Advent is upon us..

On Sunday, Daddy surprised us with an Advent log. Whenever I see something cute, intelligent, adorable, sweet, idea-inspiring, heart-warming, delightful, funny, clever, interesting or just plain "good," I leave a window open on the computer to show him. He must have been impressed with Rebecca's, Dawn's and Alice's Advent logs because instead of a wreath, he found a birch (there are several of birch trees in our woods) suitable for an advent log. After a relaxing Sunday afternoon in the crisp wintery air, Julian lit the first candle and we prepared for dinner.

After gathering the log, clippers in hand, my dear husband headed back outside to collect branches to decorate with.
He attached them to the Advent log and with the extras he decorated the top of kitchen desk cabinet. He always has such good ideas.

Last night I returned from a little bit of almost last minute St. Nicholas Day shopping. I was greeted by three boys who were up way past their bedtime. Daddy and the little ones were off in dreamland, yet Julian, Timothy and Maximilian were anxious for me to arrive home. They wanted to show me books that had arrived in the mailbox. One book was "Praise Him with Your Very Life." It is collection of plays from Catholic Heritage Curricula. It is not one of the items on my curriculum list, but I stumbled upon it on eBay and I was surprised to have the winning bid. The boys wanted to assign parts and begin performing right then. At that late hour, I had to tell them that it would need to wait until morning. If I had known that it would have been such a hit, I would have ordered it for Christmas! They convinced me that they were hungry, so I let them polish off the leftover "Cranberry Thanksgiving" bread that we finally got to make after Thanksgiving. At the first offering they were not happy with the dark raisins . The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups light raisins, but I had exactly that amount of organic Thompson raisins in arms reach in a little baggie in our snack tin just-so-handy, therefore, they went in the batter. I guess they were not about to be picky with a midnight snack. Not wanting to encourage this too much, I did not offer more than paper plates (the evening dishes were already washing in the dishwasher) and as much as I really wanted to, no tea either. Julian often joins me for a post bedtime chat after his siblings have nodded off, but Maximilian is rarely a night owl. I enjoyed watching him savor their midnight treat. While they snacked, I looked over our new books and showed them the craft supplies I had purchased to make our very first O Antiphon house.