Snow Friends

We've had Jason and Rachel and Julia Mumford visiting us for the past two days. Yesterday was wonderfully snowy so we sent the Dads up the mountain to ski while the Moms and kids went outside to play.

Our sledding hill is not that big but it's still lots of fun! Especially when everybody piles into the same sled.

At the end of a long day of play time, it's bath time. Most fun when everyone piles into the same bathtub.

Thanks, friends, for coming to visit us!

Two Wonderful Days

Santa made his expected visit and brought Lucy a new American Girl doll named Rebecca. She looks just like my American girl, don't you think? Rebecca's story is that she's a Jewish immigrant in New York in 1900. So of course Lucy wanted to know why Santa Claus brought her a Christmas doll who only celebrates Hannukah. Good question. And how did Grandma know to send her Rebecca's Hannukah dress as a gift? Uh . . .

Santa brought Gavin a Captain Rex Star Wars helmet. It says things like "Destroy the Sith, we must" and "Use the Force" in a Yoda voice. It goes great with his light saber from Lucy and his Power Rangers muscle suit from his cousin Collin. With his giant, wobbly helmet and his little short body I think he looks like a big bobblehead doll.

Sometimes he loans the helmet to Austin so they can have a battle.

We had a completely wonderful Christmas day. We opened our gifts slowly and played with them as we went. At noon we went have Christmas dinner at a friend's so I didn't even have to do any cooking or cleaning! We got home in the late afternoon and there were still a few gifts to go.

And more gifts today, at least for me! Having a day-after-Christmas birthday can have its benefits. When I got up this morning Lucy had made me a special message on the wall with her new Bendaroos (wax art sticks -- who knew they stick to walls so conveniently?) And Gavin has spent most of the morning drawing me birthday pictures of his favorite Star Wars people.

Austin got me my favorite chocolate-carmel apples from Laughing Moon in Stowe and I intend to spend the rest of today reading my Christmas books and eating decadent treats. It doesn't get any better than this!

Party Time!

My favorite thing about the holidays is that there are so many DAYS to party and celebrate and be together with friends!

Gavin's friends Emery, Emily and Jack (and parents and others) came over for a Red & Green dinner and decorated sugar cookie Christmas trees. . .

. . . then Santa showed up at the ward party with presents . . .

. . . and then we had our Bethlehem dinner. Natalie and Cade were a wonderful Mary and Joseph.

Lucy and Makenna made beautiful angels.

And Gavin the shepherd was sore afraid.

We had very enthusiastic Nativity actors.

So much fun . . . and we haven't even made it to Christmas Day yet!

St. Lucia Day

St. Lucia looking glorious in all her Lucia Day finery.

Complete with a Star Boy to adore her.

It's so nice to have kids who like each other so much.

Polar Express

The hottest ticket in town is a ride on the Polar Express. You have to put your name into a lottery in July. Or, volunteer to be one of Santa's elves at the North Pole for half a day, which guarantees you the privilege of paying full price for up to four tickets. That's the way we went. The elf shift turned out to be fun, especially since my friends Lauren Simmons from church and Elizabeth Maier from Norwich did it too.

Santa's train definitely delivered! Gavin was enthralled and even the ever-skeptical Lucy got into it. The hot cocoa was from Lake Champlain Chocolates -- yummmm!

Arriving at the "North Pole," Gavin shook hands with or high-fived every single elf along the way into the building. We kind of held up the line but the elves thought we was adorable and one teenage-boy elf gave Gavin his Santa hat. He was thrilled.

Gavin contemplates his jingle-bell from Santa. I wish I'd got a better photo of Santa. His outfit was more St. Nicholas than traditional Santa, and he wore gold hoop earrings in both ears. Pirate Santa. Only in Vermont.

After the ride the parents discovered that the North Pole has a great Mexican restaurant. Who knew? After dinner Gavin was a little concerned that it would be a pretty long walk back to the car since we were all the way at the North Pole, but somehow it worked out and we got home just in time to tuck two very sleepy kids into bed. One wearing a Santa hat.

Welcome to Vermont

I love this sign posted along the road into Montpelier:

Translation: everyone is welcome to bring their shotguns into the state capitol and blast away at any deer that happen to be wandering down Main Street or across the Capitol lawn. But apparently rifles can only be used outside town limits.

I thought it was kind of funny, the idea that the entire state is available for hunting -- towns as well as forests -- provided you bring the right type of weapon. But we recently learned that we technically don't live in the "town" of Northfield, we live in the "village" of Northfield, so we are in the rifle hunting zone. Then we realized that some old guy in a pickup was staked out in front of our house every morning waiting for deer to cross our front field! So now our yard is about to be officially POSTED as off-limits for hunting. Visiting Montpelier? Sure, bring your shotgun, you never know! But please don't shoot -- rifles or buckshot -- when you're out in front of our house!

A letter from Lucy

I love my beautiful, smart, exasperating daughter Lucy. She devours chapter books but refuses to eat any food that isn't dessert, white rice, or macaroni and cheese. She adores her little brother even though she isn't always happy with her parents. She is friends with all the frogs, bugs and worms in our yard. Her life is full of emotion and I fear for her teenage years, when hormones will combine with her natural sense for the dramatic.

