The Houseworth Herald: It's Christmas!

Okay, not in these pictures. But here are the Thanksgiving pictures, posted before Christmas. I have now achieved one of my goals for our school break. :) We had a wonderful time with our friends Jamie and new-husband-Jonathan (see next post below) from NC and our friends from church, the Rufeners. The Rufeners have an adorable little boy, Louie, who has such round cheeks that you might feel compelled to squish them. Cora got to feed him, and she did a great job. This kid is going to make a lot of money babysitting someday. We had a wonderful time of food and fellowship!
(BTW, the dressing-up was not my idea. They LOVE to dress up, and they decided to use their church headcoverings to accent the outfits. Jamie made the Indian headdresses, Abigail got stuck with a Bavarian dress, and Adah got stuck with a prairie dress - they thought it was close enough to count. :) )

Cora providing entertainment:

Shiloh also providing entertainment and using it an excuse to play Christmas tunes:

Jonathan tries to figure out something hard like "Jingle Bells." All kidding aside, he's a very talented pianist, and we loved hearing his playing during the time they were here.

Lis is making her magic in the kitchen. She brought all kids of Christmas cookies for us to snack on as well - thanks, Lis!

Okay, who looks like they're helping here and who doesn't look like they're doing anything? :)Daniel and Jonathan had to wrestle the turkey together to get it cut since Daniel was only 9 days post-surgery. And I do mean wrestle since it was a 25-pound turkey.

Daniel read Psalm 100 and then an excerpt from "Plymouth Plantation" to begin our Thanksgiving feast.

Shiloh set our table again - with placecards. Seriously, I could hire her out for parties. Notice my lovely china? If anyone has a set of china that they would like to donate, please contact me. I would love to set a pretty table. (I don't think the sippy cups help, though.)

Shiloh helps Nathaniel to his chair. Nathaniel was VERY pleased with the mound of mashed potatoes on his plate. This time I didn't make him cry by mixing the vegetables in with the potatoes. He was SO sad when I did that with peas one time. I thought it would help him eat the peas, but really...he was distraught. It's like it ruined the whole meal for him. Poor guy.

Jamie captured an Abbadabbadoodle smile.

Shiloh looks like she could work at Colonial Williamsburg.

Here are Adah and Abigail by the "snack table" that held cheese and crackers, pistachios, and M&Ms. Since I was busy in the kitchen, I have no idea how much they actually ate that day. Jamie got all of these pictures. They're also having some wassail, which I tried for the first time from Shiloh and Cora's history unit book. It was yummy!

Adah is happy! She claims she was an Indian "because of my bwown skin," but she dressed like a Prairie Girl. We're a little eclectic with our history.

Cora feeding Louie. He is so cute, especially when we see him on Sunday and he is wearing his "Sunday" socks with the day of the week printed on the bottom.

Jackson is a fierce Indian (Native American, whatever...)

I think Jonathan might have been reading the weather report here to put Abigail to sleep. He's a pilot and a weather nerd, so he checks out the weather obsessively. :) He could also have been reading Calvin and Hobbes, which we keep in the kids/guest bathroom. :)

Abigail knows a good thing when she sees it, and she claimed Jonathan's lap whenever he sat down. She's a charmer!

Can you tell I'm on a break from school? :) I'm on a roll now! The kids are sleeping in, so I'm not neglecting them. I will feed them breakfast, I promise. Next up are pictures from the NGIC Christmas luncheon. We've never done the "Santa thing," and we didn't really intend to on that day. We were told that Santa would come around during the luncheon handing out gifts to the kids. We didn't see him, so we went out to the lobby where we were accosted by people dressed as elves asking us if we wanted gifts for our kids. They have to have a picture with Santa to get the gifts. So...first ever picture with Santa. Hey - don't judge us for our materialism. It was for the kids! For the kids! :) Shiloh doesn't really care for anyone/anything dressed up (think clowns, Chick-Fil-A cow, that Chuck E. Cheese stuffed thing from the underworld, etc.) and it was funny that she was relieved that his beard was real. Cora liked the fact that he wasn't wearing glasses (??) and Adah pronounced him to be "vewy puffy! he's so puffy, Mommy!" within earshot. That's his real puff, by the way. Nathaniel was an absolute HAM when he got on his lap. He snuggled right in and patted his belly. I asked him if he was taking a nap with Santa and he promptly said, "yes," and closed his eyes on Santa's chest. The photographer was snapping away, and I do believe Nathaniel will be on next year's slideshow for his cheeseball show. Later when I was relating the story to friends from church, Nathaniel proclaimed, "I'm ham! I'm ham!" He is SO smart, and he's picking up new phrases daily. I'm so proud that "I'm ham" is one of them. :)