Bless me lucky charms! ;)

"Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me."

"No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God's good pleasure; but let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought, that - as is the perfect truth - it was the gift of God."

                                      -Saint Patrick

happy st. patrick's day!

Wearin of the Green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

This morning Mom was a dear and had set up a sweet St. Patricks Day treat for us, including Lucky Charms with green milk! :D We all wore at least a little bit of green on us, so that we could escape the pinches. And it was particularly nice lunch at church---enough corned beef to feed practically everyone! So, anyways, here are some of the pins that have inspired me this St. Patrick's Day: 

St. Patrick's Day cake! 

Key-lime icecream

Mint-Chocolate-Chip Milkshake

Thin Mint Smoothie

St. Patty's day rainbow gift I sent this number with Daniel so that even though he wasn't here, he could have a proper Irishish day. :)

Fun Irish-themed jar full of goodies

-Sarah

In which Sarah gives her readers a double dose of the holiday spirit.

December's blown by so fast for our family, as I'm sure it has for some of you as well. 

The thing is, Rach and I can't get it in our little noggins that Christmas Day is only 6 days away!!!!

**mind blown**

Really. I guess we're getting old or something. 

Either way, we realized this little corner of blogosphere has been sadly lacking in boughs of holly.

So it's my job to deck it out. 

beautiful lights at Christmas Town in Busch Gardens at the beginning of the month. We're actually planning on going back on Friday!

We haven't done as much holiday baking as I'd hoped to (pinterest inspires me, okay?) but we did manage to do gingerbread men, and tonight we'll be making/decorating our traditional Christmas sugar cookies. :)

And despite our foggy brains, the house has been in a wonderful array of lights, sparkle, greenery, and looks like Christmas. :) 

the boys room all lit up

Yesterday I donned my red cowl-neck sweater and a black belt, feeling very Santa Clausy, and headed out with the girls to do *all* of our shopping in Greenbriar. :) Though we weren't half as liberal, we all felt like Eloise when she shops in NYC. :)

I have to say, I was very proud of ourselves. We left with no presents bought, or even planned and each of us came back with gifts for about 16 people! It was quite a fun excursion, and good sister time as well. :)

Levi has been so sweet to watch this Christmas. :D He's in love with the lights, candy canes, sparkle, stars, Santa Claus, and The Twelve Days of Christmas! It's so adorable to see him get excited, and sparks the same childish joy in me. 

I've been checking off my Christmas movies-to-watch list, and right now, the only ones left are Frosty, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Christmas Carol, and The Nativity. If we have extra margin, I'm hoping to watch the cartoon Grinch, the Christmas Story, and White Christmas. :)

Oh! Before I forget----The other night a friend showed me one of the funniest videos Rhett and Link have done so far, and seeing that it's Christmasy, I'll share it here.

Haha! That makes me laugh every time I see it. :) Oh, and if you're up for it, they did an awesome Christmas special, but it's much longer, so here's the link: 

Well, I'm really counting on that boosting all of our Holiday spirits! 

And to close, a sweet little boy decorating the tree......

"Fashionably Late, as usual."

It is a tradition for our family to be late. 

Not by choice, per se, nor by design, but by Natural Talent. It's a gift, really, ;) By late, I don't always mean too late, nor do I mean terribly late. Haven't you all ever heard of a dear little habit called fashionably late?

The sort of late that causes you to come through the door into a party after everyone else has arrived so that you are immediately the center of attention. The kind of late that gives you a breathless, wind-blown, "Oh haven't I been having fun!" sort of color in your cheeks. The sort of late that is no one can blame you for and no one can criticize. ;) 
I am in jest. But sometimes I do like being just the teensiest bit late for beginning things. Christmas shopping for instance. It is a Holiday Law for Daniel to do his shopping no earlier than three days before Christmas, and it is an equally important Holiday Law that I go with him to be his conscience.

Daniel: "Do you really think I should get this?"
 Me: "Get it."
Daniel: "But will she like it?"
Me: "Of course."
Daniel: "But is it too expensive?"
Me: "Are you kidding? It's the best price I've seen all season!" etc.

