New "Curtains"

Remember the other night when it got down to 58* in our house?! Well, I decided to stop putting off one of my projects and get it done. I have been planning on making coverings for my windows in our living / dining room. We have 5 windows, and this room is by far the coldest in the house. So I decided to do something about it.

I had an old quilt from my mom which I cut up. I used the middle to make into two rectangles... I hung them up by putting safety pins on the back, and hanging them on small nails. See how cute they turned out? Two windows look like this:

On the third window, I put a crib quilt my mom, grandma, and I quilted when I was pregnant with my first baby. All the quilts are up by safety pins. (See the gifts someone put on the window sill? The kids are so excited to give their gifts...)

Over the door I put a quilt my mom had made for me a few years ago. I need to find the third "branch"... I have no idea how it came off.

For the last window I had a quilt I had worked on, but never finished. It was not big enough, so I took the red sashing I had taken off the quilt from the first two windows, and added it as a border. I still have to cover the rough edges, but it works for right now. (Seeing the photo I realize I need to hang it straighter... that will get fixed!)

When I proudly showed it to Eric he said, "It's great. Except that it has Snowmen on it!"

At my chagrined look he followed with, "Wait. That didn't come out right. It's just that it's a WINTER scene and won't be good all year round." (Well, we won't put it up in the summer!!!) He finally gave up trying to dig out of the hole he put himself into. There was no recovery.

So how about you? What do you think?!?! I love the snowmen.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve! My kids are into celebrating anything we can, so they celebrated Christmas Adam yesterday (Adam came before Eve, so any day before a holiday's eve is the holiday's Adam... they're strange, those Peterson kids...). I was a bit busy getting a burst pipe taken care of. Thank God for good friends. Our Pastor helped me find the break and repair it (from the outside - we were able to take a panel of siding off instead of cutting a hole in the drywall...). Another friend came over and looked at it with me and will return on Friday to help Eric fix it so it never will freeze again. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for these friends we have made here.

That and running water. And showers. I love a good, hot shower.

We did another of our Christmas Traditions, which was to read the book The Best Christ Christmas Pageant Ever. Oh how we laugh at that book. This year they laughed especially hard at this part on page 55:

"Since none of the Herdmans had never gone to church or Sunday school or read the Bible or anything, they didn't know how things were supposed to be. Imogene, for instance, didn't know that Mary was supposed to be acted out in one certain way - sort of quiet and dreamy and out of this world.

The way Imogene did it, Mary was a lot like Mrs. Santoro at the Pizza Parlor. Mrs. Santoro is a big fat lady with a little skinny husband and nine children and she yells and hollers and hugs her kids and slaps them around., That's how Imogene's Mary was - loud and bossy."

After they stopped laughing hysterically, Sara (age 5) said, "Mama... you're not fat."

Sweet thing. So delusional. ;)

I don't slap them around either, but that's beside the point.

Not Me! Monday - Dec. 22

I DID NOT let my children eat chocolate cake for breakfast this morning. Nope. Not me.

Christmas Adam and other

Just wanted to let you know that it's cold here in Kentucky. My computer says it's 9* F, but feels like -5. Our house was 58* when we woke up this morning, and our pipes were frozen even though we left every faucet dripping. Thankfully one bathroom is OK, so we can get water and go to the bathroom. I am thankful for that. I really need to sew some insulated curtains for the windows to see if they keep us warmer. Thank God for our two kerosene heaters, and lots of warm quilts.

A friend is taking all the kids (minus Bethany) shopping for gifts today. Bless her heart. I pray for her sanity. She does this every year. I love it. It's rare for me to have the house to myself. I plan on working on our Christmas letter, unless my fingers freeze first.

We had a really nice weekend... did our traditional caroling party. This tradition started when I was in high school and some neighbors would get the list of shut ins from our church and we would drive all over creation in the attempts to visit them all and carol for them and drop off cookies. We have continued this tradition in my home every year. Some years we sang in the barracks, others just in the neighborhood we lived in. Here in Kentucky we have sung at the nursing home, hospital, and this year we went up a street.

