Maria's Space: Holiday

Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts

Monday, December 27, 2021

I Hope You All Had An Amazing Christmas

Christmas has changed now that the kids are older. In some ways it is better and in other ways so sad. I miss the kids being small and excited about Christmas morning.

Fortunately as a preschool teacher of toddlers I get to experience the excitement of kids just learning about the holiday. Which is fun too but seeing Christmas through a child’s eye is special.

There are fewer gifts than the past but the kids know and understand about needs and wants and are respectful. Nothing they asked for was impossible so they got many of the things they wanted.

My favorite part of the morning was the quest my husband created for my daughter. He had her open a box which contained a burnt scroll with a map. She had to follow the map to a “pot of silver” an ice cube holder under blue lights which contained another scroll with a map where she had to open a floor vent for her package. I love that he did it all on his own! He never does any thing for Christmas except get my gifts!

The Best Homemade Gift I EVER Got

My daughter was asking about gifts for weeks up till Christmas. After telling her I wanted World Peace I mentioned that her homemade gifts are my favorite.

I love this card she created.

She always told me she doesn’t work well with watercolor but this tells me differently.

What was your favorite gift this year?

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Just A Few Pictures from Christmas

Ahhh Christmas is over and we are just coming out of our holiday fog. I love being with my little family of 4. Me, Teach, Handsome and Goddess. It is what makes me happiest. We spent the eve at home watching movies as we have every year for the past 5 years. It is a nice quiet night with excited kids counting down the moments until Christmas cookies are made and they can toss out "Reindeer food". I put these up on my personal Facebook page yesterday as they are the only photos I have gone through so far. There are so many to look at, weed out, edit, and play with. The middle one is Handsome at 6:00 AM. He was up at 4:07 "because my dream was all done." I heard him but didn't get out of bed until 5:15 AM. I heard him rummaging through things and checking out names. He knows it all when I finally come out of my bedroom. The camera is video camera keep him busy until Teach and Goddess wake. Goddess always needs to be woken up. We did it this year by flashing a camera in her face and Handsome saying, "come see what Santa left!"

More photos coming!

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

I had a lot to be thankful for this year.

I could so go for this right about now!

My stomach issues have all but disappeared. Thankfully! Knock on wood and all that jazz. No hospital stays or medication and I was ready to eat whatever I wanted.

Cooking started at 10:00 AM and didn't end until 4:00 PM.

I dragged Goddesses table from her bedroom into the kitchen, put my computer on it caught up on General Hospital on You Tube will I made pumpkin and chocolate cream pie. Diced onions, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, olives, and more.

Stuffed mushrooms, made stuffing, cooked the bird and a small chicken for Goddess who decided she didn't want to try turkey this year and got ready for a peaceful dinner of 4 with Goddess dressed as Pocohontas.

Goddess had the table set by 10 AM complete with name tags and stayed in the kitchen with me doing a few chores as asked while the Teach and Handsome stayed on the couch watching the football.

It was a perfect day except the house was wayyyy to hot. I had to keep stepping outside because between the wood stove and the oven all day...yikes.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

How We Spent Our 4th of July 2009

This weekend we decided we would keep the kids up to see their first fireworks. Bed time here is at 8:00 and by 8:30 they were drifting. We got outside with some light sticks and the first thing they said, was "look at the moon."

This first picture was my first attempt. It was not what I was seeing
with my own eyes, so I tried again.

This was the second attempt. I love the branches handing above it. Gives it a nice feel.

We headed down to our beach, about a 5 minute drive and waited! Fortunately there were some other fireworks going on around the lake so we watched those.

I like this one across the lake. I was still playing with my shutter speed and aperture. It looks like there was fire but it was actually a set of fireworks going off.

Here are my two being quite patient. The glow sticks were a source of entertainment thank goodness because the fireworks didn't start until 9:30.

Here was the tail end of one. I have a ton of full blown pics but I don't love them. Hopefully next year they will be awesome.

Little miss was watching from the shoreline for a while.

It looks so bright here but it was quite dark. I really need to learn this whole aperture thing.

It was fun and the kids enjoyed themselves. I loved lying on a bench snapping away while Daddy sat with the kids oohhh'ing and ahhhh'ing

It was a good time and the kids were exhausted. The boy was fading fast and they were asleep 3 minutes after saying their prayers.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

My Advent Calender - Christmas 2008

Over 10 years ago I read somewhere about a women who did 24 days of Christmas with her children by wrapping their Christmas books, DVDs, video tapes.

About 3 months ago I went through the kids book cases and pulled out anything that was related to Christmas and stored them in a bin in a closet. November 30th I spent about an hour wrapping all the books and movies and put them in a basket.

December 1st I put the basket on the table for the kids to see when they woke up. I explained that everyday one of them will open 1 gift and when the basket was empty it would be Christmas.

My son opens on the odd days and my daughter on the even. They keep track of who opens what and I love hearing them discuss the basket. It took about 3 days for them to get the concept. Of course they want to open all of them.

I love this tradition and hope to keep it going for as long as I can.

If it is a book we open, we read it, a movie we watch it and a CD we listen to it. It is a great way to enjoy Christmas for a whole month.

Usually December is about planning and buying all for one day. Then the one day is over on Christmas Day.

With our Advent calender we have Christmas for a month. We love it.