 We have rather a lot of fun, my gentleman and I, and it would not be at all the same to go out, say, December 6th. There would be no jolly rush, no peppermint-chocolate-and-sparkles feel to the air, no half-jesting fear that the shopping won't get done. No. One must be late for this sort of excursion.
There is also invariably a little dilemma known by some as a Simple Matter of Mathematics. It goes thus:
"Susie, how is fifteen dollars to be divided between gifts for four people without any sacrifice of quality or taste?"
Ahem. I may not be at all bright when it comes to General Math, but I am quite proficient in this art. The solution is solved in this fashion:

You are determined. You winkle your way through your wallet counting and counting and counting your money (including pennies) to be sure it was Fifteen and not Fifty instead, which would solve everything immediately. Having assured yourself that it was Fifteen after all, you begin to scour your memory as to how much of certain gift-cards you have already spent. If there is a spare 3 dollars and change on a gift-card,that store is immediately your destination, as even that paltry amount would nearly double (for one person at least) the current balance. You get in the store and debate over various items, find a long-forgotten coupon which happens to still be good, buy the item for much less than you had hoped, previously, and suddenly one person is checked off the list.

 Repeat as many times as desired until your shopping is done.

Yes. I am rather a mathematician. 

~Rachel

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Shocking. Absolutely unacceptable! December 12 and nary a post about Christmas yet on this blog! I will admit to having been a lazy-bones in posting on this blog. It started with good intentions: Give y'all some of Sarah in stead of me for a change, but then I ditched you. Sorry, chaps! So gird yourself up and get ready for some fabulous posts from now till Christmas. We'll be having posts about our Christmas traditions, music, recipes, pictures, and much more to make up for our negligence beforehand. :)

This post is about our Christmas tree. The more Christmas trees I see, the more I realize that ours is a little different--we know some families who have themed trees--all silver and gold or blue and white. Some families swear by the parents decorating the tree. Some families have bought their ornaments at one time and keep buying new ones each year. 

Our Christmas tree, somehow, is not like any of these.

The bottom limbs are always sagging from too many ornaments hung there by the littlest people. Our ornaments have no rhyme nor reason to them--the collection has grown with each child in the family. We haven't a color scheme at all--there's everything from gold to purple to turquoise to copper. But I think it's beautiful. The ornaments are not just decorations--they are memories, and practically part of the family. There are some things that hold honored court with the tree branches this year that have hung there every year since I was a wee little thing myself. I can remember peeping into the depths of the tree to see my favorite ornaments illuminated by the colorful Christmas lights...inhaling the clean, wintry scent of fir, and feeling that somehow everything was right in the world. You know what? It's still that way. If I just get close enough to the tree, bend low enough to look at it as I did when I was a child, and then just be, Christmas gains all of the wonder it had for me as a little girl. That being said, I thought I'd show you some of my favorites of our ornaments. Get ready for the lovely, the uncouth, the homemade, but the best of our ornament collection. ;)

 

This is an angel my Gentleman woodburned with my name the year he got a wood-burning set. I can still recall his sheepish grin as I unwrapped it and hung it on the tree. The little thread is frayed now, but I love it just the same.

Here is a pretty feather-angel that I've always loved, even before Scotland became my heartland-after-America. :)

Relics of the years when Dad and Mama taught music in the public schools...there's an entire marching band of these fellows. Actually, we have a rather musical tree with a quantity of trombones, tubas, and other paraphenalia on it, though I suspicion the youngest kids haven't the foggiest idea why. 

The ice-cube man I bought Mama. Isn't he stinkin' cute? 

A little bit of retro-ness to brighten the tree. :)

 Ah. And who could forget the Christmas Pickle? It's a Victorian Tradition that we started with Daniel partly as a joke because he loves pickles so much. You're s'posed to hide the pickle in the tree and whoever finds it has...good luck or something. Anyway, it's now a family favorite.

These little hand-print reindeer and the like crowd our tree like fall-leaves. :D

Before Cracker Barrel stopped giving out free biscuits, it was one of our favorite family restaurants. :P

This little musical-note has a rather Gift-Of-The-Magi-Christmas-Miracle story behind it. ;) It was made by a very poor little girl Dad taught in band who wanted to give him a Christmas present but couldn't afford anything, so she made him this ornament. Dad always gets to hang it up and get sentimental.

