The Houseworth Herald: Back from the Blizzard

We have been having too much fun shoveling to blog after the big blizzard of '09. (ha) Actually, we have been sledding, creating snow angels, snow igloos, and snowballs as well. Pictures from the BIG snow will follow this post. This is a catch-all, catch-up post for the last month or so.
Daniel turned 39 in November! He has a "deer-in-the-headlights" look here. I don't know why - I don't think I was making a scary face.

There will be random pictures of the kittens, because they're just so cute. This is Cuddles having a mid-morning snooze behind the bathroom door.

We hosted good friends for Thanksgiving - the Rasheeds. Hassan has been featured before on this blog, as a well-known choreographer of maypole dances. This is his lovely wife, Odelia, who does not look happy but was very much enjoying the cranberry gelatin salad and stuffing.

Here are all the kids, with Cora dressed as Pocohontas and Shiloh dressed as a Pilgrim. (actually, she's in Colonial dress, because we didn't have suitable Pilgrim attire)

My dad and stepmom came to visit after Thanksgiving. We are playing a fast game of Bananagrams here. It's not supposed to be a fast game; Dad makes you play it fast if you want to win. :)

Grandma is explaining something to Cora, and Abigail (dressed as a ballerina, of course) looks on. Grandma helped Shiloh finish up her first-ever-by-herself, sewing project (a skirt) by showing her the blind hem-stitch on our sewing machine. Handy!

Calvin does not understand personal space, and Cuddles was too warm to protest.

Cora created a hammock for Calvin between the two beds in her room, and she took this photo from above.

This is an artsy photo taken by Shiloh through the beads hung up outside their room. :)

We attended a holiday open house hosted by a local shopping center. The event included carolers, horse and carriage rides, a visit to Santa, balloon art, and dancing by the Charlottesville Ballet Company. Adah and Cora joined the dancers in the street to express beauty through dance. Adah's outfit was not all that conducive to dancing, but when you feel the urge to dance, you must give in...

Nathaniel wanted to go see Santa. We've never encouraged this, or talked about it, or anything like that. So it was a little surprising that Nathaniel just walked right up to him to say, "Hello, Santa!" He has the stance in the following picture like he's in trouble, though, so I don't know what he and Santa were discussing. :)

Ah - he and Santa worked things out and apparently Nathaniel's getting gifts after all.

Adah was always sure of getting presents. :) The others were totally not interested in Santa, but Adah decided she wanted to go say hi, too.

This is an action shot from our horse and carriage ride! What a dream-come-true for Shiloh! The Rasheeds took the picture after they had their turn. Those horses must have been exhausted afterward (they were named Sonny and Cher, which I thought was hilarious).

Here are the Rasheeds on their ride.

Happy St. Nicholas Day! We filled the kids' shoes with candies, Daniel's mom got them a cute movie, and Daniel unexpectedly filled my shoes with Starbursts. :) St. Nicholas Day looks cuter with wooden shoes; we'll have to get some when we visit my friend Hanneke in Holland.

Tree decorating day! We put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, but Daniel went down after that with some kind of horrible sickness, and we couldn't get around to decorating it until the 5th. It was snowing that day, so it was just perfect.