Preparing for Christmas 2025

We always decorate for Christmas on the days following Thanksgiving. 

We have Advent traditions that begin on December 1, so we like to have the house ready when those begin. 

There are many decorations that the kids look forward to seeing again. 

But decorating in and of itself has become a tradition, too. 

This is so much so that the girls were eager to help without even being asked this year. 

Sometime after breakfast the day after Thanksgiving, we all get dressed with shoes on. 

Dwayne goes up to the attic and with help from our girls, now that they are big enough to catch and carry boxes coming from the attic, he brings down the tree and the several boxes and Tupperwares filled with Christmas items. 

We turn on Christmas music. 

In years past, we would play our Christmas CDs starting with Jars of Clay's "Little Drummer Boy." 

But this year, we actually switched things up and played our Christmas records. 

With the music on, we all get to work. 

We always have to rearrange furniture in order to fit the tree in the living room. 

This year, you can see in the pictures, we put the tree in front of the bookshelves where my computer desk usually sits. 

Note: We haven't put the angel on the tree yet. We've decided to wait and put her up on the first night of Advent. 

As we rearrange furniture and set up the tree, we also take the opportunity to sweep, mop, dust and reorganize thoroughly. 

I take the opportunity to purge, throwing away old magazines and papers and donating books we don't want anymore, etc.  

I reorganize closets and drawers as we take items to them. 

We have so much decor, that we have to get rid of our regular, everyday knick-knacks to make room for all the Christmas items.  

So, as we unpack Christmas decor from tissue paper, we take down our knick- knacks and wrap those in the same tissue paper and pack them carefully away in the Christmas boxes to go back to the attic until we take all the Christmas decor back down sometime January, maybe. 

Last year, we added a smaller tree with colorful lights in the homeschool classroom.  

It's a lot of work to decorate for Christmas, but the house ends up totally reset and refreshed.  

All our feet end up aching, but when we finally sit down, the house ends up clean and reorganized and beautiful. 

 

Poetry for Neanderthals

New game this day. 

Big hit with fam. 

Man and I, one team. 

Girls, one team. 

Neck and neck whole time. 

Man says, "North and East. Part of here. Soup." 

"Clam Chowder!" I yell. 

For the win. 

High five. 

Girls in awe. 

Much years one flesh. 

Now one mind.

Thanksgiving 2025

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Mid-day

Productivity is messy. We grab gym shorts from the dryer before running out of the house for weight lifting. I prep dinner but have to take a phone call before I can clean up. I am reading Plato and posting assignments online. The girls are doing Latin, and Math, poetry... and the books and notebooks pile up by the end of the day. I'm thankful for the beautiful things we get to do here every day, but sometimes, mid-day is not so beautiful unless one has eyes to see. 

Sourdough

I made sourdough again. 

This time the loaf was huge! 

The recipe I use is from "Sourdough for Lazy People" on You Tube. 

It says to let the dough rise overnight, briefly shape the loaf on a floured surface, put it in the pan, then let it rise for 90 minutes before baking, etc. 

But this time, when I checked it after 90 minutes, the shaped loaf hadn't risen that much. 

So I let it rise longer before baking, for 2-3 hours actually. 

The loaf had filled up the bottom of its pan when I put it in the oven, and of course, it ended up rising even more while baking. 

So the loaf came out larger than ever. 

So from now on, after shaping my loaf, I may adjust my rise time from 90 minutes to anywhere from 2-3 hours before baking. 

Sourdough loaves cost around $8, so this is a wonderful thing to be able to make for myself with just a few cups of flour, some salt, and water.

Amazing! 

Frisian Sugar Loaf

I am working my way through Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads.

So I made the Frisian Sugar Loaf. 

This bread is pretty special. 

You take a cup of sugar cubes, cover them in cinnamon, and knead them into the bread dough. 

You can still see the sugar cubes in the photo above, popping out of the top of the hot bread. 

A day later, those sugar cubes "melted" and became sticky, sugary spots of deliciousness throughout the bread that taste exactly like the inside of a cinnamon roll. 

We ate one loaf in one day, so we gave the second loaf to friends.

Baking bread is amazing, but sharing bread is the only way to make sure we don't overdo it.   

Annie The Musical at Walnut Hill

Our church is putting on Annie The Musical. Our youngest daughter, Adele, is one of the orphans in the cast. You can see her in the picture above in the blue dress and orange coat.

Here she's dancing with other orphans. She's wearing the blue dress with a pink apron.

Our middle daughter, Avril, is in the stage crew. Here, you can see her on the right behind Annie when she and the other crew members came out to take a bow.

The Show Must Go On!

The zipper on Adele's Annie costume broke.  Tonight's dress rehearsal! 

So I gave myself a pep-talk, ripped out the old zipper, and put in a new one. 

It's not perfect, but the show must go on! 

Sewing achievement unlocked! 

 

Fundraising

This year I'm on the fundraising team for the youth at my church. We're raising money for the missions trips this coming summer, trips my teens will likely be involved in. 

Every year, the fundraising team asks for donations from businesses, artists, and people in our church to host a raffle of themed prize baskets and a silent auction that take place during the church play. 

In the photo above, you can see one of the "baskets" we will be raffling off. It's actually a handmade bag my friend donated. Another friend of mine made the handmade print inside. We added inspirational journals and pens that were also donated to the bag to make it complete. This is one of eighty "baskets" that will be raffled off throughout the weekend of the play.  