And last but not least we have the little dove glass-ball. It has its own midnight blue velvet box, and we always handle it extremely carefully like we did as children, even though I routinely handle things just as delicate now. It's almost a sacred duty, hanging it on the tree. ;) There are many many more ornaments that are just as beloved, but I didn't want to bore you. :) I hope you enjoyed this first peep in our Christmasing. :) 

~Rachel

P.S. Thanks for your patience as we give our blog a beautifying treatment. :P

Deck the Halls! :)

I am getting so excited about Christmas! This is a time of year full of traditions, so maybe that's why we love it so much! :) Yesterday the girls sweetly decluttered all the surfaces so that we could decorate today! Yay! :) Hopefully Sarah will take lots of pictures of our tree decorating so that we can do a fun post and you can see our tree! I've discovered there are 3 kinds of tree decorators:
~The Elegant Beauty
~The Cram-As-Much-As-You-Can-Just-To-Be-Glitzy
~The Cram-As-Much-As-You-Can-Because-It-All-Has-Memories

We belong to the latter version. Our tree always looks like it belongs to a large family. First it is wrapped from the inside out with lights. Then we have legions of paper ornaments made by eight little hands over the years, mixing with elegant glass balls. We have lopsided pine-straw hearts hanging proudly beside olive-wood ornaments from Israel. There is a Christmas Pickle hidden somewhere in the branches. There are the little tin marching band people to hang up, the floppy little fabric music note that must have it's story told every year to the youngest family members who do not remember. There is the beautiful pearly blue glass ball to take out of it's velvet case, and the crystal dove with the olive branch to carefully hand to Mama to hang up. Then of course, amongst all the finery, we string popcorn and cranberries, and red and green wooden beads. We perch gold-painted pine-cones here and there. We older ones find the ornaments an old baby-sitter gave to us, and try to remember her. (I never could!) :)
To an outsider, and especially the "Elegant Beauty" tree person, our tree looks like mayhem. But it is a tree filled with precious memories and love. A tree that represents 22 years of family life. It's our tree, and has changed very little (barring the introduction of even *more* paper ornaments) over my whole life. And there's something extremely comforting in that knowledge, you know? :) We love our tree, and valiantly guard it against tinsel, and I hope that even people who are more particular about their decorating, can see that our tree is not a work of art, but a history of our family. Just as colorful, varied, and homey as we are :) ~Rachel

Black and Blue

Hullo Folks! This morning we all woke up with a start at 6:30, scrambled around getting younger children dressed and prepared to load up in the van. Benjamin manned the toaster and toasted something for us all, I cut cheese and cantalope, and put some water in jars, and then joined the van full of half-asleep people. Actually, it wasn't too bad, and in less than half-an-hour after waking up, we were on the road to Drewry Blueberry Farm. We met the T. family there, and picked thornless blackberries (for sissies) and blueberries. There is something so old-fashioned about berry-picking. We were saying that we've always wanted to dress in white dresses and pretty hats and go picking, but that is decidedly impractical! It was alot of fun! Blueberry bushes are so beautiful! I love the coloring of the berries in different stages- they are the prettiest shades of pink and purplish, and finally light blue, until you rub the bloom off, and then they are such a lovely midnight color! :) We hope to make jam at some point, and I hope to make a blueberry crisp for dessert! :P Oh the summertime is SO great! Berry-picking is one of my favorite things to do! The only real way to do blackberries is to pick them in the wild, become lacerated by dozens of thorns, and come home hot, sticky, and purple with berries! :) Yay! I thought of the scene is Wives and Daughters when Molly Gibson is picking berries- you see her eat one, but when she comes home, she is absolutely covered in juice! :) Do you all like picking berries? What are your favorite kinds? Leave a comment if you love berries! :) -Rachel

When Once I Catch The All-Illusive "Someday"

I thought that I (Rachel) would do a post about something that is not about our daily life. So, to entertain you, I thought that I'd tell you some of the traditions I am going to start, or continue with my family, once I am married. (Of course, if my husband agrees! :)

Name each and every house I live in- There is something so very quaint in naming houses! Who can resist being intrigued by the name "Gusty Gables" or "Brookdale" or "Allencroft"? So, each house I live in will have a name, and I shall refer to it by that name when speaking of home. We have not yet named our land or house. But I am determined to do it with my own someday. Old-fashioned? Yes. But I am an old-fashioned person!

