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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Gavinism...5 Year Old Edition

The bottom line is...the kid comes up with some real gems....I'm reserving this space for the absolute best of the best. One of which occurred tonight. Let me set the stage....
We just said goodbye to a bunch of Chrissy's family: her mom, older sister, niece, twin sister, and 2 nephews who came up to visit the day after Christmas and spend a few days to celebrate Gavin's birthday (yesterday, the 27th.)...we just got done reading his bedtime books, brushed teeth, and were getting ready to say goodnight prayers when he and I had the following exchange:

Me: "Well, Gav...today was the first full day of you being 5 years old, how did it feel?"

Gavin: "Well, I know that I'm getting older because the segments of my fingers are bigger. You see this segment here? (pointing to the top part of his finger where the fingernail is), well...it used be down here....and you see this segment here? (pointing to the next knuckle down)well...it used to be way down here....also...my pinky finger is fatter than it used to be".

Me: "Wow...um...that's great man...let's say prayers."

The kid's something else. So's the girl...I may have to start an "Ivyism" tag...she's getting there. Throughout this weekend, she had multiple personalities....at any given moment she could have been Ivy, or Mary, or King David, or Joseph, or baby Jesus....It was kind of touch-and-go for a while...you'd have to figure our who she was or be forced to endure correction (by a 2 year old, I may add).

God Bless us, everyone.

I still can't believe my man turned 5 this week:


12-27-06


12-27-11

Keep going strong, big man...the Lord's got mighty things in store for you. But enjoy your ice cream first.

Christmas post and Relatives visit coming soon.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Here We Come A Wassailing....

Short Version:

2 years ago, our family walked across the street and Christmas Caroled to our neighbor. One and done.

1 year ago, our good friends, The Corbetts, joined us on vocals and mandolin as we serenaded 7 or 8 homes in the lower part of our neighborhood. We sang a tune or two to each house...many of which were very surprised and blessed by our gift of song.

This year....
14 of us went out to spread some Christmas Cheer to the Michael Lane/Wayne Ave. area of Dudley, MA.

We recently began attending a new church and have quickly become connected with some wonderful families.....families who love The Lord, and love each other...families that want to do right, honor Him, live and learn by His Bible alone, and enjoy time with one another. Tonight pretty much hit all of those points.

It was a great night for caroling....48 degrees...not too cold for folks to hold their doors open to listen to a song or two.
We went out with a pretty basic 3 song setlist:
1. Jingle Bells (we had 4 kids under 5 years old...they had a good time jingling bells and laughing all the way)
2. Hark The Herald Angels Sing: We HAD to add something about Christ in our set. Plus....I always get all rev'd up at the "Join The Triumph Of The Skies" part.
3. We Wish You a Merry Christmas...just a classic wassailing set-ender.

Our first practice was also our first caroling stop...the deck of my parents home....a dress rehearsal, if-you-will.

A little blurred with no flash but....you get the idea.

After that...we hit maybe 12 or 15 houses in our neighborhood. It's kind of funny....When you knock on some one's door unexpectedly in the night and then burst into song on their front lawn....our culture isn't used to that. So, usually, the first song is spent with the homeowners trying to pry family members away from the TV to come and listen and/or keeping their dogs from jumping through the glass storm door and tearing us to shreds. I will say that, by the middle of the second tune...every family we visited was on board and singing along. We even brought one woman to tears. Booya.
here's some random shots of us on the road:






We nominated Timmy Nault as our official caroling photographer...so...while He wasn't in most of our actual caroling shots...we had to pay him his due (complete with his kind-of-creepy, kind-of-cool fur hat):

Trust me...he's cool.

We even had a "Drive-by" caroling occur when a van that was driving down the street stopped to see what was going on...they got jumped with an unexpected "Jingle Bells" before they sped on their way.

Our night ended back at our home with delicious Hot Chocolate, tasty Winter Brews, lots more music, and lots more laughter. Easy....Simple....Perfect.

When I started facilitating drum circles years ago, I read and recited a quote from and African drum instructor, Babatunde Olatunji, who said :
"All people, from all walks of life, all colors, we have things that we can do together, and it's the simplest thing to make music and sing together..."

Add to that Psalm 147:1:
"Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him".

It was wonderful to bless our neighborhood with song this evening. It was even better to honor the Lord through good, happy, pure times of rejoicing this precious season with friends and family.
I am grateful for my friends, old and new, that I shared this night with. I am more grateful to celebrate the season...and to have honored The Lord...the Creator...who clothed Himself in His own creation...who came to us...and came to love, know, teach, guide, and inspire us.
I would love nothing more than to go back in time, to "join the triumph of the skies" and proclaim our Saviour's arrival with the angelic hosts.

