Nothing Much

 I had diligently color coordinated everyone's Christmas outfits for a very reasonable price.  But it wasn't until  Epiphany that everyone got dressed up.  Did we take a picture of everyone? Oh no, of course not.  Why not?  To quote my children, "I dunno."

 More fun on The Thing.

 Keva Planking tall towers has been a frequent thing around here.  But it is also a great way to make battle zones with little army guys.  I've heard that boys don't ever outgrow little army men or legos.... and I suppose Keva Planks.

 This is the tallest to date. Of course to go any taller will mean another bag 'o planks. This one is 400 planks tall.

 Encouraging Marigold to pull out a plank.  This time it fell on her head, poor thing.

 Chess.

 I know, I wondered why that picture was on the camera.

 Sam just finished making a new table top for us. We had a 8 x 4 foot table around which we squeezed in 12 chairs and a stool.  We were jam packed.  There was much elbow fighting and fear of someone entering into their personal space.  (is there really such thing as personal space in a house of 13?

Our new table is awesome! Just shy of 11 feet long by 50 inches wide.  Eventually we'll build some benches and use a combination of benches and chairs.  So you ask what we do about table cloths.  I was able to order 54" wide oilcloth cut to 12 feet long.  And oilcloth comes such pretty colors and prints.  As far as a fancy pretty cloth... well, we aren't fancy people... sooo... that might never happen anyway :D  Or... we'll sew a few together :)

Urgent Prayers

First, please pray for my father-in-law, Don, who is suffering with pancreatic cancer of the liver as well as a post-surgical hernia that causes extensive pain.  And pray for the family.

Second, please pray for little Fulton a 4 year old boy who received extensive burns when something exploded in their burn barrel.  If you would like to follow his carepage, his page is HERE.  It is just absolutely heart wrenching, at the same time full of faith.  I have known his mother on-line for many years.

May Our Blessed Mother bring peace to all.

The Hobbit Soars

From The Hobbit Blog:
 “The Hobbit” Trilogy takes in an estimated worldwide $223 million in its opening weekend....the film broke records for largest December opening in motion picture history
Woo-hoo! Something good takes the lead!  And just for the record it cost $180 million to make and has brought in $840 million to date (give or take a million :)  And to think, I've only seen it once.  You'd think Peter Jackson could just pay off our mortgage, I'm not asking for much.  Really.

So...

Can you tell me why I'm up at 2am with a baby who decided she wanted a snack of strawberries?  Marigold doesn't talk she "aeh, aeh's" and points.  Well, pointing to a freshly stocked refrigerator is totally useless while saying "aeh, aeh".  Finally I stood her up in the fridge and she pointed to the box of strawberries.  I mean I love strawberries but not at 2am.  Newborn babies are cute at 2am, toddlers aren't so much.  Methinks I'd rather she sort of followed American time, not so much European time.

Feast of the Epiphany

Today is the beautiful feast day when Christ made Himself known, in his Divinity, to all nations for the first time.  We, also, have been blessed in having Christ reveal Himself to us.  We must embrace this truth and respond to it with great humility.  It means letting go of our wills for His Divine Will.  It means presenting Him with our gifts:
the gift of gold - all that we have in this world, all our wealth which is found in our spouse, family, money, anything God has blessed us with, including our crosses, our joys, our sorrows.... these we give to Him, Our Lord and Our God! for they are not ours.  To present to Him our small, yet kingly gifts to the King of Kings!
the gift of frankincense - our prayers, our love, to let them rise up to Him that we may be united perfectly with Him in the priesthood of sacrifice and prayer.
the gift of myrrh - the gift of dying to ourselves that we may be entirely one with  Him... as St. Teresa of Avila said, "I want to see God and the only way to do that is to die!"  This begins during our earthly journey as we say no to our prideful wills and yes to the humble babe in the cave of our soul.

When we present to Him our little gifts, we will then find ourselves no longer a slave of the devil but a slave  of the Lord, a slave of Love and in that we will find Perfect Joy and Perfect Happiness as we travel along to our Eternal Reward in Heaven.

I Know Nothing

So I'm pretending I don't know how this ancient, cheap lawn ornament snowmobile made it into our yard.  Though I'm aware of what happens when men have the flu and Craigslist exists.  Not a good combination.

And the kids like it.  It must be one of those gene pool things....

The Christmas Plague

 We were blessed to have a lovely guest with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning.  I'm not sure she was quite so blessed to be here when the time was said and done.  We gave her a Christmas to remember that is for sure!

 She brought this darling ornament of 2 peas in a pod.  I do like to share a pod and those who share a pod with me are scarce.  So this is a little ornament to treasure forever. :)

 The kids had a great time showing her around our school (I hope it was clean).

 Since I had just had the stomach flu and so did Marigold we weren't going over to celebrate with extended family so we did a little practice run of our talent (or not).  Galadriel on the piano.

