Living in a Winter Wonderland

 Yesterday, December 20 we got hit with our first big snowfall and blizzard of the season.

Schools were closed both yesterday and today.

John stayed home both yesterday and today, too.

The roads were just too treacherous for travel.

John shoveled three times yesterday to try and stay on top of the almost 15 inches of snow.

Today he went out once and cleaned everything up.  The snow has stopped but the wind is till whipping it all around today.

 The snow was so wet and heavy that many trees and big branches broke down under the weight.

This big pine tree, now under the big snowpile you see in the photo, snapped off at the top.

 When we got home from our walk, we built a snowman.

The snow was perfect for packing.

And here is our finished snowman standing proud and tall in our front yard.

It really is pretty after such a big snowfall and life will soon be back to normal.

That's the way it is in Wisconsin in the winter.

Revisiting the Weekend

Life goes on, but we will never forget the victims of the CT shooting.

I am going to do a recap of our last weekend.

It was our first time to keep Soliana overnight without her parents

We drove to Oshkosh on Friday afternoon to pick up the girls and bring them to Watertown.  We dropped Paul off at Courtney's craft show in Madison and headed home with our little ones in tow.

Alissa and Nathan were here for the weekend and we all enjoyed Little Ceasar's pizza for dinner that night.

Both girls went to bed very nicely on Friday night.

I slept with the girls in our king bed and John slept on the futon in the guest room.

Here is proof that we actually did sleep.

 We were up early on Saturday morning and started out by baking Tizita's birthday cake.

 Gigi helped her frost the cake.

 After the cake baking, we frosted Christmas cookies.

 And of course, there were dishes that needed to be done after all the baking and frosting.

Tiz was more than willing to do those dishes.

 After all that work, we decided it was time to open a gift.

I bought this leapster and ten games from an online rummage sale with a bunch of friends on FB.

The whole deal only cost me $25.00 and Tiz was thrilled to have her own Leapster.

 Mallory joined us on Saturday afternoon.

She had a birthday on Dec. 13, so she had a goody box to open.

Both birthday girls enjoyed some time together.

 Gigi brought out her gift in this large bag.

It was full of teacher supplies for Tiz when she plays school.

She was thrilled with all the new stuff.

 Of course, she had to conduct class right then and there.

Grandpa was her wall holding up the pocket chart for her.

 This is the cute outfit I bought for her birthday.

Here she is ready to put on a magic show.

John and I bought her a magic kit and we had spent the afternoon learning how to do a few tricks.

She did a great job entertaining all of us and I think she actually stumped a few people with her magic.

 Posing after dinner on Saturday night with Lis and Cheddah.

Courtney and Paul returned about 7:00 and joined in the fun.

 On Sunday morning after my Christmas program, we had chicken and ham.

Tiz had requested meat she could eat off a bone, so that is what she got.

 Here she is with her birthday cake.

 So proud of my big six year old.

 She did talk while eating her cake so she had to sit under the table and finish eating her piece of cake.  She has now joined the ranks of the best of us who have had to sit under the table at one time or another.

 It was a wonderful weekend.

So much time to be with Tiz and Soli.

I did not want to forget to post a picture of my students during the Christmas program.

The did an awesome job and I was one proud teacher.

Below are my four and fives.  They sat alone up on the altar and did fine.

 And these are my threes who sat in pews but turned around, kneeled and sang.  They, too, did a fine job.

 And here is the whole group including the K-2 grade singing our favorite, "Go Tell it on the Mountain."

I hope all of you had a great weekend, too.

My Heart is Broken

My heart is heavy as I write this post.

On Friday, 20 children and some of their teachers died at the hand of a crazed gunman in their elementary school.

This one came too close to home for me.

As my class was praising Jesus at our Christmas service on Friday morning, these young children most only 6 or 7 years old were dying.

 

As a teacher one of my jobs is to ensure the safety of my students,

as a parent, I should be able to feel confident that my kids will return to me safely after their day at school.

 

How sad for these families.

Their precious little ones will never return.

 

At our school we regularly practice fire and tornado drills as well as lockdowns.

The fire and tornado drills are easy to explain to the kids.  We want to be safe should one of these disasters happen at our school.

It is not so easy to practice the lockdowns.

We sit in the pitch darkness of our classroom bathroom, huddled together in complete silence.

We hold tight to one another and I whisper softly to help the little Preschoolers feel safe.

This is only a practice, but we treat it as if it really were happening.

