Christmas with the 7 of us!

With our numbers expanded by 2, we dove into another series of celebratory days full of game playing, joke playing, meal sharing, conversations that rambled all over the place, another hike on a much warmer day, more food eating with some taste testing of squash and turnip seed candidates, and much of a day dedicated to gingerbread houses. Here's a little snapshot!

December 28 - We podded up!!! It was really fun to look up and see signs of life (lights on) in Mom and Dad's place again. We didn't get through the first evening without diving into Ransom Notes. Do you know this game? If not, it might be time to get acquainted with it! As a teaser from that night, we were asked to "Tell someone you've clogged their toilet during a party." What I came up with was: "Urgent...abandon dance...horrible trouble...stab...pulverize chunk...turn soft." It's a hoot!

December 29 - Pretty much every morning Jason and I had time to do the chores and various other farm tasks before others roused and were ready for the first meal of the day!! So brunch often didn't happen until 10:30-11 a.m. and by then the ponhoss and eggs or waffles or chicken sausage and fresh english muffins or egg bread cheese bake and fruit salad or bagels tasted pretty good! We would often linger at the table so it was nearly afternoon by the time we got into much other than munching and gabbing (which is really what we did for a high percentage of the time). 

A little fresh air and meander around for the kids to show off the piglets and chicken friends and for Kali to try out her late birthday gift from them (a snazzy camera!) was the next line of business.

A few of our meals savored the first and last of things from the year that Kali got to taste. We had squirreled away ONE bag of hull peas and ONE bag of sugar snap peas for her to enjoy with us, since she missed both of those seasons while in the Philippines. Rice, peas and cheese sauce is the dinner here, alongside roasted turnips from the ones "rejected" for seed in our final taste testing of the year!

December 30 - A day that included stone work on the bike shed for Jason and town errands for me. But lots more fun on the home front: creating a new hat, me rekindling my knowledge of doing what I called as a kid "English braids," playing Bananagrams, dance lessons, more delicious foods, and prepping for the big gingerbread day!

December 31 - As pictured above, the night before Jason, Christie and the kids were working on their gingerbread house models. Jason and Alida decided on a skyscraper. Terah, with Christie's help, designed her own little house. And you will have to see if you can tell what Kali chose to do - she was up late working on her cardboard model and had her geometry book out and I'm not sure what all else! So much of this day was dedicated to making their cookie creations. At one point in the day Christie noted that there was a reason she only did this one time a year. And I countered that there was a good reason I never did it! It's quite the undertaking and she was an amazing coach, guide and cheerleader for their projects. Terah could hardly contain her excitement for much of the day. But then at one point I found her flopped on Jason perfectly still for a few minutes while he gave her a much needed moment of snuggling and affection. Then she was off again!

Can you guess Kali's?

Alida and Jason's skyscraper complete with a fire escape and flowers in window boxes!

This gal was pretty pleased with her house and would gladly give you an in depth tour.

And we cannot forget Mark's tiny house!

Here's what I did instead of a gingerbread house (to go with homemade lasagna for supper).

We all made it to midnight, ringing in the new year with some more game playing!

January 1 - It was lovely to ring in the New Year with this silly loving fun crew! None of us saw the sun rise, that's for sure! When we had finally filled our tanks with brunch and cleaned up, we took off for Hensley's pond again. The ice was mostly gone and some of us were in t-shirts for a good part of the time! When we arrived home, we made a huge mess of the front room doing all the girls' popcorn shelling for the year! That project came to an end right about the time that the pork chops, black-eyed peas, tofu, rice and sugar snap peas were ready! 

January 2 - The younger kids woke eager and nervous for the adventures ahead (I think Kali only experienced the eager part - for her it was not the longest time away from home without her mommy and daddy!). They pulled out early afternoon with their little car packed to the gills! And despite them being pretty nervous about missing us, my first phone call from them came today (over 2 days since they left). Hopefully I'll convince at least one of them to help me share a few of their fun adventures here. 

After they took off, Jason and I spent the afternoon "resetting" a number of our spaces. He tackled the common room by finishing up the threshing and winnowing for the year. I tackled the cleaning and got to listen to hours of podcasts! It was a good way to decompress after some amazing fun and full days. 

And now Jason and I are enjoying some very fun but less full days here at home just the two of us! Speaking of which, I think it's about time for me to sign off as I think tonight is the night for us to watch Encanto, as many have told us we need to see it. Hopefully I'll turn this space over to Jason sometime in the next few days for him to sum up our entire year! I'll do the blog for the rest of the year as long as he ties it all together at the end!