 Although Eleanor doesn't take piano at the moment she tried her hand at Peter Pumpkin Eater.

 Rosie memorized the poem "Sleep Baby Sleep" in just a couple days prior to Christmas.

 Frodo recited "Charge of the Light Brigade" at a speed like 60.

 He played the piano and the trumpet.... not at the same time of course.

 Frodo and Eowyn did their rendition of "There's a Hole in the Bucket".  Not sure why Frodo forgot to stick is pipe in his mouth as it added a very funny effect.

 Galadriel also recited a Christmas Poem but I forget what it was.

 Merry opted to just look cute. 

 Then these 2 decided to try one of their poems but got a terrible case of the giggles. Do they look sick? No, I didn't think so either.

 Marigold just passed out. Not being overly impressed with the talent around here.

 Meanwhile some began a rather wild round of paper dolls.  So perhaps you think it odd that my girls love paper dolls, well, if you knew the intricate involved system involved in their playing you might begin to think it is a bit of a contact sport.  But I must back up a little.

Just as we were to sit down to dinner, Poppy flopped in the bathroom with a stomach ache. What timing.  Bilbo flopped shortly there after soooo....

 since we had a guest and we were about to eat dinner I opted to quarantine the 2 littles into my bathroom and wheel the screen in, and occupy them with Tom and Jerry videos.  I felt as if I had stooped to an all-time low.  But we had a guest and we were about to eat.

 Now, you will notice there are no pictures of our lovely dinner.  That is because of the events that will be explained later. But what we had was delicious steel head trout with pesto sauce, baked just perfectly.  Christmas shaped pasta with alfredo, spinach casserole and I believe a host of other items. 

 I think they played this very involved game with paper dolls for a long time.  Then it was time for those of us going to Midnight Mass to leave.  Just before we were to leave Eowyn decided she didn't feel well.  And Pippin too, didn't feel well.  Aragorn had gotten a cold and was voted as the one to stay home with those who didn't feel well.

 So we went early to set up for the little Christmas Party to follow Midnight Mass.

 No sooner we walked in to the parish hall both Eleanor and Rosie said they didn't feel well.  So I left everyone to set up asking if anyone else felt sick.  Nope, all was well. So I ran those 2 home, switched to a smaller car and came back just in time to warm up with the choir.  Our 35 minute prelude was beautiful, the homily was very lovely when I suddenly noticed Merry walking across the sanctuary to the sacristy holding his surplice as if he had a batch of apples in it.  I thought I better check this out and I found him outside on the sacristy steps in the freezing cold. He had gotten sick so I hurried him into the building and took one look at him and just stared.  Not only had he thrown up but was covered absolutely from head to toe.  I just stared.  At home I knew what to do, I had no idea where to start at church.  Finally I found some zip loc bags for my hands and made my attempt to peel off his surplice and cassock (found a garbage bag to bring those home in to wash).  Long story short I had him ready for Aragorn to pick up who said simultaneously at home there were any number of vomitting bodies, going at it by the gallons.  Just as I was waiting Sam came out the sacristy steps and said he felt dizzy and sick.  So I told him to change out of his altar boy garb and see if Frodo felt ill, too. He did. So the 3 went home and I proceeded to finish out the night with Galardiel in choir and the party afterwards.... that is.... after I scrubbed up the Sanctuary from Merry's not-so-merry trail.  Ugh.

I got home in time to shortly thereafter have 11 children throwing up. I made my rounds of bucket after bucket, cleaning, scrubbing.  Mr. Clorax Disinfectant Wipe, was my dearest friend, much easier than bottles of bleach.  By 4:30am I just couldn't do another thing and went to bed with 13 clean buckets.... woops... make that 11.... (always have 2 extra buckets because you need 2 clean ones so you can take 2 dirty ones in exchange.... trust me... it works best that way)

So that was Christmas Day. And why I couldn't bear to show a picture of our meal, and why we will not be eating steel head trout for a long time.

St. Stephen Day I started to cough, by the 27th I was so sick with what I had guessed was influenza, the respiratory flu that I just lay there in a fever, chills, cough, aches, headache and tears.  It is now Jan 1st and I'm almost human, albeit a weak human. In the meantime everyone else in the household moved on to influenza of varying degrees.  No joke.  Both kinds of flu one right after the other. No joke. Really.  It's been a rather penitential Christmas Season.  I haven't been to Mass since Midnight Mass and probably won't go until Epiphany.  But at least we are headed in the right direction. 

Poppy got a dolly from relatives and matching night gowns. 

 Marigold got an over sized Monkey from grandma and grandpa to which the 3 stooges were playing "This is Mommy."  with it.  (Do I really look like an over sized monkey?  Don't answer.  At least it smiles!)

 The thing under my chin is suppose to be my laptop hahahaha

 Keva plank building has occupied much sickness-recuperation time.

 No one is allow to crash it down except Marigold.  It's the privilege of being the 11th baby.

Here's hoping for a blessed New Year!