The Rest of December

December is always filled with so much holiday crafts, gatherings, events, parties, who-ha's and what-nots that the ordinary day to day routines seem to zoom by. Here's a brief glimpse of various moments captured by my camera of the normalcy that still was, even though it was December.

Fresh juice

UNO. She's good!

Puzzles

A little 'school' work

 Making brownies! As with every moment, cooking and baking are packed full of learning opportunities. For these brownies, we talked a lot about fractions as we divided and cut them up into sections after they baked. 

 Ezra loves my canning claw. He likes to pick up toys and items with it. Great educational tool during the canning off season.

 Esperanza loves Lucy more than anything!

 Bath time

 Lucy getting some love from Esperanza

 This kid spent a lot of time on the stool one afternoon

 Me and my boy

 Counting pennies. Priceless

 Painting

 Math game

Esperanza and Lucy, again

 Puzzle with Grandma Angelina

Legos with Grandma Angelina

Grandma rubbing Esperanza's feet!

Making breakfast

 Another math game

 Post bath smiles

 Looks like trouble to me

 Ezra played teacher one day

We went to cousin Roman's 5th birthday party, superhero themed. The kids had fun, as did he adults.

I am almost done with my hooded cowl. Now that the holidays are over, maybe I can get it done.

This Years Tree

This year we discovered our new favorite Christmas tree farm. The one we usually go to in Washougal was closed the day we went to get a tree so we followed signs to a new one and it was fabulous. They were very welcoming with a warm fire, hot chocolate, mini candy canes and cheap pre-cut trees in addition to the large selection of trees to pick for u-cut. We chose a pre-cut tree because it was SO cheap and just as beautiful, if not more, than what we could have picked out. The kids enjoyed the fire and the scenery was so breathtaking with the dusting of snow on the ground and the chill of fog lingering over the property, parting away to reveal blue skies. We loved this place and we'll be back next year.

When we came home, the kids and I decorated it with all our beautiful ornaments, pretty lights and an angel on top. This year we made several different new ornaments and decorations for our tree, including a few very special needle felted ones. We love our tree!

Brrrr

We had our first dusting of snow recently, accompanied with below freezing temperatures for several days. It got down into negative numbers where my sister lives in Eugene just a couple hours south of us. For us, it remained in the teens and low twenties for about 5 days/nights straight. I worried a little bit about our chickens staying healthy during those cold days and nights, and spent a lot of time checking on them, cooking for them and breaking ice so they could drink water throughout the days. They survived, but not happily. It was really something of a record. We don't get long stretches of freezing temperatures. At all. The kids did not like it either, though we did attempt to go outside every now and again to see if we could play and get some fresh air. Once the wind would pick up, it was so cold it hurt. So, we spent most of those days indoors, sipping on hot tea, making holiday crafts and playing. 

Ezra Has The Flu

Ezra caught a bug last week and spent about 48 hours feeling miserably awful. Aside from feeling bad about him feeling bad, I really love how snugly and sweet he is when he's not feeling well. He would just cozy up on my lap at various times throughout the day and just want to be held. No complaints. When he was tired, he would just fall asleep on the floor. Night time was rough, he emptied his illness out of both ends several times throughout the night. His hair, my hair and several changes of bedding and clothes were covered in puke. It was exhausting for both of us. I rarely if ever take temperatures, but knew he was well within a 'healthy' sick range. I got fluids in him and he didn't feel extremely hot at any point. After a full night and day little sleep but lots of vomit and diarrhea, he took a bath (I showered off) and he was feeling a little bit better. Poor kid. Being sick is no fun. 

At one point in the middle of the night, while Ezra was awake puking, he had woke Esperanza up. She expressed little care about her sleep being interrupted, and instead commented "we're going to have a tired party tomorrow". My thoughts on that were - 'yes, dear, the last 5 1/2 years of my life has been one big tired party.'