peelosophy

My side of the family has always gone to Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Ill to see Christmas lights.  They have a display that is mainly white lights and the entire route is depicting the the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem.  I’ve always loved it because you can tell the  lights are put up with great care and they are well thought out.

There is also a petting zoo with animals that may have been in the stable, camels the wise men came in on, etc.  Inside they have a Lego nativity and a Christmas tree room with lots of different decorated trees.

We usually all take separate cars, but this year Gramie and Pops rented a 15-passenger van for the 9 adults and 6 kids.  We started at Imos for dinner and we sang Christmas carols on the way to the lights…all very fun until the kids melted and made the 15-passenger van seemed like a  Ford Fiesta.  The kids had fun though and that’s what matters right?

Here are some pictures….

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This summer has been atypical for us. No camps – we had Jumpstart Kindergarten which killed the camp prospect.  No vacation outside of St.Louis.  No weekend agendas – we are too exhausted from crazy long work weeks.

Instead we have delighted in the simple pleasures and really that’s what summer is all about right?  Simple lazy days and easy nights.

Some of my favorites are long family walks – dogs included, playing in the backyard, frozen treats of any kind, having friends over, grilling, staying up “late” to catch fireflies, did  I mention playing in our backyard? – yeah we do a lot of that.  Others are….

Sharing popsicles with friends…

Sidewalk chalk. Henry loves princesses.

Webster parks.  I take for granted how many great parks we have around that we enjoy several time a week.  And the landscaping is so beautiful.  Kudos to Webster Parks and Recreation.  This is a landscape sampling from Larson Park aka “Bug Park”.

This isn’t exactly a “pleasure”, these were my feet after the Fourth of July Webster Carnival this year.  We went on the 4th, as usual, but it had rained most of the morning  and left the fairgrounds super muddy.  It’s probably one of the Top 5 most disgusting things I have ever done for my children.  But they got to ride all the rides they wanted…

Easter yesterday started with crazy but overall was a ton of fun.  I try to keep pretty low expectations for holidays mainly for my sanity.  I’ve found if I have no expectations of how the boys behave or how smoothly everything thing will go b/c of my “perfect planning” – things will go okay.

This year, I did have expectations – well one really – that the boys wear the ties that I made them for the day.  All week, I talked up the ties, they picked out their own fabric for their own tie…I thought I was on easy street.

John worked sound for church Sunday morning so he was out the door at 8am.  No biggie, I was prepared to get them ready myself and had John tie the ties so I just had to put them over their heads and tighten them.  Henry and George were easy…JJ threw the biggest fit about wearing a button-up shirt and a tie.  I NEVER make him wear stuff, he always gets to pick out his own clothes, so I didn’t understand why this one day he couldn’t do this “for me”.  I was ticked, at one point I actually said, “You are going to wear this friggin’ tie and it’s going to be cute!” Not one of most admirable mom-moments.  He got in the van with his Trans Am t-shirt, I was over it.

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I love that we have been doing different traditions with each of the grandparents.  For example, for Christmas it’s making cookies with Grandma (Peel) and going to see the lights at Our Lady of the Snows with Gramie and Pops (Csengody)  At Easter, egg dying is done at Grandmas and today was the day.  Even George and Allison got in on the action!  Check it out…I love the pudgy fingers in the egg dye.