What's new

Here are a few {mostly good, but a couple bad and ugly} tidbits about what's going on in the Hunter house lately:

We're starting off our Christmas break with a sick kid and a clogged kitchen sink.  I've come to expect these types of things happening.  Ethan came down with a fever Saturday night and, since he's had this lingering cough for a bit too long, my first thought was that he's probably come down with pneumonia.  His throat is red, too, so maybe strep?  I called the doctor this morning, but their earliest appointment is later this evening and carries an extra $27 charge.  I made an appointment for tomorrow morning, but he's had no fever this morning and is, of course, running around like a crazy man right now...so, we'll see if we actually keep the appointment!

As for the sink, it's my fault. Once again, I've managed to clog that darn garbage disposal.  In the past couple of years, I've learned the hard way that it can't handle potato skin, large amounts of egg shells, or gobs of spaghetti.  FYI:  it also cannot handle a bunch of month old turkey. {Yes, you can laugh in disbelief at the fact that the rest of the turkey from Thanksgiving was still in our fridge until last night.} Usually we manage to unclog it with a few plunges, and maybe some Drano.  This time it's not budging.  We {well, Mark} plunged, and snaked, and Drano'ed, and used the "zip-it" thingy.  We went to bed hoping the plumbing fairy might work some wonders, but it was still clogged this morning.  I've been praying over it this morning, and so far, I've had to just keep praying for patience, as well.  Mark will probably have a fun afternoon dismantling pipes when he returns home, and I'll be using the rest of the paper Star Wars plates from Ethan's birthday and washing dishes in the bathroom sink today.

Natalie has been making some huge progress in the learning letters/writing department.  She has been quite stubborn about the whole thing until a couple months ago.  She is now writing her name without asking how to spell it.  She is also writing a lot of other words by asking how to spell them.  Here's her shopping list {candy canes, syrup, eggs...just the essentials, right?} from an episode of "house" the other day.  I was impressed that even her "s" was facing the right direction!  

We got a fun {as in the kind where you have to hunker down and enjoy it from the house} snow storm last weekend.  It started Saturday night/Sunday morning, making our trek to church almost impossible.  We were two minutes ahead of the plow, so we couldn't make it up the big hill we have to take to get there.  We backed back down and let the plow clear the way before we tried again.  It was still "warm" on Sunday, so after church we went sled riding.  There is a good kid-sized hill at the entrance to our neighborhood we like to use.  Our neighbors came out for some fun, too, and my friend got a few good pics of the kids having a blast.  

 

 

Last weekend we went to see some movies.  We hardly ever go see movies.  Mark and I just rarely feel like it's one of those things worth spending money on, so it's a special treat when it happens.  Mark took the girls to see Tangled and I took Ethan to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Natalie is SUPER sensitive about villians in movies, so I asked around to see what people who had already seen it thought, and most of them said it was one of the most mild Disney princess movies they'd seen.  So, we decided she should be able to handle it.  Unfortunately, she didn't do so well and cried through parts and wouldn't watch others.  I felt bad that her first movie theater experience was a pretty miserable one.  Live and learn, I guess!  Ethan and I really enjoyed the Narnia movie, and it was the first 3D movie I've seen, so it was a fun time for us!  Our dates with the kids also included some Christmas shopping for siblings.  They exchange names and buy for one other kid in the family, and this year we made it work so boys bought for girls and vice versa, so we could make the movie dates work.  It's always so interesting to see how they choose what they buy for each other.  I loved watching Ethan put some sweet thought into picking out gifts for his sisters (he picked out Levi's gift for Natalie). 

Levi has expressed some interest in potty training, on the condition that we purchase some "choo-choo train" underwear.  So, last week, I took him to the store and he picked out some Thomas and some Diego undies.  Next morning I optimistically put them on him, but shortly after saw him heading for a private place to do his "business".  I quickly sat him on the potty in time for a tiny terd to plop into the pot.  He did sit for a few minutes and ended up tinkling.  I rewarded him with some of the gummy worms he had also picked out...and then he promptly refused to put underwear back on and his been in diapers since.  I had a feeling he wasn't really ready, and I'm a firm believer in not pushing training.  All the other kids were SOOO easy because we waited till they were ready {Natalie did it in like a day without ANY help from me, three months before her third birthday}.  I don't want to be mommy trained...asking him every 30 minutes if he has to go and constantly worrying about accidents.  The years are too short to spend any portion of them on that kind of a headache!  I know he'll do it when he's ready, and I'm more than content to wait for it.

We are so ready to enjoy this Christmas break.  We're done Christmas shopping and have been for weeks.  We're hoping for some more sledding, making some birdfeeders {once the sink is fixed}, baking, imaginative play, visiting with family, celebrating Natalie's fourth birthday, reading good books, watching good movies, and thanking God for giving us His son.  Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!