Waiting for the bus

Waiting for Sawyer's bus to get here around 4:00.  I can't believe it starts getting dark around here so early!

Josh loves to be outside.

And Hayden wanted me to take pictures of him being a goofball.

But I love every piece of him.

Technical difficulties

My laptop got dropped on the hard wood floor by sweet little hands. I was so sad. We were just talking about backing up the computer days before the accident. All of 2012's pictures were on there. After many failed attempts, and lots of sincere prayer, we were able to back up the computer onto my external hard drive. Relief.
It will be a while before I can load it onto a new computer and resume my normal computer activity. Until then I will keep up by posting via smartphone. I am relieved we were able to save all my data.

underwhelmed

Last Friday we went to the Wilton tree lighting for our advent calendar.  It is in the town center and was highly advertised around town.

This was it.  A few strands poorly strewn around the tree.

We grabbed this picture from the car on our way out of town after we waited a few minutes in a long line for Santa at the library and talked the kids into going home instead.

On the positive side, they had a nice little spread at the library complete with wine for the adults.  Maybe if we'd had a few drinks the tree would have been more impressive.

House

The framing is done.  The hvac is done.  The roof felt is on.  All windows except one are installed.  The construction walk through is next week.  That's the last thing before the sheetrocking begins.  I hope the speedy progress keeps up!

Gelukkig Kersfeest

Last night was our Dutch Christmas Eve.  Sawyer said his next favorite thing (after Dec 25th Christmas) was Chocolate Christmas, which is how he views Dutch Christmas Eve.

The kids put out their shoes filled with carrots and Sinterklaas rode by on his white horse and filled them with chocolate coins and chocolate initials.  We also got some spekulaas and stroopwaffels. 

We ate Dutch pancakes for dinner and toast sprinkled with milchschokoladen streusel (milk chocolate sprinkles).  We also ate fruit to be healthy.

This is one of our favorite traditions. Although I am not actually one smidge Dutch, I love the culture and traditions and love passing it on to my kids (I was so close to buying some klompjes -wooden shoes-, but I withheld). The kids love it too.  Sawyer was up at 4:30 sneaking down and eating all his chocolate coins.

Fog

We've been having light morning fog around here lately.  It's magical!

I'm going to miss the trees...sigh.

House

Our Progress as of Friday.  It's moving along quickly!  The kids are ready to move right now, except Hayden.  He's made some cute little friends in kindergarten and I think he wants to be with them a little longer :(      Moving will always be a little hard no matter where you go.