Christmas Festivities!

For the first time this year, all the kids in the Rogers family participated in a Nativity. Grandma and Grandpa were sneaky about it; they'd rehearsed it all at the grand-kid sleepover a week earlier, so the parents had no idea. Christmas Eve we were treated to a very sweet and earnest retelling of the birth of the Savior, baby included :).

Mary & Joseph and Baby Millie Jesus

Three sheep (although our kid wouldn't wear her hat)

The angel proclaiming "good tidings of great joy"

 

 

The three kings bringing their gifts

After that, the kids did a surprisingly decent rendition of Jingle Bells on the chimes.

And I finally got Rory to put her sheep hat on.

Christmas morning our kids slept til eight, which was pretty sweet given my habits as a child. I used to wake my parents up the exact time they had given me the night before. Our kids aren't early risers though, not even on Christmas. Once Rory opened one present, it was pretty hard to convince her to keep going. All she wanted to do was play with that gift, especially if it was Dora-related.

Dany was very excited to get both paints and a scooter, both of which she'd asked Santa for.

And I have to give Maisie some real credit. Rather than complaining when her pile of presents looked pretty small, she was excited for whatever she was given, and then majorly excited when we brought her new bike out!

Teag got a lot of airplane books, one of his most favorite presents. I love how excited Rory is for his present in this picture.

My pile of presents was also rather small this year, due to my special project. Unfortunately it hit some snags, and wasn't ready by Christmas morning. But Santa had one very hardworking extra elf this year, and you've got to see how amazing this looks, even unfinished.

Teag worked his little heart out in freezing temperatures in our garage to try and make this happen by Christmas, but those same freezing temperatures caused problems with the paint, making it run and drip really bad. But I'll have you know he designed this from scratch! He drew up the plans, cut, sawed, and put together everything, based on a very rough sketch I gave him of what I wanted. I'm so excited to have it done and in our house, thus eliminating forever the dreaded "shoe pile".

Our family had a very Merry Christmas this year, and Teag and I especially feel immensely blessed. Our lives have changed in many ways, and more than that our perspectives have altered to help us understand just how much we have to be grateful for. We wish you all great happiness in the coming year, and pray that you may all be well, wherever you are.

Christmas Train

I'm a little late on this post, but wanted to make sure I got it in before Christmas. Last year we had so much fun putting together our gingerbread house, that this year we decided to do a gingerbread train.

Before we started, I glued all the pieces together so the kids wouldn't get antsy waiting to decorate. All three girls were chomping at the bit to get their hands in the candy dishes.

I tried to give them some direction, but pretty much, they were intent on putting whatever candy they wanted wherever they wanted.

And Rory sneaked a taste whenever she could manage it.

But in the end, they were proud of all their hard work.

All aboard for a Merry Christmas!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, it's the Roger's tradition to go tree hunting. We've been doing this for years, since before Maisie was born, and it's one of my most favorite things we do for Christmas, even though it most likely costs us more in the long run than buying one from a lot. But you can't put a price on memories!

This year, the weather was gorgeous, and there was plenty of snow for the kids to play in.

They all decided to hang back and play while the menfolk (and me), went off in search of the perfect tree. It took a little more searching this year, and through some fairly deep drifts for someone as short as me, but we finally found what we were looking for.

Here's a pic of Teag about to cut it down after I thanked it for honoring our family by sacrificing itself to decorate our house for a month. Cheesy I know, but it makes me a little bit sad to cut down a perfectly healthy tree, and I felt it deserved some praise.

When we made the trek back, we found the other adults had discovered an effective way of corralling the little ones.

They didn't seem to mind. And the girls all seemed to approve of our tree selection.

Apparently we exhausted our kids, and the ride home was just too much for Rory.

A few nights later, we had it lit and ready to decorate. Teag went out of town for a few days, and the girls had to wait to hang ornaments. I thought I was going to go crazy listening to them ask how much longer until they could decorate; but at least I know it's something they really enjoy.

And here it is, the finished product. With a couple of monkeys in front of it.

