

Then we ate them right away. Gingerbread gets hard pretty fast, and that's no fun. So we all indulged and it was tasty.

Even Sakina got to try it. She always positions herself near Solace because he will feed her.

winter school work

Matix has been doing lots of fun winter and holiday related things at school. He has been excited about learning about different traditions and cultures, in addition to talking about snowmen (which he's only actually ever seen once). Here are some pictures he drew on a brown paper bag that held a stuffed snowman he made in class. Such an artist!

He is reading pretty well now and sounding things out is coming along fairly easily for him. His writing is getting better too and I'm always excited when he's noticing and happy with his own progress.

Here's the translation of the above picture; "My snowman would go to see his friends to play with a water gun and a skateboard, the snowman would go away from me."

I was out of the loop on this Christmas list request, and that's the reason why he won't be getting either of these items on Christmas... Or maybe a puppy and a kitten are not my idea of a great gift for a 6 year old. :) Sorry baby.

Another cute snowman story. While I was sleeping, my snowman...

Translation; "If I was asleep and if the snowman went to play with his friends." -A bit jumbled. He gets distracted when he writes long things. Still, very good.

 Translation; "If I were a gingerbread boy, I would eat Irene." Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love it!

Translation for his family's tradition, "We celebrate on Christmas when Jesus's birthday." Sweet thing. I love this boy too much.

friends.

On days his family is gone, Brian comes over and is Paul's right hand man. He's building a pergola with Paul, or straightening the fence out, or playing with the kids together. 

Sometimes, we just get the kids. Mindy needed to pack for a trip, and we borrowed Summy and Logan for a couple hours to help out. They are such sweet kids. Everyone loves when they get to come and play.

Now, just to be fair, shouldn't Mindy get to come over and hang out with only ME?!