Advent: the waiting

We had a Christmas so lovely I feel I was allowed to pick it from a catalog. After all the stress of a secular advent (shopping, planning, worrying, etc), it's sometimes hard to believe the day itself will measure up. But Christmas 2012 will be one to remember!

To start, here's Miles and Papa admiring the Blacksburg Christmas tree, located on Alumni Mall. We attended the Lighting for the third time running. 

 Though the weather in Blacksburg stayed absurdly warm for most of Advent, we had a few cold days. Here, Adele models her new poncho, a gift from Grandma:

  On December 21, the longest night of the year, we pulled an all-nighter. Or rather, Jon pulled an all- nighter. I pulled a partial one, and the kids slept, well, most of their usual hours. The point is, we drove by night this time, and but for a few minor hitches, it made for superior travel!

 Some hitches: Miles decided to be awake from 3am till 6, and the snow which began at the NY border doubled our remaining time, so that instead of arriving at 4:45 we pulled in at 7:15. It was dodgy for a while there, so I wasn't really able to sleep from around 4:30 on. Still, it went a whole lot better than I anticipated. No migraine for me, and Adele stayed asleep all night!

Upon our arrival, there were already several inches of glorious snow on the ground, and as further posts will show, it not only didn't thaw but continued to snow for the duration of our trip. I'm not sure I can adequately express how happy this made me. I call it my Christmas gift from God.

 I let Jon sleep on Saturday, so I was pretty tired as I chased my Smalls around Dad's new house in Penfield. Fortunately, Dad helped me out and kept Miles occupied for a while with a craft: an ornament making kit he'd picked up at Wegmans. (Brief exclamation of joy at being back within reach of a Wegmans. CHEERS.)

 They started out the size of one's palm...

 ...And after baking, shrunk to about 2 inches in diameter. We put the kids' names and the year on several for some adorable keepsakes.

 The kids were both able to re-establish their friendships with Grandpa Jim. Here, Adele and Grandpa Jim bond over cat videos.

 Later that same day... after a much needed Wegmans run... we got suited up for twilight snowplay!

 Adele just sort of stood there, calm, but a bit uneasy. She is taking our word for it that snow is something to be excited about.

 Behold, my excitement! Miles watches a snow angel being made for the first time. Only a couple days later, he made his own.

 Adele preferred not to be standing in a snowbank. You can't win em all, I guess.

 I pushed Miles across the lawn, to gauge if he was ready for the real downhill experience. He was!

 Very pleased with the experience, and definitely not ready to go in.

 As the last remaining days went by, we made some visits, received some visitors, attended church and generally enjoyed each other's company.

Coming up: Christmas Eve and the first day of Christmas.

Brace Yourselves.

Probably within a week.

A short family collision

And now, for some pictures from a month ago. :-)

The day after Thanksgiving, we went with Dad to the Rizzos' house for a very important couple hours of face time with some people we love and of whom we see far too little. We hadn't seen my cousin Joel and his family since Miles' FIRST birthday, and we hadn't seen Leah & family since Spring 2011, before I knew I was expecting Adele. That's a record, I think, for lack of visiting with my cousins, so this short little visit HAD to happen. At the tail end of November in Maryland, it was sunny and 50-some degrees. An Island in the Sun.

Matthew and Jon catch up

First time I had met Matthias, or TaiTai... How is it possible?

He resembles everyone. Strongly.

I observed that he is very determined. He wanted nothing so much as to walk unobserved into the street.

Abby and Eli appear to be under an enchanted bower.

Joel meets Adele's acquaintance

She was delighted to be allowed to play outside!

This was one of her first days as a confident walker

Amma is so blessed; all of her five grandkids were there for Thanksgiving!

Isaac, my sweet little elf nephew

Mother & Daughter

And "The 2 Ls," as we used to call ourselves, reunited.

This is, as I said, nearly a month ago. In case you would like more recent information about our doings, some "highlights:"

• We have all grappled with and defeated two viruses, one of which was a real doozy of a stomach bug. Now to saran wrap the whole family until Christmas....
• Adele walks everywhere now. She signs many words and puts some together ("Hi Miles"  and "More cheese," notably). She makes animal sounds, mooing like a cow and buzzing like bees. Cats continue to delight her.
• Miles has been enjoying Christmas preparation, delighting us with his new levels of comprehension. He is currently obsessed with the song "The Friendly Beasts" and enjoys making up new verses about different animals present at the nativity. My favorite involved a grasshopper giving the infant Jesus a tiny blanket. 
• We have been trying to balance self-care (viruses! Sleep deficits) with fun holiday activities in church with actual Christmas preparation. All I can say is, hooray for Amazon. I tried going to the mall with both kids one time and OH MY... 
• We're greatly looking forward to exams being over on Thursday (and Papa being returned to the family) and to our travels in NY and MD. Look out, highways of VA, WV, MD, PA and NY!

Homestead Holiday

 I am still waiting to round up my pictures of my visit with the Rizzos, Cornells and Nickoloffs over Thanksgiving break. However, I can break up the chronology and share some shots of our Thanksgiving Saturday visit to Homestead Gardens in Annapolis. Homestead Gardens, if you haven't been before is a sort of a... garden/craft/holiday store. Whatever, it can out-Christmas all of us to a power of 10. And also, they have a Train. I mean, an old fashioned miniature county's worth of miniature infrastructure.

I liked this woodland, Norse-looking Santa print.

ARK full of stuffed animals. The children and I wanted them all!

Miles is very pleased about the large reindeer.

I'm not sure how much Adele could see from down here, but whatever it was was transfixing to her.