The other night, when she was supposed to be in bed, she wrote me this letter.

Dear Mommy. I love it in the morning wen I come in your room. And I snuggl you. And thank you for all the time's wen you have helpt me feel beter from sicknes all the way to deth. I love you so much you may not get me what I want all the time. But you will always be my mommy. And by the way you mak ecselent cokies, bronies, cacks, cupcacks, and food. I may not have tride a lot of things. But I bet you $1000000 bucks your coking is good. Wen you are around I alwase feel safe. I love you and I hope you feel the same way I do!

Yes, my sweet Lucy, I certainly do.

Family, Food, Friends, Football . . .

. . . if you asked Austin what he was thankful for this year, he'd probably list those things, in that order. So it was great that the unseasonably warm weather made it possible for him to have all of them together this year on Thanksgiving day.

The sunshine was glorious, the feast was delicious, and the backyard football game was great fun. If the snow holds off next Thanksgiving, we may have to make it a new Gray family tradition to host a Turkey Bowl on Turkey Day.

Hey Dudes!

Austin and I just got back from a weekend at a Dude Ranch outside Tucson, Arizona. Since my sister Christina and Austin's uncle Richard both live on *real* ranches, I never imagined us going to a tourist ranch to be "dudes." But it was a great adventure!

I was there for conference, so I spent most of the (beautiful, warm, dry!) days inside talking about history, while Austin went on hours of trail rides through the desert, on Guiness and Ice.

Me and my horse N.C. managed to get a few rides in during the afternoons.

Austin got on a "cattle penning" team and I think that was the highlight of the weekend for him.

The food was amazing -- this is a picture of the breakfast spot Austin rode to one morning (while I was in a meeting, sigh.)

It was so nice to get back to the west and spend some time enjoying a very different kind of natural beauty than we see around us in Vermont! It's funny how much it feels like home.

Happy Halloweekend

I'm not sure when Halloween ceased to be a one-night event and turned into days of activities. Count Floyd the Vampire (Gavin came up with the name and elaborate backstory) and his sister Laura Ingalls definitely made the most of it!
Lucy headed up the crafts crew to be sure our house was sufficiently festive. My craft project was figuring out how to make a Laura Ingalls costume. Pioneer costumes aren't really in fashion these days. Gavin's vampire suit was much easier to find at Wal-Mart. But you know our Lucy, she always has to choose the unusual theme, and she insisted on this one.
Lucy was certainly the only pioneer girl at her school's UNICEF parade.

There were Halloween parties at their friends' houses, and Halloween carnivals at church and at the school. . .

. . .and lots and lots and LOTS of Trick-or-Treating. Norwich opened the dorms to Trick or Treat on Wednesday night, the ward Trunk or Treat was Friday, and by the time the actual Halloween night came around the kids nearly opted to stay home! But in the end we went out and hit Central Street, Northfield's famous Trick-or-Treat row, and snagged a few more bucketfuls of treats.

The funny thing is they don't ever actually eat the candy. They just like to trade it with each other. There's been a lively candy exchange going on around here which the parents have managed to get in on a few times, scoring Kit-Kats and Twix and other good stuff.

Pumpkin Time!

The thirteenth-annual Gray Family Pumpkin Party was last night. It was too cold to carve pumpkins outside so we put some plastic down on the floor inside and still had a great time making a mess with pumpkin guts! (Clean up was so easy, I just wrapped up the plastic with all the mess inside -- a new tradition is born!)

The kids all made wonderful, creative jack-o-lanterns.

Here they all are making the face that's carved on their pumpkins.

My favorite part is always the food. The kids frosted and decorated pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies (Gavin frosted his cookie multiple times) while their parents munched on on other pumpkin-themed treats.

As much as I love the pumpkin party, I love the morning after just as much. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies for breakfast, and leftover pumpkin-curry soup for lunch! Yummy!

Season Surprise

No! I'm not ready for the snow yet!

Lucy's Chemistry Party

This year Lucy wanted to have a chemistry birthday party. Gotta hand it to Lucy -- she always picks a party theme you can't get out of a catalog! Fortunately, we know some chemists (thanks, Jeanne and Troy) and have some good connections in the Norwich chemistry department.

The girls tested the Ph of household liquids, from Windex to Sprite,then made some cool slime out of PVA and Boron. The most exciting experiment was the big, smoky volcano I made out of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide (a bit bigger and smokier than I expected!)

Then we had cake and ice cream and Lucy was thrilled with the gifts her friends brought her.

The girls worked off all their sugar and chemistry excitement by going outside to traipse through the damp leaves in the backyard, hold a pow-wow in the treehouse, then finish it all off with a good, solid round of trampoline tag.

So when the parents came to get them, all the girls were wet, dirty, covered in slime and frosting, and exhausted. I hope these girls are allowed to come back again next year, because I'm sure Lucy will come up with another great party theme.