What We've Been Up To

As much as I am trying to hide away this holiday break, we still keep plenty busy at home.

It has been a sacred Christmas for me.  I can't really talk about it right now, but I love these kids, and I know they had a great Christmas and that we are all so loved and looked out for.  I will never forget that ever again.

Ben is having a slightly difficult stage.  He just seems unhappy or dissatisfied with many things, but he is still my blue-eyed boy, and we will make it through this.  Today he wanted his 

 Today he wanted his picture taken, but darn, that little bro was determined to photo bomb.  Ben is normally the master photo bomber so turn about's fair play.

There was the joy of Christmas Day death of a microwave.  Who knew those things were so indispensable, even you have never fed your kids a microwave dinner in their entire lives?  The beautiful part was we decided the boys could take it apart.  I am determined to make some sort of engineer out of at least one of my kids.  They were so cute, making "hypotheses" about what would be in there and how it all worked, etc.  Dad had to take it to the garage, but I am hoping they can do more investigations with it before break is over.

 Gingerbread house fun...the day after Christmas because that is OK!

 Lily is starting to actually care about quality and details.  We've been waiting for one of our children to reach this stage.

 Daph has taken it all in stride.  She thought Christmas was pretty okay.

 Not a great pic, I know, but had to try to take pics of all the kids with their very loved blankets/afghans crocheted by Grandma Laura.  Daphne got one (2 actually) and so Grandma spent all year making one for each of the kids, even tall, tall Lily, and now they are snuggling in them often.  Beautiful!!!

Otherwise, Dad has been on vacation, so video gaming has ensued.  Ben spent a whole day begging Lucas to play Skyrim so he could watch.  I'll never understand, but that's not important.

And today, my boys learned some snow shoveling skills from their dad.  They were so (not) enthused, but you have to grow little boys into men and so hopefully they get more snowy opportunities soon. :)