We love Christmas!  Three years ago we started celebrating Advent, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  Advent means “coming” and it is a way to celebrate the coming of Christ.  I love this tradition because it really helps savor the Christmas season.

Tonight we started our annual Advent reading and the book we selected is Bartholomew’s Passage:  A Family Story for Advent by Arnold Ytreeide.  This book is the sequel to our last year’s reading, Jotham’s Journey by the same author.  In addition to this book, we’ll be reading Russ Ramsey’s book, Behold the Lamb of God:  An Advent Narrative.  We are still anxiously waiting for this book’s arrival.

At the start of the reading, we lit our first purple candle.  There are 5 candles total: 4 purple and 1 white.  We light the first purple one on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and the second one the following Sunday, and so forth.  On Christmas day, you’ll have all four purple candles lit in addition to the one white one.  The kids love lighting and snuffing out the candle(s) and each child takes turn lighting every evening.

To make our tradition a bit more fun, we decided to give each child a new set of PJ’s (Thanks to Target’s Black Friday sale!)  They were really excited in receiving new jammies and with giggles and smiles they got changed into them.  After that, they settled down and got started with our Advent reading.  We look forward to each night just being with one another, reading a chapter from the books, and savor the joy of the season.

About twice a month, we experience a “negative tide” on the west coast, wherein the tide recedes well beyond its normal point and exposes a portion of the floor that typically lies underwater.

Even more rarely, that rare tide occurs durying the daytime on weekends when folks can go observe it.  Today, from 3-5 pm, we had the occasion to visit Moss Beach to check out marine life as a family and with friends.  It was really cool to see the rocks and sea life that one normally only gets to see at an aquarium.  Hermit crabs, anemones, and sea stars and other creatures were easily discovered by the thousands of people who were drawn by the same event to the area.  The weather was shockingly warm, and the sun shone brightly (great for people, tougher for photographers!).

Here are a few of the photos I snapped.  I didn’t get any particularly rare species (to my knowledge), but did capture a few very pretty shots of anemones up close.  I may even print & frame a couple of ‘em!

I love to celebrate my children’s birthdays.

Not because of gifts.

Or parties.

But because it gives me a chance to really rejoice in the unique and wonderful blessing that each child is.

Today was our youngest child’s turn, and the final birthday this year in our family (unless, of course, our next arrival, who is due on Jan 3, 2012, chooses to arrive a few days early).

Bethany “Bobo” Hope, born three years ago in a hospital shower stall, is a cute girl of relatively small dimensions.  She’s just now outgrowing 24mo outfits.  But her cheerful smile is big enough to light up a room.  This evening we celebrated her 3rd birthday.  Lois made her a felt princess crown to commemorate the occasion.  Below are some photos from the fun.

Slugs and bugs?  They don’t conjure up good images in my mind, but the kind of slugs and bugs we’ve been enjoying is Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame’s music albums, specifically the Slugs and Bugs and Lullaby and Slugs and Bugs Under Where? albums.  For the record, I just want to say:  WE LOVE THEM!  WE LOVE THEM!  WE LOVE THEM!  Ok, I’m done shouting.

Thanks to our tropical island dwelling friends’ recommendation, our house is constantly filled with rolling laughters whenever one of these two albums is playing.  We love the silly lyrics and different genre of music.  They are just plain hilarious.  We especially love the song Under Where?  Go ahead, say it out loud and see if you get it.  Under there!  Under where?  Under there!  Under where?  What’s amusing to me is how these two artists take very normal life experiences such as food, clothes, and even the potty (gasp!) and make funny songs out of them.  Some of the songs are totally random that make you scratch your head, but that fits our family sense of humor.  We love random stuff and non-sequitur.  Of course there are some serious songs that we enjoy as well.  If you’re an adoptive family, you’ll like I’m Adopted.  Tell It To Jesus is filled with truth about our sinfulness and how much we mess up.  I definitely recommend these two albums.

You can also buy the mp3 albums from Amazon for instant gratification and rolling laughter.  I sure did!  Play the samples and see if you enjoy goofy songs like we do.