Tonight may be as close as I'll ever get.

I'll take it.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

1st Annual Homeschool Christmas Program

I remember as a (public schooled) kid...basically being forced to participate in the annual Christmas pageant. I can remember over the years dressing as a Sugar Cookie (complete with pink rosy cheeks...which I'm still not happy about), also the Captain of the Toy Soldiers and, in 4th Grade, even getting a chance to perform as the big man himself...Santa. Add to that the countless shepherds and "Heavenly Hosts" choir members from church plays...I always loved being a shepherd...it was basically the "We've-Got-Too-Many-Kids-In-Our-Sunday-School-Class-So-We-Need-Fifteen-Of-Them-To-Be-Shepherds" corollary...which meant that you got to look cool in your shepherds get-up and carry a big stick...but you didn't actually have any lines....except maybe "Hark!" and then pretend to be scared when the angel shows up with his "good tidings of great joy".
Chrissy's Christmas pageant experience, as far as I know, starts and ends with her stunning performance as "The Monotone Angel" in a Christmas pageant around 4th or 5th grade...you'll have to ask her more about it for details.

Anyway...being a homeschooling family (granted, we are "homeschooling" a kindergartner and a Pre-K'er), it seemed only right to put on some sort of Christmas Program. So here we go:



Our Audience:

Our neighbor "Miss Nancy", our good friend Carol, and grandma 'n Pa. Now, by now, The Corbett's are reading this and saying "Hey, what gives??!!"...not to worry, you are in for an exclusive performance on Christmas eve :^)


Chrissy guiding the kids in their opening Scripture Recitation. "Hide The Word in their hearts..." know what I'm sayin'?


"Mary Had a Baby Boy" sung to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".


Next up was the homegrown puppet show of the book "Room For a Little One". The kids nailed this. My favorite set piece is the angels in the upper corners of the nativity...On the left is Ivy's...to the right is Gavin's....Hand outlines for wings....foot outlines for bodies. The "hay" ain't bed, either.


Little Drummer Boy (and Girl)


Presentation of Gifts...."Gifts" being a homemade Christmas ornament and a card (with nothing inside it).

And last, but not least....

Every Christian Homeschool Christmas Pageant needs a birthday cake for Jesus, right? I mean...Christ gets honored...we all get to eat cake....everybody wins, right?

The night wasn't without it's mishaps, highlighted by Ivy, in the middle of the performance, completely lifting up her dress over her head to announce that she "had an itch".

We didn't photograph that.

Thank you to my wonderful wife who invests so much of herself into our Children. it is a true blessing to be able to leave for work everyday knowing that the hearts and minds of my children are left to be moulded by the hands of my amazingly capable and talented wife...as she uses her gifts and listens to the leading of The Holy Spirit...what an amazing blessing.

At the end of the night...I took a stroll around the house. I love our home the most at Christmastime. here's a few shots that I grabbed:


Our nativity. Every year, I get Chrissy a new piece...although we may have to curb that tradition as we are running out of space on our server.


From the dining room, towards our tree...with Christmas Card wall in the foreground.


From right in front of our Christmas tree...through the dining room, and into the sun room....with the fireplace in the background We love strings of lights...we keep them up year-round...as well as tea-lights. I've always been big on "mood lighting"....so wonderful...so relaxing....

"The blessing of The Lord, it maketh rich, and he add no sorrow with it" - Proverbs 10:22

He certainly ain't talking about legal tender.

Amen.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Wreathing Havoc

So...second year in a row...probably gonna become a family tradition....

The Leo Family Homegrown Christmas Wreath.

If you remember back a blog or two ago...the one about the 12 ft. tall Christmas tree...when all was said and done...I had a solid 5 foot of pine tree bottom sitting in my side yard. This became the greens for our 2011 Christmas wreath.


We started by setting up our dirty ghetto table in our dirty ghetto driveway...hey...that's how we roll 'round here, know what I'm sayin'?!
We used the octagonal frame that Gavin and I made out of scrap wood and "L" brackets last year. In this shot, Gavin is using some pliers to take out last years staples to get ready for this year's greens.


Starting to attach some greens.


The girls arrive with the lights.