  The thing about miniature villages, I have figured out, is that everything looks friendly and manageable when it is tiny. You cannot see the tiny people's problems from this vantage point. You cannot hear what they say to each other. You do not know what they have in their bank accounts or what is in their smiling little heads. And so we can believe in a perfect world, and imagine that if we could just shrink down and get there, we would find our lives had snapped into place and our problems would assume the correct proportion.

It's like Lake Wobegon.

It makes even large corporations look benign and wholesome.

 Did I get too heavy for you? Okay, here's my son in a coin-operated car ride:

See? You're feeling better, aren't you?

 And even better! Here's Adele and Miles sharing a quarter's worth of train ride. Miles holds her protectively and she slowly warms up to it:

Jon says this is her insincere smile. "See folks; I'm having fun (Help me!)!"

"Don't encourage the adults. Now they've left me with this daft fat man. HALP!!"

 The tears began about two seconds later. Miles, you'll notice, never made it to Santa's lap. He has flatly refused Santa-based activities this year. He knows Santa has two names, Santa and Saint Nicholas, but has also observed that when he is called Saint Nicholas, he, Miles, is much less likely to be invited onto his lap and asked personal questions. So he prefers to call him Saint Nicholas. Miles likes to keep his boundaries firm. When I taught him the song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" Miles wanted it clarified that Santa wasn't actually watching him and that he wouldn't be coming into our house when we weren't expecting him. Smart kid, really.

I am behind in blogging. I accept this. I hope you do, too. :-)

Laughing in the mess of all this

One of the more difficult lessons I'm having to learn lately is to enjoy life, in spite of the mess, and without depending on my own ability to clean it up. 

To a large degree, I mean that literally. My house is a mess. Oh, sure, every night I do the dishes and wipe things down, every week I vacuum, give the bathroom a superficial clean, and on occasion I even get all the laundry put away. But this apartment was dirty when we moved in, and it has received precious few deep cleanings since. I spend a lot of time trying to suppress my rage and panic about the state of my surroundings when I'm at home, but I've also been going through a process of enlightenment and acceptance about mess. Because the mess is NEVER going away. I can beat it back week after week, I can try to move house and have a home that is easier to keep clean, but as long as I have little kids (and I am not trying to cut that period short!) it will come back.

I understand that the presence of Mess needs to be basically immaterial to my ability to enjoy life, or I will do precious little enjoying.

There are other kids of mess, too. We are late to so many things... I miss birthdays, I get thank-you cards sent out very late (I know, some of you are still waiting), we miss the mark on our budget, send payments late, Christmas shop at the last minute, spend too much on one person, not enough on another. I would just like to say, for the record: I do not have it together. In case you have ever believed for a moment that I did.

Look, I still don't have the rest of the pictures up from Thanksgiving break that I wanted to have up.

30 for me has been a year of restoring wholeness, in a lot of areas. I'm so grateful for the various gifts of 30, and this one no less: look around, be where you are, and find something about the view to love. So we have mess. That does not mean we cannot enjoy ourselves, and it definitely does not mean we cannot be of use to others. If God was waiting for people who had it all together to do his work in the world, he'd be waiting still. 

It's not a new lesson. But sitting in my mess with peace and grinning has been my epiphany of the season. We're doing our best over here, and trusting the rest to our huge Grace tab.

Someone snapped this shot of Adele and me yesterday. Me, not panicking about what had to be done that day. Me, noticing the sleeping Tiny on my lap, me, breathing, smiling, being. Of course, it is a mite easier to ignore Mess at church. Still. It's a start.

P.S. Quick Miles story: We had to change our plans on Saturday, from going Christmas shopping to going down the street to the nature center, because I had left my keys in the car the night before and Jon had the other set with him, on campus for the morning. So I am all put out and seething like I always am when something I planned didn't work out, and Miles obliviously starts singing, "This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made..." cheerfully, for all the world like this really wasn't that big a deal. With God and children conspiring against my bad attitude, was there any hope for it?

P.P.S. If you know how to rotate pictures on blogger, do let me know.

Family Thanksgiving

This girl could not be separated from her new CatCatCat!

Blogger is being a weirdo today, so this post may be light on text. But that is okay, because the purpose of it is simply to showcase some of the gorgeous pictures my dad took of the kiddos (and a few scattered big people) during Thanksgiving at the Grunerts' in Annapolis. We took no photos of the Meal, as we were all too busy enjoying it to be bothered. :-)There were contributions from many cooks, and yet the soup was unspoiled. We ate with gusto and energy, with the only exception of Miles, who fell asleep at the table. Holidays are hard on young metabolisms.

We did have a perfectly lovely visit to the local playground on Thanksgiving, and then on Saturday Dad snapped a few of us before getting into his car for the return drive. I have had better hair. But I cannot argue with the quality of the photo. Rock on, Cameraman!

The wooden train set= always a favorite part of Miles' visit to his Grandparents

Dad calls this Miles' cross country picture. OH THAT MY SON NAMED MILES WOULD BE A RUNNER!

Look, don't ask me why this space is here. Ask Blogger. Surely it knows.

With the smallest effort, Dad catches the shot I've been trying to get for over a year.

Haven't I been saying that Adele glows? She does. Witness.

Tim and Corey joined us and Miles furthered his acquaintance with Aunt Corey. It was the hat that won him over.

Money shots, all over the place. I can attest though, they were extra beautiful that day.

Miles goes in for his audition at Land's End next week. (jk)

Again, not my favorite of me. But, the mom stays in the picture.

How often are there pictures like this? With all these people at once? We had to document.

Oh, awesome. Blogger has apparently decided I am writing some modern style of poetry here. Dig dig.

File this under further mysteries of Blogger. There are forces at work beyond our ken. Anyway, perhaps the next entry, containing our trip to Longwood Gardens, will be formatted, contain Reason and Sense, and be written in prose? Wait in suspense with me.