Call me easily excited or easily pleased, but no matter, I’m just so thrilled that I’ve finally found the best pencil sharpener ever!  Thanks to Kendra at Preschoolers and Peace who reviewed the product.  The pencil sharpener I speak of is the Classroom Pencil Sharpener at $19.95, free shipping included.  It’s sooooooooo worth the money.  I went through several electrical ones as well as some manual ones, and none and absolutely none, met the expectation of this pencil sharpener.  I’m in love!!!!!!!!  You see, I’m not that crazy.  We use a lot of pencils here in our homeschool and having a perfectly sharpened pencil is a necessity.  Now my dream and my children’s dreams of having a perfectly sharpened pencil every time are fulfilled.  When we first received the sharpener, I went and bought a box of pencils to test it out.  My kids and I took turn having fun sharpening each of the 50 pencils.  I’m happy to say that every single pencil resulted in a perfectly sharpened state.  After about two months of daily usage, the sharpener is still doing its job!  Yay!

The website offers videos of how this sharpener works as well as repairing it when a lead gets stuck inside the mechanism.  I’ve had to remove the lead several times and the video proved very helpful in getting the lead out.  I find that when I sharpen colored pencils, the lead tends to break off more easily, but it can be easily remedied.  Happy sharpening!

I couldn’t sleep last night for some reason and naturally it affected my morning.  I simply couldn’t get out of the bed, but fortunately for a wonderful husband and five lovely kids, they made me breakfast in bed.  After daddy set the kids to do some  school, he left for work.  The kids slowly, one by one, came to my room while I was still half comatose.  They had been playing a game and they explained that they now all have new names.  I was quite amused so I started calling them by their new names just for fun.  The boys are now known as Sharkie and Sparkie and the girls are Sarah, Clara, and Hope.  I have no idea where they got these names, but I have to admit that they’re quite creative.  I let them continue with their play while I still lie in bed.  This is one of those moments that makes me really appreciate homeschooling.  I don’t have to adhere to a schedule because life gets in the way.  We simply go with the flow and be flexible.  A little school in the morning, followed by lots of play, and because we’re flexible, we can make up later in the day or the following day.  It is indeed a blessing to be able to homeschool.  I’m also grateful for oodles of kids because they’re each other’s playmates and can keep themselves occupied without my constant attention.  That’s another wonderful blessing!

We opted this year to participate in two very different late October festivities: Reformation Day and Halloween.

Reformation Day commemorates the day that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses at the door of the church in Wittenburg in 1517.  He likely never imagined the immense impact that the relatively commonplace action would have on the whole of Christendom for centuries to come.  We took the opportunity to gather with a couple other families and give thanks for God’s use of Luther and others in that time to recover some key truths about salvation, the Bible, and God’s gracious gospel.  We enjoyed a driveway campfire with s’mores, campfire potatoes, hot dogs, hymn singing, and a brief reading about the key events leading up to and following Luther’s action in Wittenburg.

But the lure of candy was too much for our family (mostly the children) to resist, so we stopped by this afternoon at a local church’s “Harvest Festival” celebration to play some games and take in some loot.  The girls, unsurprisingly, opted to dress up as princesses.  The boys took a suggestion from Lois and were garbed in army uniforms purchased at a surplus store.

At the boys’ request and to their delight, I even picked up Army fatigues at the surplus store and donned a uniform to match them.  For the record, I’ve never served in the military… but I’m quite sure, based on looks I was getting, that a number of people (obviously, civilians) were pondering whether I was in costume or actually was military personnel.  This was even more so later in the evening when we went out to eat at a restaurant that had a “costumed kids eat free” deal, but I was one of only a couple adults in the packed restaurant in costume.  Several people were apparently staring and trying to figure out whether I was actually “for real.”  Thankfully, no one spoke up and thanked me for “my service” (that would’ve left me horrified and both parties embarrassed!).

Looking at the below photo, I’m not surprised at people’s confusion.  I’d have been confused myself (notwithstanding the glaring absence of any patches indicating rank, branch, etc.)!