Season of Advent

The evening we brought home our tree, we got to decorating the house. I didn't have the time or energy to put the lights on the tree but the kids got to everything else.

Monday I finally strung the lights so the kids could decorate the tree. I don't think James remembered anything about Christmas last year so it was all new to him. I like that.

 Justin was cold and doesn't really like decorating. The kids decorated him and he stayed warm.

My kids still need to work on their spacing skills.

It was probably all James.

I've been researching holiday traditions and decorations in other countries to get some new ideas. I have ancestors from Sweden so I was particularly interested in a couple of their traditions.

First up, advent wreath. There are a lot of modern iterations online but I tried to stay more traditional and wreath-like.

I used the trimmings from our tree and twigs from our crabapple tree. I already had the candles and holders and bought the tray at the dollar store so it was pretty cheap too.

 The tradition goes that you light 1 candle on the first Sunday of December, 2 candles the second Sunday, etc. We have been doing it on Mondays so that the 4th week ends on Christmas Eve Eve. Aaaaand I found out that Scandinavian countries celebrate the day before Christmas Eve and call it Little Christmas Eve so I really feel like making up that holiday was in my DNA.

I also bought Christmas chimes because they are a Swedish thing and aren't they cute? The heat from the handles make the fans spin.

 James made this cute wreath and he was so proud of himself. He hung it on his door.

 He has THE CUTEST FACE IN THE HISTORY OF FACES!!!!

The kids went a little overboard decorating their rooms. I think this lasted for 2 days before they got tired of them falling down or getting in the way of opening their dresser.

When we walked into church last week I noticed that the boys were all dressed the same. Black  shoes, tan pants, blue jacket.

 Looks like it's time to dust Justin's nightstand. I asked Erica if she drew this and she said, "Yup. It's easy to draw in dust."

 My kids are lame and don't like Muppet Christmas Carol so I watched it by myself one afternoon while I strung popcorn.

I finally nailed divinity!!!! I made it 3 times in 2 days and finally got the texture right. My next feat is to get them to look pretty like my mom does.

 I can get the first few to look like smooth duck butts but half way through they get too set and look craggy.

 This was the 2nd attempt. They set up really hard. The first attempt went from the mixer right to the trash.

 My kids got a little crazy one evening wrapping presents and started wrapping ANYTHING to be funny. There were like 20 presents under the tree. So I declared the next day Funny Christmas and we opened all the junk presents.

 I got a giftbag (wrapped in wrapping paper), a roll of toilet paper, and a marker from my snarky kids.

 Henry got his own underwear and gave James his own superhero toys.

 They get it from me but don't know it. One year my sister and I wrapped up funny presents for everyone but kept it on the down-low. It was funny until I got a roll thrown at me Christmas morning.

 Friday we took the kids out to eat and then to the Orem mall to return some stuff and to visit the Giving Machines.

 We saw them at Temple Square a couple of years ago but it was so crowded and we didn't have time to stop. This is such a cool idea.

Thanksgiving 2019

Random memory time. My mom had a Franklin Planner in the mid nineties. Remember how life-changing those were? 

My root canal and her visiting teaching appointments never to be forgotten again!

One Sunday, I'm going to say in 1992, I was flipping pages through her planner, (during Sacrament meeting no less because the threshold for entertainment is pretty low for a 9 year old during church). Flip flip flip. 1993....1994....1995. Flip flip flip. I come upon the calendar for 2000 and get the weirdest feeling in my stomach. Kind of like the closest thing to time travel I'll ever experience. Is this where we're headed? No more 19s but 20?? This is so far away. There's no way we'll ever get there. And it will be weird if we ever do.

And yet, here we are, the last month of 2019. 20 years PASSED the weirdo year of my future. And you want to know who's not here with us? Franklin day planners. 

*****

Random picture time. These gems are from Erica's October journal. This is a witch. "I lost my broom."

Erica doesn't remember what she wrote but I think it's "My witch swims."

School mornings are pretty nutso around here. My kids get themselves 85% ready on their own but have no concept of time. I'm kind of like the train conductor shouting "all aboard" but I say things like "If you want a ride to school I'm leaving in 1 minute or you can ride your bike." So imagine me standing near the door to the garage saying things like that and also this is happening:

 Tigey don't go to school. Tigey don't care.

A couple of weeks ago I helped Erica's class make these cute turkeys with tempura paint which stinks. (This is Henry's from kindergarten as reference because Erica hasn't brought hers home at time of writing.)

I take James with me each week and Mrs. Chidester is the best and always lets him participate. This is James's interpretation of a thanksgiving turkey and as a hater of modern art, I love this. (But it proves my hate of modern art as crap any 3-year-old can make.)

Thanksgiving day! Yay! What's not to love about a holiday filled with food and games. The Syme family likes to taste test stuff. We've done all the dark colas, rootbeers, vanilla ice cream, brownies, a blind identification of Hostess snack cakes and some others. This time we pitted Aggie ice cream against BYU creamery.

Clockwise from top: Aggie chocolate, Aggie blue mint, BYU blue goggles, BYU chocolate

 We don't agree on much but the Symes like their ice cream.

 BYU chocolate beat Aggie and a few of us died inside. The blue ones were pretty different and both good in their own ways.

 Now that we were REALLY full on dinner and ice cream, we went outside to play kickball in the snow with a semi-flat ball before it got too dark.

 James was great at getting in the way and asking me to fix his mittens.

 I got out a lot but there were some bad calls and how can you force an out when the base is a 4 foot long slushy mound?

James seemed to think that he could hand Cody snowballs and tell him who to throw them at. Because he did it. Every time.

 Then we went inside and ate all the pie and it was the best.

Justin likes hunting and if he can't go hunting, the second-best thing is Christmas tree hunting.

 I hadn't trudged through thigh-high snow since I was a kid so that added to the Christmas magic.

 These kids were just there for the hot chocolate.

 I found this during our pre-holiday room clean-out. Henry made this last year.

We're going to do it all. Dubs it.