Christmas Day

Christmas suspense was building. This little watcher kept a tree-side vigil patiently:

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Well, mostly patiently.

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We enjoyed Christmas music from family musicians old:

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and new:

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One of the best parts of the day was a father-son Jingle Bells duet. Alexander has been taking clarinet lessons for about three months.

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Keeping time:img_1981

Little brothers-my favorite.
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Daniel and Dominic sweethearts. Joseph is not amused.

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Grandparents visited:

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Dominic and Claire love to play ‘puppysitting’

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Landon won the originality award for wrapping presents for himself:img_6610

Merry Christmas!

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Joseph and Bandit

Bandit is the first of several rabbits that we acquired lately. I and several other people in my family have severe allergies to cats and dogs, so pets so far have been pretty much limited to things with feathers. We found out, though, that rabbits do not cause a reaction, so now we are able to have a furry animal sit on our laps. Bandit is friendly, and likes to have his head rubbed a lot. All the boys like him, but Joseph, always the one who takes time for the animals, is extra fond of him. Here he is taking Bandit outside for some time to run around:

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Odds and Ends

Hello, everyone!  Monday I had my wisdom teeth taken out, and the surgery went really well, but recuperation has felt really slow.  I’ve been existing on a pretty much liquid diet, and I’m only just beginning to get back to regular foods. I’ve had enough milkshakes and pudding to last me a year!  Also, everyone around the house can’t wait for me to talk better again.

All that sitting around has had me searching for things to do.  I went through some recent photographs and found ones from several events from the last couple months:

Alexander and his friend from my ballet class’ recital dance at the end of May.  They danced to ‘Danse Macabre’.

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May and June brings a bunch of birthdays: Claire’s first:

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Daniel’s fifth:
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Alexander’s tenth,

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Dominic’s third,

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and Joseph’s eighth.

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Joseph also got to receive his First Holy Communion

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Probably the first photo of our entire family together (including Claire):IMG_2114

 

 

 

New Chickens!

 

The baby chickens sure are getting a lot of attention around here! They are so cute though, so who could resist picking them up and petting their silky soft down.  There are four of them, and they’ll be beauties when they grow up! Chickens8

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This is what they’ll look like when they are big:

A barred rock:

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A speckled sussex:

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A gold laced wyandotte:
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A columbian wyandotte:

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We’re working on naming them, since so far only the gold laced has been named (Victoria). Chickens have ended up being a really fun and rewarding project, so everyone is excited about the new additions.

Halloween

Dominic thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of Halloween. Even though he didn’t get to go outside, he was kept busy watching out the window for the trick or treaters. When the approached the door, he would run to greet them as fast as he could. 

Maria in costume:

Alexander, Legolas from Lord of the Rings. (complete with pointy ears)

Johnathan, a righwraith from Lord of the Rings:

“Arrrrggh!”

Daniel as Gimli the dwarf from Lord of the Rings. Somewhere he misplaced his beard.

Before we went from house to house, I reminded the boys to say ‘thank you’ after they received some candy. from that point on, every time someone put candy in Daniel’s bucket, he said, “Thank you!” then immediately called to where I was standing on the sidewalk, ”   “Pumpkin, (his nickname for me) I said thank you!” That made a lot of people laugh.

The boys’ pumpkins: