Upside down

In case you were wondering, I haven't forgotten about all of you. 

Our lives have been turned upside down. 

Gordon is currently in the hospital, lying in ICU, recovering from brain surgery.

Seriously. 

There is far more to this story, but I simply cannot type it all out right now. I would turn into mush and collapse, I fear, if I were to start categorizing what our last seven days have been like. I can't afford that -- need to stay strong and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. 

Time to decorate!

With Will's birthday in early December, I used to hold off on decorating for Christmas until after we'd celebrated his birthday.  After a couple of years, though, I realized that we were rushing through the holiday season without really having the time to enjoy it.  So we changed our tradition.  We again started decorating right after Thanksgiving.

Every year, the kids take turns hiding the Christmas Nail in the tree and placing the angel atop our tree.  This year, as in years past, I found myself having to go back through previous year's photos to remind myself who had done what last.  (This year was Will's turn to hide the Christmas nail and Di's turn to place the angel -- she didn't need a lift or stool, was able to reach the top on her own!)

The tree always ends up looking absolutely beautiful.  It is filled with homemade ornaments from all of the kids, as well as some from my own youth, as well as store-bought ones that bring sniffles of sentimentality from my each year.  Ornaments commemorating each of the kiddos' first Christmases.  Ornaments from best friends who live too far away to celebrate with us in person.  Ornaments that remind me of happy moments from all of our pasts and make me want to share those stories with the kids -- again!

Here are some pictures of the tree getting decorated this year. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Will decorating the tree. He lost interest pretty quickly. Instead of helping his sisters, he engaged Daddy in a couple of rounds of Connect Four.

When all was said and done, the tree is just as beautiful as ever. 

Travelling games

I'd like to start out by confessing that we own a dual-screen portable dvd player for entertaining the kiddos on road trips.  That said, I do not often allow it's use for trips to VT.  In my mind, a short(ish) 4.5hr trip to VT does not require entertainment of the movie/television variety (though I HAVE resorted to using them for the trek to VT).  We have used the dvd player primarily for longer trips, like when we've visited Grandpa and Grandma Pauline in KY and when we went to PA to visit niece/cousin Allison, her hubby, and their daughter.

For our more-frequent trips to VT, I try to keep the kiddos entertained in other ways.  I have created scavenger hunts (typed and printed a copy for each child) -- with normal things like "UPS truck" to not-so-normal sitings like "elephant".  I have also typed and printed out sheets that list every state in the US so the kids can keep track of all the different license plates they see.  The kids all know how to play the alphabet game.

Most recently (just in time for our Thanksgiving trip), I taught the kids the "Padiddle" game.  This game is for when it is dark outside.  You look at the headlights of the oncoming vehicles.  A vehicle that has one blown headlight is known as a "Padiddle".  We counted how many "Padiddles" we spotted.  If memory serves correctly, there were less than 40 that night.

I remember playing this game when I was about the age of my big girls.  It was a game that Mom and Dad introduced to us kids.  Probably for the same reason I introduced it to my kids -- to give them something to concentrate on besides annoying each other!

I told the kids that we used to try to see who could spot the "Padiddle" first, and then we counted them.  Eventually we stopped yelling, "Padiddle" and simply counted them aloud.  Everyone in the car always knew what Dad meant when he loudly stated a number.