Neville Museum

Today Kris, Katie and I visited the Neville Museum in Green Bay (Karen was ill). We saw exhibits on old local animated Christmas displays and dinosaur eggs.

Train Museum Visit

Today we visited a railroad museum in Green Bay. It was well done and we enjoyed ourselves.

Christmas Day, 2010

Merry Christmas, everybody! Today's activities included opening presents, hiking in the new 5-6" of snow, a lovely ham dinner with Jesus's birthday cake, and making a gingerbread village.

Christmas Eve, 2010

Today Katie got the two things she has wanted most for Christmas, a pink Christmas tree and a pink birthday cake for Jesus. She also has indicated that she wants to give Jesus a birthday hat. There was a pretty snow today that dropped about 5", which made for a somewhat slippery drive to church tonight. Kris did well singing in the children's choir and Katie helped hand out candy canes afterward.

Festival of Lights

Yesterday, Katie's preschool had a Christmas party and program. She performed well. My favorite of her songs is "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas". Last night we did sort of an annual tradition: the family "slept" in the basement by the wood stove last night just for the fun of it. It was a bit chaotic and noisy so only Kris really slept well. Today Kris babysat for a few kids, and she, Katie, and the other girls put on a brief Nativity play. Tonight we went to East Peoria for the Festival of Lights. This is a big deal around here, but we have not done this in years - in fact Kris did not remember the previous times we went. The main event is a park where lighted parade floats and static displays are lit and cars can drive among them. I think the biggest structure is the train with some 65,000 lights. It was busy tonight - we waited about 70 minutes to get in, but we had fun.

Haircut

Remember that train wreck along Kickapoo Creek on Labor Day weekend? (See previous blog entries for pictures.) Well I was looking up something on Google Earth recently and was surprised to find a view of the almost-completed cleanup efforts. Check out the following coordinates:

40deg41'22.49" N
89deg39'02.00' W

You can see 1 car being loaded and 3 cars waiting to be loaded onto the train. You can also see employee vehicles parked along Kickapoo Creek Road. Turns out that this picture was originally taken Oct 6.

12 inches of snow so far this season.

Tonight we ran errands, rode the train in the mall, and Katie got a hair trim. We like the haircut and hope it stays looking nice for a while. Karen commented that she looks a little more like a boy. I replied that her hair looked like that of one of our female guides in China. About a minute later, a bell-ringer expressed confusion about whether Katie was a boy or girl - ah well....

Christmas Song

This is a song by Third Day called Merry Christmas that I think I have posted before. It is still an emotional one for our family to listen to, but this year the last refrain means so much:

There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Cyin' for momma's arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
Where the forgotten are
But half a world away I hang
The stockings by the fire
And dream about the day
When I can finally call you mine

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
So tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in His arms
And tell you from my heart, I wish you a Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white
And make angels in the snow
And half a world away you try
Your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come
To carry you here

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
So tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in His arms
And tell you from my heart, I wish you a Merry Christmas

And Christmas is a time to celebrate the Holy Child
And we celebrate His perfect gift of love
He came to us to give His life and prepare a place for us
So we could have a home with Him above

It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And tell you from my heart and I'll tell you from my heart
I wish you a Merry Christmas

Christmas Cookies

Katie has been decorating Christmas cookies a lot lately, it seems. Last night, the whole family decorated cookies. Katie loves to pile decorations onto the cookies. I tried to make a Darth Vader head out of a bell, but it did not look nearly as cool as Kris's Bob and Larry cookies. The last pic is of dendritic salt formations on my garage floor.

Winter Storm

Central Illinois (and much of the rest of the Midwest) experienced a blizzard this weekend. Not much accumulation here, but the high winds made visibility awful at times. Some church events were canceled, but Karen and Kris managed to make to St. Anthony's Women's Club Christmas Tea. I watched Katie and another little girl from church. We had fun at McDonald's playland acting out the Billy Goats Gruff.

LEGO Tournament

Today was Kristine's First LEGO League Tournament, a competition involving LEGO robots designed, built, and programmed by middle school students to perform certain tasks. The theme this year was biomedical engineering. The kids also did a small dramatic presentation involving insulin pumps. This was the first tournament for this team and, though the robot had more technical issues than anticipated, the kids did OK. Most of the snow has melted in the last few days, but some more is expected tomorrow in a blizzard-like storm.

More December pix

Still quite cold here. St. Nicholas visited yesterday and brought candy and toys for all. Kris had her Christmas concert tonight for school and did well (she is 4th from the right in the front row).

Getting ready for Christmas

Friday and Saturday was our first significant snow event of the year with a total of 3-4". On Friday we went to Cookies with Santa at For Friends Preschool (Katie's school). This was Katie's first known (to us) meeting with Santa. She was not afraid to sit in his lap, but she was kind of shy in conversation. She responded yes to the suggestion about getting a Dora and Diego much like Ralphie responded to the football suggestion in "A Christmas Story". Oh and like in the movie "The line to see Santa stretched all the way to Terra Haute." After we got home I had a snowball fight with Kris and Katie. On Saturday afternoon Karen, Kris, and Katie rang bells for the Salvation Army. On Saturday evening we put up the Christmas tree. We did a lot of other decorating this weekend, too.