All is Calm...or at least Bright

We are thankful to be through a safe, blessed, and not-too-stressed holiday season! Maybe you are stressed looking at the first picture in this blog post. Or maybe you have the virtuous eyes to see the "blessed" in the picture. Either way, it was my crazy mom lady experience at Aldi that kicked off our holiday season. 

How could we go wrong from there? Perhaps having my two year old head out to play in the snow having donned his baby sister's snow suit! But, ah, he looked so cute. This snow suit always makes me think of the Teletubbies from my childhood. 

November was a nice calm-before-the-storm month. Each week I took a different child to town with me to pick out their Christmas gifts for the names they had drawn. My goal was to be done with gift shopping by the end of the month to make it easier to enjoy December, and we got pretty close. We even had a quiet Thanksgiving with no travel or family plans, and ended up having a few guests from church who also didn't have plans. Since we've been in the midst of having babies, it's been a long time since I've had guests over for a meal and we had a very nice day.

Went to church donning two of Mommy's old dresses!

The beginning of December brought big news for the Massner family! My brother Jonathan was engaged to Brittany from Elgin, IL and we are so excited to welcome her into the family! God has been so good in bringing them together. It is always fun to have a special wedding day to anticipate!

Other December happenings included a lovely weekend of baptisms in Mediapolis, Christmas caroling, the Burlington lighted holiday parade, the Live Nativity Play in Washington (first time attendees - amazing production), Sunday School Christmas Programs, serving lunch at church, meeting Brittany, a bit of sickness, a Myron Schulz family Christmas, and welcoming two new nephews to the Schulz family.

Clara got her two front teeth in time for Christmas! 

She also started balancing and taking a step or two around Christmastime! A month later, she still isn't walking fluently so it's looking like we'll finally have a non-walking ten month old baby!

Just a typical scene of Matt being a dad...always fixing something!

Matt also inspired the kids to do some crafting for their Christmas gifts this year.

We had someone doing some early peeking into his stocking! Actually, I'm not sure what he was doing but he tends to get into the strangest positions.

Christmas time! First up, the Massner family on the Friday before Christmas...we have added three more girls to the table since last Christmas! 

Joanna was given a hair salon set for her doll for Christmas, so we spent the next day taming her doll's awful twenty year old frizz hair with surprising success! Now to teach Joanna to brush her own hair...

I got official and bought real stockings for Christmas this year. Keenan came out of his room on Christmas morning and was pretty distressed. "Stockings fall down!"

Merry Christmas!

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Pre-gift opening! The last two years we have all drawn each other's names and that has been the extent of our gift giving...it has been a nice way to keep things both thoughtful and simple!

I made a deal with Levi that if he did well for the Christmas program (he tends to be a nervous wreck every year and can't even open his mouth), I would make a scavenger hunt for them to do at our family Christmas. He bravely held up his end of the deal, so this was the result. It was a lot of fun putting it together and they had fun too! I even had Daddy stumped with one of the clues! The treasure at the end contained $20 worth of pennies. They thought they had struck it rich.

Next up on our Christmas agenda was Schulz Christmas on the 26th - it was also Zach's star birthday so the celebration was combined into one day.

In the year before he turned 26, Zach gained four more niblings (here are the first two)!

Three happy girls with their new violins! 

Little Jubal was born to Jake and Harmony on Christmas Day! (On a side note, Seth and Brenda welcomed Malak a couple weeks prior, but I have no photographic recollection of that event.) Thus, Jubal is our children's 25th cousin! 

Love my sweet baby, getting all grown up!

Joanna gave Clara a dolly for Christmas so now they both have one! It is so sweet how even a nine month old girl will get excited about a baby!

I pulled out the Cricut Joy for Christmas! I thought I took a picture of the various gifts we made, but couldn't find it later! So here are two things I made for myself in the process.

Levi drew Matt's name for Christmas and he wanted to make a water bottle to match the "Best Dad Ever" shirt he received a couple years ago! 

Another Cricut project was designing a sticker for the fridge we painted black in October! We had to remove the original water dispenser label when we painted the fridge.

Levi got a volcano kit for Christmas from his cousin so they got that put together!

It worked pretty well! I wish I would have tried adding a bit of dish soap to the formula at the very beginning - it made it so much better!

WELCOME 2023

Great was His Faithfulness in 2022 - Great it shall be in 2023!

As has happened the last few years, we have been sick over New Years. I silently welcomed in the new year when Clara woke me up to nurse at 12:30am. We spent the next couple weeks home with sick kids of varying degrees and symptoms. Sometimes I don't mind a little sickness to slow life down a bit, especially after being so busy in December. Praise God nobody has gotten seriously ill yet. 

When you get an ouchie on your head and Mommy doesn't want to put a sympathy Band-Aid in your hair. 

The kids were healthy in time to help Russell celebrate his 3rd birthday! 

Last Saturday, Matt decided to start working on a treehouse for the kids!

Then it snowed and we spent Sunday afternoon outside too!

Levi's 7th birthday celebration involved choosing his own meals for the day. He chose cold cereal for breakfast, eggs in a hole/bullseye toast for lunch, and sausage gravy on toast for supper. Breakfast foods must be his style.

His birthday was also a snow day. Too bad homeschool doesn't have snow days...but it did mean we got to have some fun outside in the afternoon!

Our only sledding hill ends in the pond which was not frozen, so we made do. The neighbors were driving snowmobiles around all day, so the kids called this their snowmobile! 

We had a couple coding and robotics lessons this month with Miss Mary at the homeschool co-op! Levi has been really into robots lately so he thought it was the greatest! 

Thus brings us up to date with the photo-worthy events of our lives the past few months. Otherwise, we are continually learning, growing, and ultimately feeling thankful and blessed. God be praised for all his wondrous works!

Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee... I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord: That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works. Psalm 25:5, 20; 26:6-7