Christmas Eve

   What do you usually do during the Christmas season?  This year we've focused on spending time as a family, listening to carols, and most importantly, learning about Christ.
  Because we are trying to focus on Jesus this season, we've been reading a book about all the parables, Of Pigs, Pearls, and Prodigals by John Bytheway.  It explains all the parables found in the New Testament and because there are about 30 parables, we are reading one parable per day.  Once we know the parable, everyone writes their own version of the parable and illustrates it.  We've definitely learned a lot and have enjoyed the family time.
   What do you traditionally do on Christmas Eve?  How about cook, clean, and have fun with the family?  That's what we did on this Christmas Eve.
   The girls spent the day in the kitchen making yummy cookies- check out the recipe page- and toffee.  All week everyone made paper snowflakes whenever they had nothing to do.  We made over one-hundred paper snowflakes!  We hung the snowflakes in all the windows.  They looked really nice from the street and freed the ironing board so we could iron the Sunday suits.  (We iron our paper snowflakes so that they will be flat.)

Decorating Christmas Cookies

The weather is too warm for real snowflakes so we've made our own.

    The boys spent the day outside.  Spencer had dug an enormous hole in the backyard- it looks like an archaeological excavation.  On Friday, he had put all of our leaf piles into the hole so that it was almost completely filled.  After a lot of effort, he got the wet leaves to ignite and spent the day watching it, coaxing it to burn, and putting more leaves in with mom's help.  That night he covered the hole with a layer of dirt which was supposed to put it out and smother any remaining embers.  Unfortunately, some of the embers remained alive and continued to smolder under the dirt.  The next morning it looked like something from Yellowstone National Park.  Smoke drifted from the tunnels that originally had supplied the fire with air and smoke drifted up from holes in the dirt layer where leaves had burned away and the remaining air pockets had collapsed.  It was pretty cool but way too smokey.  Spencer spent a while putting more dirt on it and blocking the tunnels.

Before the fire.  There is actually another tunnel you can't see and a small network of tunnels connecting to smaller holes.

The far hole and the near hole are connected to the big hole in the middle by tunnel.  No kids are allowed in the tunnels, but they are cool looking and very sturdy.

The fire blazed away.

The hole is now filled in.

A tiny smoke vent caused by the dirt collapsing- it looks just like a hole in Yellowstone, although you can't see the smoke in this picture.

Jumping on the trampoline.

Best Buddies

Before dinner the whole family went out and played a few rounds of Capture the Flag, the most-played game on our street.  The boys won a few times and the girls won a few times.  The we went on a walk, met a couple that will be moving into a going-to-be-built-house across the street, and had our favorite dinner- cereal.
   On Christmas day, everyone awoke early.  Mom had made cinnamon rolls and everyone wakes up early to eat them.  They are the most amazing rolls in the World!  She had hung all the extra snowflakes from the dinning room ceiling and doorways resulting in a magical-looking snowflake wonderland lit by candles.  After breakfast, everyone went to church.  All of the kids participated in the choirs.  Now they are playing.