Happy New Year

Tonight we will be ringing in the New Year...AND...Ty's birthday.  We started a tradition a couple years ago of letting Ty stay up till midnight to see in the New Year and his birthday.  We watch a movie together.  This year it's Prince Caspian.

Puzzling Times

We have picked up puzzle-making as a family hobby. We did a 500-piece Christmas puzzle in the days leading up to Christmas and then were given another 500-piece puzzle for Christmas. It was a doozy! It is an Ansel Adams picture of Mt. McKinley, so it is all tones of black, white, grey, and dark brown. Oh, and every single piece is the same shape! I didn't know such a thing existed!

Well, I gave up half-way through. I was working on the white part of Wonder Lake and I had so many pieces in the wrong place (we noticed the next day in the daylight). I let Shane finish this one himself.

Super Underwear Girl

Lydia is really a super-hero--she's Super Underwear Girl. She only lets her true identity come out at home, when she's out and about, she keeps it hidden. But as SOON as we step in the house, the true identity comes out!

Ty went through this phase at this age, as well. I really thought that it would end once winter started, but I guess there's just too much crime to fight. :)

Oh, well, this way, I have WAY less laundry to do! :)

Gingerbread

Last year we started a tradition of making a gingerbread house at Christmastime.

Here is the house we made this year.

It was great fun!  And it is filling my living room with a wonderful aroma!

Christmas Lessons Learned

Ty learned this year about Christmas budgets.  When he filled his Christmas list with multiple Lego sets that ranged from $200 to $500 each, we had to set him straight.  It was a shock to his system.  It was one of those moments when you see that your child has grown up a bit--they are getting a taste of the real world.  After he recovered from the shock, he re-thought what he wanted.  He was happy with what he got and thankful (which is good).  Hopefully he's learning the value of money.  :)

Lydia learned how to keep Christmas secrets.  She SO badly wants to tell everyone.  She keeps telling herself that she doesn't want to spoil the surprise, even though she let a few things slip.  One night early in the month, she and Ty and Shane went back to the bedroom to wrap one of my presents.  Shane told her NOT to tell me what it was.  They came out and placed the gift under the tree, she came over to me about ready to burst.  She told me she had a secret to tell me.  I told her NOT to tell me what the gift was.  She said it was a different secret--she whispered in my ear, "you have a ring on", with a big smile.  She obviously couldn't bear NOT to tell me something, so she thought of something trivial.  :)  It was funny.  Hopefully, by next Christmas she will have learned more about keeping secrets and how to keep cool, OR perhaps, next year we just won't let her in on any secrets!  :)

Merry Christmas!

Consider this your Christmas card.  This is a private blog, you have access because I have invited you.  I am keeping this to close friends and family, for a way to stay connected.  Enjoy!

Bonk!

Lydia is daring and brave and is always jumping.  Today, she missed.

Art

Lydia loves art.  Ever since she was tiny, she has loved to draw.  She used to draw millions of tiny circles on a page.  Now she draws amoeba-looking shapes all over the pages.  She says some are caterpillars, some are planets, some are bad guys, but they all look like blobby amoebas to me.  She has loved to paint for quite some time now.  She chooses to paint at least a few times a week.  She has her watercolors and her acrylics and even some fingerpaint.  I may start up Drawing with Children with her sometime in the next year.

Legos

Ty's new thing this year is Legos.  He has fallen headlong into the Lego craze with a passion!  He is most fond of the Mars Mission series, but also likes Agents and Bionicles.  He has been very resourceful this year to come up with ways to make money and buy more Lego sets.

Occasionally, Lydia gets in on the action, too.

Dough Art

Lydia and I (Ty declined, he would rather play his video games) made some dough art Christmas ornaments on Sunday.  I hadn't made dough art since I was a kid.  It was fun.  And it was fun to work with.

I used 1/4 cup salt and 3/8 cup of water.  I couldn't get the salt to dissolve in the water, but just proceeded with the recipe.  I then added 1 cup flour and stirred together.  I turned it out onto the counter and kneaded more flour into until it felt a bit elastic, like it wouldn't crumble.    I used cookie cutters to cut out shapes and then baked them @ 350F for about 30 minutes, until they were hard.

Lydia already loves to paint so she did really well with painting these ornaments.  She painted them all right to the edge and then we added some glitter glue.

Welcome

Welcome to the Spicer's family blog page.  I will be putting up pics and little stories of our family from time to time.  Hope you all enjoy!