Almost done with the greens. A quick side-note. To those who have a super keen eye for keen observation...you'd notice that during many blog posts and facebook update
photos throughout the past 2 1/2 years or so, I'm wearing the same ratty, washed-out, stretched-out long sleeve black T-shirt that you see in this photo. The truth is...I'm wearing this shirt inside out because on the front-side it says "50 Cent G-Unit" and has an icon of a bullet with wings. Not my style at all but...Truth is....
I bought this shirt at a thrift store for 3 bucks like 3 years ago....and being a big, fat dude....this shirt has been key in some hardcore snow removal, gun-range shooting, and overall cold-weather protection over the last 2+ years or so...I can't begin to describe how comfortable this shirt is...It's getting a bit gnarly these days...but I'm not-at-all ready to get rid of it. It continues to be a key component to my Winter Well-Being...Anyhow...let's get back to the topic on hand....


The girl with the bow.


Stapling up some serious Winter-Berries...We're almost there.

A silly little basket-head...]

So....with greens, lights, pine cones, and berries attached....

Here's what she looked like all set up:


...and here's what she looked like come nightfall:




Blessed and thankful for the Lord's guidance, peace, and provision.....and praying the same for you and yours this Christmas season and into the New Year.

Merry, Merry Christmas,

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Stamping a Moment in Time

There are eras/days/events/hours that you wish you would never have to live again.
There are eras/days/events/hours that you never think about after they happen...just a flash in the pan, then dissolve into some distant memory that you may or may never recall throughout your life.
There are eras/days/events/hours that are so important/epic/life-changing that you will forever use them to mark life-long changes in your path through life.
There are eras/days/events/hours that you just want to look back on fondly because they were just pretty awesome.

Tonight falls into the last category.

To make along story short:

Chrissy went out to do some Christmas shopping tonight. It was me and the two little ones for the bulk of the evening. Some things to note:

It's Christmastime.

It's the first night in 2 weeks that it's even felt "Christmasy" and chilly.

I had this night planned and in the bag from the get go....complete with a night-before stop to WalMart for supplies.

We made These:


Watched This:


I hung out with Them:


I drank one of These:


While curling up next to This:


Simple. Fun. Family. That's just about all I need.

Merriest of Merrys to you!

God Bless.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Extreme Tree Trimming

Well...like many others...this weekend was the weekend to procure the family Christmas tree. I posted a similar post last year:

http://findtheblueheron.blogspot.com/2010/12/tree-trimmingliterally.html

about our exploits in securing our tree. This year was much of the same....same place: (a guy right in our town who's got a couple acres with trees planted on it)
same date: (first weekend in December)
Not-quite-the-same price: he went up from $25 to $30...but, in the end, I'm still supporting a local brother
same harvesting means: hand saws are for chumps....I say let the Stihl do the work.
same over sized tree: refer to the pictures below for explanation.


WE FOUND IT!! Now..a couple of factoids to bring up.

1. I'm 6'2"
2. The top of the tree is nowhere in sight in this photo
3. We have 8' ceilings in our Living Room

The reality is...the guy who we get our trees from has trees that are 3 feet tall and trees that are 23 feet tall...and all of them cost the same price. This adds an interesting element to choosing a tree because you are in the unique position of not necessarily selecting a tree, but selecting a part of a tree...last year we cut ourselves an 11' tall tree, lopped the top off of it, then shaped the bottom of it into a nice Christmas tree shape. This year, it was just the opposite. Chrissy spotted this one and decided that the top half was a keeper. Around here, we don't just TRIM the three....we chop that mother in half.

So, I fired up the ole chainsaw ant let 'er rip:

which elicited this response from my daughter:

shock, terror, and sadness at the fact that I just chopped it down. She's, by nature, a nurturer, and fell in love with our tree as it stood in the field...she had a real hard time understanding that it had to get cut down in order for it to be brought home and put up in our house. She came around, eventually.


Loading her up onto the tractor. One of the nice things about buying a tree here is that the owner comes out in his tractor and trailer and hauls the tree out of the field right to your care for you...now heavy lifting.

Gavin made sure that the tree was secure during it's trip from the field to our van.

just a cool shot that Chrissy took.

Once we got it to the van...we loaded it onto the roof rack. I had to snap a pic because this thing was a giant root ball away from being the Griswold Family Christmas Tree:


Which stirred up the quote:
"Dad...that tree wouldn't fit in our yard".
"It's not going in our yard, Russ, it's going in our living room".

During the trimming and shaping portion of our afternoon, there was also a very aptly quoted:
"...little full....lotta sap".

At any rate...when the sawdust cleared, we were, as usual, left with a nice little Leo Family Christmas tree:


May all your Christmases be white...we'll bring you some figgy pudding...for auld lange syne...deck your halls...laugh all the way...come and behold him...and all that stuff.

Merry Christmas from The Leo's