 

I pray it never, ever happens in any other school (or anywhere) again, but this is a sinful world we live in and it will happen again, so we practice.

It is hard to try and explain to the kids what we are doing in the darkness of our bathroom.  I don't want to scare them unnecessarily so we just do it without much explanation.  Perhaps to some of them it is an adventure, after all, they are little.

 

I know that I would do anything in my power for these little ones.

I love them and I have promised their parents that I will keep them safe.

 

The teachers in the school in CT were heroes.

I hope I never have to be a hero, but if I do, I will not hesitate.

I know what I have to do.

 

Today in church, my children again sang and told the Christmas story as part of their program.

The familiar songs were even sweeter than usual as I watched those innocent children praising their Jesus.

I know they would all go to heaven if they were called home, there is comfort in that.

 We all joined together to sing a version of the Lord's prayer to the tune of Away in a Manger.  One line was particularity hard for me,

"In times of temptation, dear Savior be near,

Deliver from evil your children most dear."

 

I did spend a wonderful weekend with Tizita and Soliana.

I will post about that later this week.



Sweetest Little Angel in the choir and our first snow

 This morning we went up to Oshkosh to see Tizita's Christmas service.

I love that she is in a Lutheran school and continues the tradition of a Christmas program which includes reciting the Christmas story from Luke 2 and singing all the familiar Christmas hymns.

I was part of such a program for eight years at St. John's and my girls were part of the same program at St. John's.  The church is different this time around, but the story is the same.

And the beauty of it is, that one never forgets those wonderful words that were recited year after year after year at the Christmas service.

Grandpa and his girl Soli are waiting for the service to begin.

 All the Kindergarteners are dressed as angels and in this photo you can see the cutest angel of them all.

 Soli and grandma enjoy a book together.

 Kindergarten class and Ready Fours sing together.

 And here, Tiz sneaks a glance back at us during the service.

As a side note, we had our first snowfall today.

Nothing too bad yet, but I suppose there is more to come.

The post I call, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," every year.

I had a problem this year..

Since we switched the living room and dining room, I wasn't sure where to put our Christmas tree.

If I put our big tree in its usual corner in the "new" dining room, no one would be able to sit around it and open gifts, but it was too big for the "new" living room, so I solved the problem by purchasing a half tree.

There were lots of jokes at the expense of this half tree, but when I put it up, it was 

just what the Doctor ordered.

I put all the ornaments that my mom has purchased for us over the years on that half tree.  It tells a story of our life through the years starting at the top and moving to the bottom.

I cannot wait to have all of us sit around that half tree and open gifts this year.

 I put our "old" full tree in its usual corner by the windows.

It looks as lovely as always.

 My village is on the buffet in the dining room where it usually goes.

It is lit up and ready for the celebration.

 I had the best helpers in the world as Tizita helped me decorate the trees and

Soli helped pull the ornaments off the trees and pull out the hangers.

I think the trees will be decorated and redecorated many times this season, but that is okay with me.

 We just had a most wonderful weekend with the girls.

Paul had to go to Madison to play with his band, so Soli, Tiz, and Courtney spent the weekend with us and it was perfect.

We started out on Friday night with a trip to the Live Nativity which never disappoints and then dinner at El Mariachi which likewise never disappoints.

Tiz and Courtney are playing dreidel (sp) in Bethlehem.

 Santa filled stockings on Friday night.

This is all that is left of the cookies, milk. and carrot we left him.

 We hung three stockings, one for Soli, one for Tiz, and the one that I had made for Natnael.  Tiz didn't want to leave him out.

In the morning the girls found some silver coins with a note from Natnael in his stocking.

He had left them some coins from heaven.

It was a sweeet moment.

 Later on Saturday, John and I took the girls to the Children's Play Gallery in Delafield.

It was so much fun for them and for us.

We were the only people there which made it so nice.

So many fun activities for both girls.

 Soli tried so hard to get herself into this doll bed.  It was so funny to watch her.

 There is a huge pirate ship.

Here we are below deck checking out all the supplies.

 Both girls liked these cute chairs.

 There was also a treehouse.

 After playing we went to Marty's pizza where we all enjoyed a delicious dinner.

 Then we headed to Country Springs for the light show.

Tizita was steering the cars through the lights.

Soli was on my lap and she would squeal as she looked at the lights.

We ended our night on the streets of Bethlehem.

Perfect place to end a perfect weekend.