Make sugar cookies for each season- Mama has instilled in us a great love for the many times we have made fall, spring, summer, or Christmas sugar cookies. We have so many cookie-cutters in every imaginable shape!

Read to my children- I greatly look forward to reading real books to my children! I can just imagine us all sitting by the fireside, several rosy children at my feet and a deliciously fat baby in my lap as I read them "The Little Princess" or "The Hobbit" or tell them a story I have made up! I am convinced that children will learn to listen to and enjoy whatever you read to them, as long as it is made interesting by changing your voice for each character, etc. I read Gracie (3 years old) chapter books all the time!

Sing all the time- This shouldn't be hard. I always do it naturally, but I want to teach my children to do it also!

Have frequent tea-times, and always have something in the pantry to have with the tea!- This shouldn't be hard either! I have lots of china I have collected!

Taking walks, and having picnics spontaneously- Is it really that stressful and difficult to throw the lunch in a basket and run out into the sunshine? I think not!

So anyway! These are just ideas I have had over the last year or two! Hope somebody enjoys reading about them! -Rachel

In The Wake of Christmastide

Merry Christmas! We have spent a nice, leisurely day here at home! The Walkers are in Penn. so Grandmama and Grandaddy came over for the day, and the delicious smells are wafting through the house as we all prepare a lovely feast! The sometimes disagreeable job of bread-making seems always to fall to the eldest daughter! I sometimes like making bread, but it is rather like having a toddler to watch, because you must baby-sit the bread dough and that can be tiresome. But in the end it is worth it! For some strange and unknown reason we girls avoid making bread and cutting lettuce for a salad like the plague! We haven't figured out why! We didn't wake up this morning till 6:52 which is an hour and a half later than usual Christmas mornings! Then we had to do a bunch of various tasks like eat breakfast, set up cameras, marinate a venison roast, wrap a couple presents and things of that sort before we really could get going! We did a lovely advent time before opening gifts! And Daniel read us the Christmas story as usual before we opened our stockings. I love the tradition of putting Christ's birth first before anything else! From Dad and Mama I (Rachel) got a stamp and sealing wax sticks, a new wallet, an herbal set-up, (complete with the shot glasses I asked for to mix up tinctures in. I found during our bout with illness recently that they would be ideal for dosing people!) and a cameo pendant. Then Daniel gave me the new Susan Boyle c.d.
(a Scottish woman with an amazing voice. But they do a strange thing. On several songs they mix her voice with an African-American choir I believe, and it just seems strange since her voice is so classically opera. But it is really pretty.)
Sarah made me a hopechest book like Alaina did for Morgan's graduation. Leah gave me a volume of four Jane Austen books, Anna made me jewelry, Benj. gave me a box of tea, Abby made me soap, and Gracie gave me a kiss. :) Then Grandmama gave me such a great gift! When I put this on my list I hadn't the foggiest idea that she would do it! She made me an absolutely beautiful cloak and muff to match my Civil War dress, and she is working on a bonnet to go with it! The cloak is of a sort of black velvet with red trim and lined with red silk. Then the collar is a woolly white sort of thing to match the muff! I am so excited! I would take pictures, but our camera doesn't do that sort of thing well at all! (I don't mean to boast about my gifts at all! It is just that in a large family, you get more presents since everyone else wants to bless each member of the family! Count- that's seven extra gifts!)
I also had alot of fun watching people open the presents I gave them! Daniel had winkled his gift out! (Shame on him! :) and Sarah loved her's. I wrote her a story called "A Tale of Fairfax and Cloves". Which is about two middle-aged sisters who run a general store. Their names are Dolly and Cecelia Fairfax. Anyhoo! We love giving hints to our presents. And really random hints at that. Leah's hint for the Austen books was "Chicken". Because on a little kid's show there is a chicken named Jane, and Jane Austen wrote the books. Then Daniel's hint for me was "tiger-pits". Now keep in mind that the gift was a c.d. The explanation? When a very small girl Sarah had a dream about tiger-pits, and on the c.d. there is a track titled, "I Dreamed a Dream."
But I got him back by telling him that his hint from me was "Dragon". (I made him Welsh cakes) The explanation for that? The Walkers have a bumper-sticker that says," The Welsh never die, they just drag-on" and it has a picture of a dragon. Touche! ;)
We are rather strange sometimes! :) My hint for Sarah was "Spice cabinet". Anyway, I'm sure you are tired of hearing about our Christmas! We are looking forward to delivering gifts to some friends tomorrow! And hosting church on Sunday! Well, I must go hie away and check on that dependent little lump of bread dough! It can do nothing for itself! :) -Rachel

