So this is Christmas.
Or, at least a little different Christmas. We've been under some stress here as of late, which I'm sure I'll get to at some point- but for now, lets try and focus on Christmas! That's what we're doing here anyway.
We went out this 'weekend' to chop down our Christmas tree. We like to pick the ugliest one, because every tree deserves to be a Christmas tree. When we first moved here, it seemed like every year we'd go to a different place, but a couple of years ago we found Lazy Lay Acres in Dade City, and we've gone back every year. We're sort of known for being the people who pick out the ugly tree. Actually, about a week ago, they were going to take the 'ugly' ones and put them in the chipper. But, one of the owners said to wait a bit, because people come for those ugly ones!
We found our ugly tree right away, but it was SUPER tall. Since price is determined by how tall it is, we asked if we could get a discount- otherwise we were going to pick a shorter tree. But, they were like, 'Sure! It was going to go in the chipper anyway, how's 20 bucks?" (Oh, and Ellie came along to help pick out the tree- but it was a cool day, so she came in her sweater.)
Asa chopped it down in all of two seconds, and they took our 'Christmas Branch' as we're calling it, up to be shaken, wrapped and tied to our car for us.
While they do all that not so fun stuff, we get to play with the baby farm animals. They always have baby pigs, but these guys were REALLY little. They said they were around a month old. Ellie was interested in smelling all the farm animals- from a safe distance, of course.
The chicks, the rabbits, the ducks- they're all cute. But oh my gosh, I wanted to take one of those baby pigs home with me so bad.
It was actually a pretty big day for Ellie. She got to go get the tree, and then she came along to get Chinese food for dinner that night. It's sort of a Sattler tradition to get Chinese the night you get the tree, and while we don't have Peking here, we do have a Chinese place right down at the entrance to our subdivision.
Chinese takeout only comes once a year, so everyone gets pretty excited for it.
We spent the evening decorating our new tree. I actually don't think it looks too ugly with the lights on it. And it's so tall and skinny, it fits perfect in the corner between our bedroom door and the french doors. I'm not sure where all the presents will go... but that's a problem for another day.
The boys get a new ornament every year, and this year they all picked theirs. Hayden got his on the seahorse excursion in Hawaii, and Calib and Peyton both picked one out in San Diego (I missed a picture of Calib with his, apparently.)
Not all of our ornaments fit on the tree this year, since it's so skinny and tall, and can't really hold any with much weight, so we picked out the ones that mean the most to us and put them up.
All in all, we really like our tree this year, and the only thing we had to move was the basket that holds our extra blankets. Easy peasy.
You might notice we were all bundled up, by Florida standards, when we went out to get our tree. It's been really chilly here lately. Some days we didn't even hit 60 (which, yes, I grew up in Ohio, I know how ridiculous that sounds). But anyway, nobody has been less pleased about the temperature than Miss Ellie.
But, to be clear, Porkchop isn't all that thrilled about it either.
I've been trying to get things done around here. Every day I think 'what can I cross off my list'. We've been doing lots of countries, and I think I'm like 10 behind on my blog again. I didn't even work on them when Calib went to class the last couple times. His class is done, and he got an 'A' for those of you keeping track! He's a 4.0 college student, and he emailed his teacher arguing his one 8/10 he got on one of his reflection papers. The teacher emailed back with 'You got an A anyway'. So, I have one of THOSE kids.
Anyway, countries. We've been knocking them out- we're down to 35 left. We finally got to Guinea-Bissau with it's papaya chutney recipe and got to pick our very first papaya to make it!
Speaking of countries, for Malawi were made a cookie, since I was making my share of cookies for the Ainsworth boxes anyway. I'll blog about it whenever I get to the countries. But for context, here's American cookie ingredients vs. Malawai cookie ingredients.
The Malawi cookies were like cut out cookies, but made out of sweet potatoes (spoiler alert: nobody liked them). But all that cookie making was an excuse to use my new-to-me Kitchenaid mixer!
Hayden and Calib helped me along the way, and we mailed off the cookies early this week. I haven't heard, but I'm sure they've arrived by now.
I started working on cutting quilt squares. I've got some stuffed animals to make too, but my sewing machine is currently buried in my closet, so I've been putting it off a bit.
I did grab this lego advent calendar last year on clearance, so we've been doing that to countdown to Christmas. Everyday you get to make a new little lego something to add to the scene.
Christmas shopping is all done here, too. So that's another thing checked off our list. Asa and I went out on a date day to finish up the odds and ends, and we stopped by Burger 21 for lunch.
I have most of my wrapping done, too. This year I decided I'm the only one that cares and/or notices if things are wrapped nicely, so I just went the quick route with everything I wrapped. I didn't even use boxes for hardly anything, I just folded up clothes and wrapped them and left things in its containers.
We got all decorated for Christmas here at the house, too. We don't have near as many outdoor lights as our neighbors (for real, you should see how piddly our house looks in the line of four totally decked out places), but at least it's something.
Inside is festive enough, too. We hung our stockings at home school central, and get out the rest of the decorations.
I also made the Christmas punch board. Every year I think the boys are getting too old for it, and every year they ask me to make one. This year though, we've got less crafty and culinary stuff on it- and more games. I thought about getting prizes for every winner of every game. But, that seemed like it could get pricey and annoying, so instead I printed and lamenated a bunch of 'Christmas Bucks', and then they'll be able to buy prizes at the end, depending on how much they've accumulated.
The first punch on the board was the Elf on the Shelf, and while my kids are a little too old- they like moving him themselves, and then voting on the best one.
Other punches have included the Oven Mitt Present Game, where you had to try and unwrap a present with oven mitts on. Basically you wrap a present (a bunch of times), and people get shots at opening it, while everyone else at the table rolls two dice. If they roll doubles, they get to take over the unwrapping, while the others keep rolling the dice. It was pretty fun. Peyton won, but he sort of cheated, eventually using his teeth until we all yelled at him for it.
The boys take turn at who gets to do the punchboard. Calib got the 'ugly sweater craft.'
I've been collecting these ugly sweater kits for three years. I picked them all up after Christmas at Target when it finally got to 90 percent off. So, instead of paying $29.99 per box, I paid $2.99! It was exciting to finally let the boys make their ugly sweaters.
They got to wear those ugly sweaters to the next punch- The Christmas Open Bar, where I serve as the bartender to a variety of kid friendly holiday drinks.
The bar stays open for a couple of hours, so they got to enjoy hot chocolate, cookies, and prohibition cocktails for the evening.
We also did our annual snowman races. Here all you need is a partner, a roll of toilet paper and some snowman accessories like a hat and a scarf. First person to make their snowman wins!
This year, Asa and Hayden were victorious.
Then there's one of the boys favorites, the Guess the Present game, where I wrap random household items, and they have to guess what they are.
In the end, there's always a new item- a present for each of the boys. Hayden got a Pokemon drawing book, Peyton got some cards....
...and Calib got a new shirt, which is funny since him and I are fighting it out for last place in our fantasy football league right now. (He did also wear his Pearl Harbor shirt on the anniversary.)
I leave you with some random pictures from the last week, we played some games, had some tacos, survived the cold, and lamented the unfairness of life. (Don't worry, we'll be fine!) It's so nice to have a working camera again though. And my new phone sure takes nice ones.
Next Up: More Christmas, and more puppies! (Yup, that happened too!)
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