Advent Stage 2

This is the day we finished the "stable". I could have made a cave, but thought of it too late. We have plenty of rocks. Well, next year. I'm sure the pile will still be there. LOL! Keona did his part by "clearing the land" and cutting string. Anyway here is stage two. Kalani amused Buddha during this stage.

Advent Project

In celebration of Advent which started this week, we are building our own outdoor creche. We are starting with sticks and leaves to create a lean-to for the Holy family,...who will arrive, well, sometime just before Christmas. We don't know what they'll look like...perhaps it will involve sticks and potatoes?... stuffed socks..... suggestions are welcome....the Baby will arrive on Christmas...and finally the wisemen.

Keona is a little baffled by the project, but is coming to some kind of understanding of the story and hey, he gets to play with sticks!

I find the time working on it to be soothing...and lights up a bit of my creative side. Again, while working on this I was reminded of my step-fathers column about learning to do something with your hands. It is good for the soul.

Right now Buddha occupies the space, but he will move over to make room for the Holy Baby. He will not move out completely because the Baby did not enter a godless world. Buddha will watch over the proceedings. It will be exciting to see how everything turns out.

Keona found a slug that had been disturbed from its hibernation, so we dug a hole and buried him again.

It's a journey.........

not a destination, just like trying to get pictures of the Pirates! Here's a fun series of pictures of the boys in front of the Christmas tree.

A little help from the Christmas elves...

Yep, it is here. The first week of Advent and Santa is sending in mommy and daddy's little helpers. A Christmas Elf comes to live at our house until Christmas Eve. We'll never see them, of course. But when Santa comes to pick them up on Christmas Eve, they'll be sure to give a full report of the activities in your house. Oh my! Keona is not sure he is excited at all....: )

A cute moment in the middle of the night....

Keona woke up and crawled into bed with us. CC said something to me and I answered and then he said something to K who said...."shhhhhh! Daddy you can't talk to me because I'm asleep!"

Daddy's moment of triumph....

Well, it happened again. Son number 2 has gone and done...apparently. I was not around for the utterance, but CC was excited enough that I must believe. Kalani said "dada". Right here this morning on our own kitchen floor. Boys do stick together after all. : )

Boys at play...

It is really fun to watch the boys play! There is always lots of screaming and giggling.
It's hard to believe it is still less than a year and K2 is already up playing with or eating the sand.

Halloween shots.....

Here are my precious pirates...until one turned into a pumpkin!...or did the pumpkin turn into a pirate?

Photographing the Pirates....

It was hard to choose from this wonderful series. We wanted a picture of our Pirates in their hats. It went about as well as can be expected. LOL!!!!

Rainbow Foods........

We have been working with the magic of mixing colors....using something much more delicious than our paints!

Inside the anthill....

One day our friends came over and we talked about anthills. First we put out some cookies next to an anthill to see how long it would take them to come out. I think it was seconds and minutes later they were all over the cookies. After that we talked about what it's like inside an anthill. There are many specialized rooms, just like people houses. We talked about the nursery, the kitchen, and the queen's room. We made our own anthill collage. Maybe next time we'll make the ants! And at the top is our friend Lila pretending to be an ant.

Monkey Button Hat..and an overbearing mother.

One day Keona was lying on the living room floor staring at the ceiling when he spied our junk box on top of the buffet. It's clear, so he could see the buttons that were in it on the bottom. He decided he wanted to make a hat and put buttons on it. We did, though mommoy decided to add shapes and stuff. And so we started. Keona wanted to get started gluing buttons on right away, but mommy said, "No wait. Let's cut shapes and put those on first...blah, blah, blah...pretty soon Keona wasn't interested...until it was time to add the buttons! So here is his Monkey Button hat which serves as a reminder to me about being overbearing.