We encountered something I never dreamed... NO ONE opened their doors! Well, two people did, and they enjoyed us. Other than that, one person shut the door as soon as he saw us, and the rest never opened it. How weird is that?

What are your favorite traditions and memories? One of my favorite memories was when I must have been about 5 or so. We went to my Grandparent's house. On Christmas Eve evening many of us went in the car to look at lights and see if we could see Santa's Sleigh. I looked and looked, but figured I must have missed him, because when we got home, HE HAD ALREADY BEEN THERE!!! Wow, that was cool.

Another memory which definitely molded me forever was the Christmas I was either 13 or 14. I wanted a stereo more than anything. One day while my parents were at work, I snooped in their closets. (Hey - I admitted my son didn't have clean laundry last week... this is nothing compared to that!) I saw a STEREO in my Dad's!! I was so excited Christmas morning to get my stereo. And... it was a present for my mom, not me. It served me right!!!

So now, everyone can bring in the bags, tell me where they are hiding my gifts, and I will NOT look. Oh no I will not.

So let us know your favorite Christmas memories and traditions! If you blog it, link to my blog in the comments. I love reading about other's traditions.

Oh yeah - the girls want me to let you know to be ready for Christmas Adam tomorrow. Since the 24th is Christmas Eve, they have declared the 23rd as Christmas Adam.

The Littlest Star... Smeak Preview

One of my friends posted some photos and a video of the show we were all in last weekend... can you pick the Petersons?! Head over Here to see it and leave her a comment to let her know I sent you! (You can tell her she should make me a jam cake while she's at it, too!) Come back here and let me know which photos had the Petersonclan in them... I just might have to award a prize for the one who can pick them all! Maybe one for those who know us in person, and one who can pick out just from following my blog. Feel free to search my old blog site to find photos for identification purposes... And have fun!

It's all fun and Games, Until it's not.

I have been working hard at creating memories this season. Tree, eggnog, cookies, the works. Eric wants to start the tradition of watching "It's a Wonderful Life", but since I think that is a totally boring movie, I am protesting this introduction. He'll win, though. He always does. ;)

This brings me to the point of this post... just because it makes for great memories, does not mean that it is always fun for the organizers. Anna (age 9) discovered that just the other day as she was making pancakes for the kids to cut with cookie cutters. She leaned her head on her hand and said, "Phew - this is harder than it looks like it would be." I used the chance to tell her that making memories rarely is fun for everyone, that lots of times it is just plain hard work for some, and fun memories for the rest.

It took me 37 years to learn that the point is not that We love it, but that THEY love it. And we love THEM. So we do it.

She's already way ahead of the game.

Children's Shoe Storage

I have 9 children. That makes for 18 growing feet. That's a lot of shoes, people. If I were to have to buy shoes, it would also equate to approximately the ever growing bailout package. (Did you realize that if the government had given the bailout to the citizens we could have EVERY ONE OF US paid our mortgage off and completely gone off grid with water, heat, and electricity?)

Ahem. Anyway. Feet. Shoes. And lots of them.

I am so very thankful for people who hand down clothes and shoes to us. I keep most of the decent condition shoes, as long as I don't have too many in that size and color. I will not keep a white sneaker if I already have one in the same size, but would keep another color.

We used to just throw them into a large trunk sized bin, but that made it too hard to find shoes when we needed a new pair or said child could not go to church because her shoes were too tight. Or worse yet... had Leprechauns stealing only one of them. Amazing how often one footed Leprechauns attack our house in the night.

This last time I did clothes exchange, I organized our whole system, especially our shoes. I got out the brown lunch bags. I labeled the side, and the bottom flap with the shoe information. For example - Girls white church shoe size 5. Put the pair of shoes in, turned them so I could see the flap, and slid them into the bin. When I was done, I had a whole trunk of shoes that I could tell exactly what I had in what size, because I was looking at all the bottom flaps. When Daughter #2 outgrows her size 1 youth shoes, I can pull out the bin, pull out the size 2 shoes, put the size 1 back in those same slots and we are ready to go.

This works for me! Head over to Rocks in My Dryer to see other ideas!