Hallo-Bonjour-ummm.... Hi?

Howdy Do to You and You! It's Me it's Me it's Ernest T.! (I couldn't resist ;)

No. Actually, it is Rachel. This post will be interesting because it ought to be something grand and glorious for the first post in this awe-inspiring month. But then, I think all the grand and gloriousness in our family has gone to Daniel who is doing a great job with the Advent posts.
In the first place, it took me awhile to figure out that it really was December. (I had to use that little rhyme that I've known since forever: 30 days hath September, April, June, and November, all the rest has 31, `cepting February alone, which has 28 rain or shine, and in leap-year 29!) Okay! So anyhow, our lovely December has started off perfectly (for this area) with a heavy frost! I love frost! It transforms the plainest thing into a thing of beauty! One of the prettiest sights I've seen is a blackberry vine and leave covered in frost. I would have frosted things like that all over my wedding cake if I could! (And if I was married in the fall!) You could probably do the same thing but with sugar instead of real frost. I think I heard of someone who wants to be married in the winter so that they can run outside after the ceremony, and have a snow-ball fight in their wedding dress! But I don't know why I went off on a wedding tangent! :)
December is probably my favorite month of the year in the sense of all that we do!
Advent has already been raptured over and you'd get tired of hearing me do that, so I think I will talk about a couple of our Christmas traditions maybe!?
Okay, but this has gotta be quick because I am working with Dad today and he wants to get out earlyish.
I start making and collecting presents early, as does Sarah, so the moment after the Christmas tree is put up, she and I have a mad dash to see who can wrap a present and have the dignity of putting the first present under the treee! (psst! Don't tell her but I'll prewrap mine this year and then get a head start! ;) Anyway, it is rather fun! Another cool tradition (At least to me) is that we set up our manger scene as a family. We kids and Dad bought her the Willow Tree set a couple years ago, so that has taken the presedence over a traditional set that she had had since she got married. (I am now asking for the old one for my hopechest for Christmas! :)
Mama sits on the couch and hands us the figures one at a time. We then carefully position them around a little creche that Daniel made for her. The Three Kings always are put the farthest they can be away from the creche, but I don't think it would take them 2 years to cross the table-top! The youngest of us, whoever that may have been that year, gets to put Baby Jesus up there. I always wanted to put the pretty angel with the blond hair and crimson dress up. Mary wasn't quite as pretty! ;) I had a weather eye for pretty things back then and still do! :) But I like Mary just the same!
Okay! Here's how it goes around her Christmas morning! We girls all wake up at around 4:30 or 5:00, too excited to go back to sleep, and since we haven't any cows to milk, we lay around hushing eachother until 5:45 or 6:00. Then we wake Daniel up and cart him out of his room. He lays on our bedroom floor blinking like a mole in the bright light while we all impatiently wait to open our stockings. So after his eyes are adjusted, he brings out his Bible, and reads us the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we open our stocking and revel over them. But by and by we decide that we need to wake Mama and Dad up so that we can go downstairs to open gifts from under the tree. Well, it's a good thing we wake them up that early, because we must make their coffee, set up camera tripods, sort the presents into individual piles, and then we do the last day of Advent :( Last year Mama made us eat breakfast before presents! (I couldn't manage it!)
When it is finally time we go around, usually youngest to oldest, and we each open a present, one at a time. Doing this, this time can stretch to a couple hours! It's alot of fun though to watch others open your gifts you made or bought for them! Well, I better go get dressed for work! Hope this was fun! Do ya'll think we should temporarily switch over to a Christmas background?