ELEVEN!

Happy Birthday to a my sweet girl!

We love you, sweetheart!

Thank-you, Godparents Ron and Amy, for helping us celebrate.

Happy Feast Day!

Today we celebrated the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, bishop and martyr.

Each year we start the feast day with a few gifts left in our stockings.

This year we all received "Santa" hats.

Even Kolbe dressed for the occasion.

After we open our stockings, we put up our tree (actually 2 trees) and decorate the house.

Mary and Joseph begin their travels to the Bethlehem...

Where the stable is currently inhabited by creatures great and small.

Near the fireplace stands our "memory tree" where hang special ornaments in memory of our family members no longer able to share in the holidays here on earth, but who remain close in our hearts.

We also have a tree to decorate our living room bay window.

Beautiful all lit up.

The view from outside looking in!

Feast of St. Nicholas

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes the St. Nicholas soon would be there...."

He did not disappoint. We awoke this morning to goodies in our stockings.

Some of us worked hard to get our trees up

Some of us not so much!




We watched a movie and read a book about St. Nick

We are now enjoying ice cream and watching a Christmas movie.

Happy Feast Day from our family to yours.

Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children,

Pray for us as we continue to prepare our hearts for the coming

of Christ at Christmas.

Our Favorite Novena

Saint Andrew Christmas Novena

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.

Even though most novenas are prayed each day for 9 consecutives days, this novena is to begin on the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) and, prayed 15 times each day, continues until Christmas. My children and I pray this novena together each evening throughout Advent as we prepare for our Lord's birth at Christmas. Every year we write our intentions in a special prayer book. It has been a blessing and encouragement to see how God has answered our prayers throughout the years.

The feast of Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas has come and filled our stockings each year on his feast day... December 6th. This year we happened to be at Nana's (my mom's). St. Nick found us there as well.!

December 6th is also my mom's birthday and since December 7th is Magdalene's birthday, my sisters and their children joined us for cupcakes and ice cream.

Cookies, cookies, and more cookies..

A couple days before Christmas, for the 3rd year in a row, we joined forces with some good friends to make cookies. Thankfully, each year we two moms seems to get a little more organized and we are enjoying the time as much as the kids.
For stage 1 we work in shifts. It works well to let a couple of kids cut their cookies at a time and then have them go off and play while they are baking and cooling. We started off with the younger boys as they have a harder time waiting. James joined in with them so he could take over the camera (He took a lot of pictures and did a great job).

Then came the girls.

Stage 2 While the cookies where cooling, the children watched "Horton Hears a Who" and we moms took a small break prior to making some oreos truffles. My thanks to you, Meredith! The wine was very good and it went so well with those oreo truffles (not that we ate very many, but, as all good cooks know... you have to at least sample the goods as you go)

Now came stage 3 The Frosting!

For this part of the day we have all the kids sit around the table and go at it! Every year I am amazed at how well they work together and take turns. And they are such a creative bunch. It is so much fun to watch them.

Stage 4 is the attempt at a group photo.


As you can see.... the kids are pretty spent after the day. What you don't see is: so are the moms. But, with results like this it's all worth it!