Tis the season!

Maisie's New Haircut

As is seen in the Halloween post, Maisie's hair had grown to be quite long. Problem was, she wasn't overly fond of taking care of it, and neither were we, after fighting through massive knots and tangles on a daily basis. We gave her an ultimatum; take better care of it, or we'll cut it off. She opted to cut it.

As you can see, she doesn't seem to broken up about it. In fact, she couldn't stop giggling, she was so excited once she saw the finished product. I have to give myself some props here; I did it myself with a straight razor, something I've never done before. Check out just how much hair was actually taken off in this process.

Maisie is just like her mom; we both have A LOT of hair.

Either way, she's happy, we're happy, and she has a very cute, flattering haircut that she loves. Hopefully as it begins to grow out she'll be able to get a better handle on the maintenance aspect of it. One can wish anyway.

Hurray For Fall!

I love Fall. It is by far my favorite season. There's something about how the light goes all golden, and how you can smell the sort of dry-leaf smell in the air as you crunch along the sidewalk that just makes me feel festive. Not to mention, the turning of the leaves signals so many fun and festive things to come; it's a precursor to the holidays.

One of my favorite Fall activities when I was growing up was playing in the leaves. One of my older brothers used to rake the leaves into a sort of floor plan, where we all had our own bedrooms, and there was a living room area, and you weren't allowed to walk over the "walls", you had to use the doors. I love those memories.

In the past, we've posted pictures of our kids playing in the giant piles of leaves we rake up from our front yard. It seriously is a giant pile, it can easily accommodate half the neighborhood. This year, the leaves took much longer to fall then they normally do, but we still managed to get some good pictures with a few cousins.

One of Maisie and Dany's favorite things is to be buried completely, except for their faces.

Morgan and Rory wanted to help get in on that action.

Spencer and Morgan were mostly just content to sit in the pile and play.

And here's that light I love so well in the Fall.

Everything looks nicer in light like that.

A day or two later, I was making pies for the Bayly get-together. I swear Fall seems like the only time I ever make pie. Lately Rory is very interested in anything to do with the kitchen; she always wants to help out, and be a part of any stirring, mixing, measuring or rolling that takes place. And so that Saturday, I had a little pie helper.

She does quite a good job, for only being two. It was fun to see how proud she was of her work.

And something that doesn't happen every year, we had a new niece born into our family a few days before Thanksgiving! Millie Jane Rogers, at a tiny 5lbs 13oz's.

Aah, I love the Fall.

A Witch, A Princess, and a Girl From Oz

No, it's not the beginning of a bad joke, it's what my kids were for Halloween :). Maisie has been into Harry Potter for months, and once she found out her cousin Henry was going to be Harry, Hermione was the only thing she wanted to be.

I splurged on the time turner. I couldn't help myself. Dany is still very much into princesses, and loves any dress she can twirl in, so this year she was Snow White.

And Rory was completely enamored of her sparkly shoes as Dorothy. She never wanted to take them off.

We got the two oldest dressed and ready for school, and watched them parade around with their classes that morning. All the pictures we got were blurry, so I'm not including them. That night, we got them all ready to go out around the neighborhood.

After visiting the Great-Grandma's, we walked over to Grandma Roger's where we met up with the rest of the cousins.

I think this was something like the tenth picture out of twenty; just trying to get one where they're all looking. And here are the two kids from Hogwarts, taking a break from fighting against the Dark Lord.

Is it wrong that I'm just a little bit jealous of their outfits? Every year Grandma Roger's goes way out for Halloween dinner, and this year, she outdid herself. The kids got to eat Mummy Dogs, Spider Jello, and Monster Apples, with bloody-finger cookies for dessert. The kids get so excited to see what Grandma comes up with every year. Here's a video with Maisie showing off her meal, but it's sideways and the sound is bad.

After dinner, it was off to prowl the neighborhood. By the time the kids got home that night their bags were stuffed, and they were giddy from sugar, but they had a great holiday. Happy Halloween!