Goodbye Thanksgiving, Hello Advent!

November got away from me.

Between an impromtu trip to Virginia to see my brother and a planned trip to Massachusetts for the holiday, nothing much got accomplished this past month. Don't scoff if that sounds like nothing. Packing and unpacking for 5 people is never easy. The sheer volume of laundry this family generates is enough to make me quake. Laundry will be a constant theme for my blog. I know, I know. We all have laundry. But my kids have a penchant for dress up that means we are buried under layers of odious fake laundry. Not familiar with fake laundry? Danielle Bean is. My husband turned 32 in November, and we made him a great cake called a breakfast skillet cake. Go google man cake and you'll find a picture online. It was cake made to look like 2 fried eggs and 2 sausage patties. Served in a cast iron skillet, it was a manly cake indeed.

We read what we were supposed to read, and are actually ahead in that aspect, so that is something, right? The boys tolerated [u]The Witch of Blackbird Pond[/u] fairly well, though it was not a favorite. They tolerated it only because they were trapped in the car on a 6 hour trip home from Massachusetts and they had no choice. If nothing else, I still control the car radio. (Insert maniacal laughter here.) We are not too far behind in our history reading either. But I am afraid that the workbooks and other Sonlight assignments were just not done. I take heart, knowing that the public school kids barely attended this November, thanks to half days, and Veteran's Day and election day and a teaching convention (wouldn't it be better to schedule a teachers convention in the summer?)

At any rate, the thing is, I need more time. I need an advent for Advent. Because I want to make this season memorable and cool for the kids. The problem is I am short on creativity and energy. We have plans for St Nicholas Day, which include new Christmas jammies for all three children as well as a wonderful Christmas CD from Classical Kids. I have a budding idea regarding cookies and candies- I believe I will ask each child to name their favorite treat and then make it with them- perhaps we'll even make it late at night when Daddy is here to distract the smallest helper. Of course, we have mass weekly and a party to attend for Sunday School, and chocolate Advent Calendars. We also have to find the advent wreath we made last year and see if our candles survived our midsummer move from Indiana. We have to select and cut a tree, hang some garland, and curse our tree stand (that we leave strictly up to Dad.) We have to decorate the house and get ready for visitors through out the month of December. And we need to find a decent chinese restaurant so that we can carry on the fine family tradition of ordering out on Christmas eve. (My inlaws started this years ago and I honestly think its one of the funniest traditions ever and I will never give it up.)

Maybe I ought to go do some of these things rather than blog about them. Then I wouldn't need the advent for Advent.

Also, the 2 year old can say the word idiot very clearly now. Isn't that heartwarming.