Christmas Heard

Cole: "Reese, can you believe that in the olden days, kids thought they had to be good for a whole YEAR so that they wouldn't get coal in their stockings? A WHOLE YEAR! I can't believe it. I don't think I could even be good for a day!"

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Reuben (sings Jingle Bells loudly, then stops suddenly): "The part I don't get is 'one-horse open sleigh.' Why 'one-horse open sleigh'? Why that?"

Cole: "Reuben, it doesn't REALLY mean one horse is there. It just means that the sleigh is so big that one horse could fit INSIDE it."

Reuben: "But I thought Santa had eight reindeer?"

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Cole: "Mom, look! A guy with a bell and the bucket! Please, please could we do it?"

Mama: "Oh, sure! But let's do our shopping first so I make sure I have enough money for the groceries. Then we'll do the bucket."

Reese: "Wait. What is that guy doing?"

Cole: "He is collecting money to give to people who are poor."

Reese: "I don't get it. So are we getting some out? Or putting some in?"

Heard Around...Trader Joes

Reese: "Mom! Mom! You have to come over here and see this right now! This guy is so old he has SPIDERWEBS on him!"

Dinner Conversation

Cole: "So what time is Uncle Doug coming over?"

Daddy: "He probably won't be here until just before your bedtime. His brother Wesley is coming too."

Cole: "What are you guys going to do?"

Daddy: "Oh, I don't know, we might smoke our pipes. And make a fire outside. Maybe play some video games."

Cole: "Oh I see. It's like your friends are coming over...and this is a playdate for you?"

Heard Around The House

(What? The second post in a WEEK?! Hello, second trimester!)

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Sean (looking adoringly at the Christmas tree all covered in lights): "Reuben, LOOK! There is a Pee Tree inside our HOUSE!"

Reuben: "Well, Sean, if you peed on THAT tree, the pee would just fall all down through the branches and get all over the carpet and Mom would be mad. So I don't think you should pee on THAT tree. That is just the Christmas tree."

Sean: "Oh."

Crises averted....at least for today...

Numbers....And The First Pictures

It's been a bit of a fog around here. We have been living in our new little paradise for 6 1/2 weeks and I am 14 1/2 weeks pregnant with our sixth child. Our move took an exhausting FIVE WEEKS to carry out....and there are still stacks of boxes in my front room. I have spent the last two months on the couch in my pajamas, and my grandmother died three days ago.

Needless to say, we've been doing a lot of just "holding on" these days. Only this week have I begun to feel like I am waking up a bit. All I have wanted to eat since October is toast with butter and glass after glass of apple juice....all of which have done a number on my blood sugar now that I am pregnant again...only exasperating my first trimester fatigue. Justin has been a rock star, as usual, and has carried all of us for weeks now; I can't tell you how happy I am to jump in the game again!

So Whitney, these first pictures of Snake Hill are for you, of course. There will be more to come!

These first few are of the front entrance--it's an unconventional "front door" set-up but we're thrilled to have such a huge covered area. The house is small, so it's great to have a dry place where the kids can play outdoors even on rainy days...

Outdoor fireplace:


I'm skipping our front room since it's all littered with boxes still. But you come in through that door next to the fireplace, into a big open room with a stone floor. The entire south wall is windows, so we're getting tons of natural light, even in these short days of winter, erm, I mean, fall. The back wall is brick and leads into the only bedroom, which is ours and Ari's. When we moved in there was a terribly ugly accordian door in this doorway but Justin ripped it out right away. We're thinking of building a big wooden bookcase in the opening with a secret door that opens into the bedroom.

Lovely walls. They look like fancy plywood, but don't be deceived. They're plastic. And I have to say that it is marvelous to step down onto carpet when I'm up in the middle of the night. The hardwood in our old house was beautiful, but who doesn't love them some plush teal carpet? The bedroom is tiny; that door on the right leads to the hall, kitchen, laundry & bathroom; the door on the left is a mini little closet that, right now, holds primarily Justin's work clothes and hidden Christmas presents. I got rid of most of Ari's clothes and the few things I kept live in those stackable crates next to his bed.


Here's the backside of the brick wall

And our solution to not having closet space (which we actually had in the apartment where we lived for Cole's first nine months, but not since!) is to keep our clothes in beautiful wooden bed boxes that Justin built. They have wood legs in front but casters in the back, so that we can pull them out. This is Justin's at the end of the bed, and mine is on my side. There's room for a third on Justin's side, but the brick wall is in the way so we wouldn't be able to access it.
Those are all the pictures I have for now--will try to take some more this week for you. And maybe unpack a few more boxes along the way!