Yesterday, the team worked for several hours wrapping up these sorts of prize basket bundles and getting them ready for the raffle. 

It took hours, and I do not exaggerate when I say we could hardly walk out of church; We were so exhausted! 

The basket raffle and silent auction always add a lot of fun to the church play. It's always fun to win a prize at the end of the show. 

In fact, Dwayne has brought home a few, special Ergo Chef knives from this auction over the years. 

Last year, our daughter won the voice lesson with Justin Stoney, which was an awesome experience for her. 

I'm thankful to be a part of the team this year.

Hopefully, the raffle and auction raise a lot of money for the youth group as it has in years past. 

That will make it possible for more kids to be involved in the missions trips, and that's what it's all about- more kids growing in their faith and more people hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Sourdough Success

My sourdough adventures continue. 

My loaves have been delicious, but they have not been rising well, so something had to be done. 

I troubleshooted with the help of a friend. We guessed that my starter was too wet making my dough too sticky and my loaf incapable of rising well. 

So I had to rehab my starter to adjust its hydration and get it to 100%. (That's a sentence I never thought I'd say.)

I saved 2 ounces of my too-wet starter, discarded the rest, added 4 ounces or flour and 4 ounces of water, let it sit on the counter for one hour, then refrigerated it. 

Then I repeated these same steps again the next day. Discarding the extra starter and adding new flour and water, etc. 

This "reset" my starter and got it back to the right hydration for the recipe and method I'm using. I follow "Sour Dough for Lazy People" on You Tube (if you want more details than I provide here.)

I finally tried out my rehabilitated starter and the results are in. 

The loaf was amazing! It rose beautifully and tasted delicious! 

 

Noah at Sight and Sound

We took a quick trip to New Jersey to see Dwayne's mom, sister, and brother in law. We had dinner with them and visited until late and spent the night. The next morning, we took Mom to Sight and Sound in Pennsylvania to see Noah, and then we all enjoyed Shadymaple's Smorgasbord and massive gift store before driving Mom home to New Jersey then driving directly home to Connecticut before bed.  It was a great time and an awesome show! 

 

Annie The Musical

Our church is putting on Annie The Musical, one of my favorite musicals since childhood. It’s a busy season with Adele in the orphan ensemble and Avril in the stage crew. The girls keep a volunteer notebook that accounts for all the hours they put into service and arts projects like this. They use the book to answer questions about volunteer work when it comes time to apply to colleges and scholarships. Adele has already been at the church over three days when you add up the hours she's been at rehearsals so far! I’m thankful for a church that nurtures the arts. 

 

Sharing the Salt

I recently attended a conference at Belmont Abbey for students of Classical Liberal Arts Education was that was entitled “Sharing Salt." 

It's based on a quote from Book 8 of Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," his chapter on friendship. The quote says, “It is not possible for people to know each other until they have eaten together the proverbial salt.” So for a few days, those at the conference got to "share salt" by reading and discussing that portion of Aristotle’s Ethics, a portion of The Gospel of John, Willa Cather’s short story “Two Friends,” and John Henry Newman’s sermon on “Love of Relations and Friends." 

I’m grateful for my friends- those at home, and these friends at school, too. The best sort of friends need to be what Aristotle calls “alike in virtue" in the sense that they seek truth together and want to embody truth in virtue, the greatest of which is love of Jesus Christ. 

At the conference, we shared a supra dinner, an amazing experience that lasted for hours and was a true foretaste or the fellowship and overflowing thankfulness and joy believers will share in Heaven. 

We also got to hear from several leaders in Classical Christian Education at the conference, who spoke to us on "salty" topics like "Whether or not Classical Education can be taught in a secular setting" with both sides powerfully represented and "What are the heresies present in current Classical Christian education?"  

I have come home fascinated, and therefore, refreshed and inspired to get back to work in my home and homeschool. 

I'm also dreaming and preparing for work outside my homeschool someday, but... not yet. After all, John Henry Newman says, “The best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely, is to cultivate an intimate friendship and affection towards those who are immediately about us.”

Orlando

Dwayne had to go to Orlando for a week for a conference, so we tagged along and made a mini- vacation out of the week.

The hotel where we stayed and where the conference was held, the Signia by Hilton, had an epic lazy river connected to its pools.  It took a full 15 minutes to float around the entire lazy river. We enjoyed the pool, lazy river, and hot tubs a few times throughout the week. We enjoyed the Starbucks at the hotel lobby everyday, managing to get addicted to cappuccino. A cappuccino maker is going on my Christmas list. 

On the nights when Dwayne was free for dinner, we went to special places like The Rainforest Cafe and Kura Revolving Sushi Bar. The sushi bar was probably our favorite experience of the entire week.  

When Dwayne was working for dinner, we went to special places, too, only without him. Lol! The girls and I went to Melting Pot. A fondu pot or two is also our Christmas lists now! 

We were able to use the Waldorf Astoria's pool, so we went over there for a few hours one lovely Florida afternoon.

When the conference was over, we took a few days to go to some parks. The girls had never been to SeaWorld; They didn't even know what it was. So we took them there. 

We love waterparks, so we enjoyed another day at Volcano Bay just playing together as a family. 

The girls had lots of new experiences and we're thankful for the memories made together.