Earthquake????

There is always a first..
First time the Gingerbread Houses collapsed BEFORE little children had tried to pry off the candy. It sort of looked like a small earthquake on the table when we woke up this morning. The wonderfully humid air that is so good for your skin obviously is not so good for houses and it certainly did not help that it has been raining off and on the last day or two.
The good news is the boys got to eat the Gingerbread houses early and enjoyed it, as it was not competing with cookies, other candy and treats on Christmas Day. We may have started a new tradition to spread out the sweets...

Our Village

On Tuesday evening we assembled a village full of gingerbread houses in preparation for the Annual Gingerbread House Decorating Party. Noah quickly realized that his little Lego men were the perfect size for these houses and set out to develop an entire scenery to avoid heading to bed....
On Wednesday morning, Lukas and Noah happily volunteered to un-bag the candy - 75% off Halloween candy works wonders on Gingerbread houses as long as all the little pesky wrappers and small bags are gone.
A little after 2 pm friends arrived and the party could begin. I am not sure if there was more candy on the houses or in the stomachs, but the end results were pretty spectacular...
And what do I do with the left over candy??

Joseph and a Wise Man

Today, Lukas and Noah had a chance to participate in our church Living Nativity held right after the tree lightning ceremony for Carmel's Christmas tree. It is not easy to stand perfectly still for almost 20 minutes for the tableau.
"The whole town" came out for the festivities and celebrations in preparation for Christmas.

Lucky Close Up

Here is the newest member of our family. I must admit that I am not taking nearly as many photos of this new addition as I did when we added the last two munchkins...Lucky has found her place in our family, she happily snuggles up in the reading corner under the boys bed at night, and is very excited to see her early morning walking partner, and would like nothing more than always joining us when we head out in the car.
We often find Lukas and Noah snuggling with her on the rug, and we have yet to hear her voice, does she even know how to bark????

Christmas Preparations

After a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving, it was time to get in the Christmas mode. Noah, Lukas, and Bob hauled the boxes from the garage and it felt like early Christmas, as we last used these decorations for Christmas 2006. Noah found a very innovative way to carry the many Glogg glasses we have, and even found an empty spot in a kitchen cabinet for them. Lukas and Noah happily decorated the living room area as well as their bedroom with the many memory filled Christmas objects.
On Wednesday the boys went out to get a tree, which we all decorated on Thursday evening, while drinking hot chocolate, and listening to Christmas Carols.
It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas..... Next on the list is cookie baking and Live Nativity Scene participation at the yearly Carmel Tree Lightning Ceremony on Friday evening.

Meet Lucky

Lukas' desire for a dog has not faded despite having had to wait for a very long time. The promise we made to him was that we would get a dog by Christmas. Earlier this fall we began the 'dating' process and although she was a good dog, she was not THE one for our family. Lukas continued to pray for the right dog, and for the right dog to come soon.
Lukas had plans for us this weekend: decorate for Christmas and go and scope out the dogs at the various shelters in the area.
We had unusually dreary weather today, not much Christmas spirit in rain and wind to decorate, so off we went to the shelters. Two of the three shelters were closed for the long weekend.
Lukas and Noah wandered up and down the aisle of kennels, searching, evaluating, and carefully reading the notices about each dog. There was the funny, happy, high free jumping Chow Chow/German Shepherd mix, the very loud and very large brown dog, the 'not good with kids' dog, the small squealing ones, and then there was quiet, subdued, calm but oh so cute Border Collie/Cattle Dog mix dressed in a funny Hanukkah collar. Lukas walked back and forth but kept coming back to the dog with the collar. A few minutes in the get to know me room and Lukas was hooked and the rest of us were smitten.
Since we had come only to look, begin to narrow down the choices and get more information, we left without a dog. Back home, Lukas did some more research, as well as praying realizing that this is a big decision and that the final say was in his hands. We could tell from his face when he finally joined us for lunch that this was THE dog.
Back to the shelter and multiple signatures and a mound of paper work later we were a family of five. Lukas named her Lucky - she is lucky she was only in the shelter two weeks, and I am lucky to have her, he said. This afternoon Noah crawled under the coffee table to lay down next to Lucky gently petting her on the back.
Sitting outside in the front yard with his new dog after the evening walk, in spitting rain and wind, Lukas hugged Lucky and said: "We are a happy couple!"

Good bye million dollar view sink

Every good thing comes to an end... even doing dishes outside under the clear blue sky listening to the birds chirping, the wind rustling in the leaves, and the eucalyptus perfuming the air. The day has come when we finally have water, hot water even, and a dish washer in our kitchen!
It is great to have all the amenities at my fingertips, but I will miss the beautiful view and the serenity of going outside to clean dishes.