For our study of Queen Elizabeth, the history book suggested we hold a coronation. What a great idea!! We pulled out our handy queen-of-England dresses and knight’s tunic and made an evening of it.
ready for the coronation parade; receiving tributes under the golden canopy
royal signature; Kate’s turn
musical tribute; crowned
We couldn’t resist pulling out the silver and inviting friends over to watch Downtown on the big screen.
And people dressed up! Great fun.
One of Kate’s Christmas gifts was a special date with Erik. When Meg attended Perimeter school she and Erik attended two father-daughter dances. Since Kate never had that opportunity he took her on a special outing: dinner, a carriage ride, and ice skating!
We offered Kate a corsage of real flowers, but she and Meg are in an origami phase, so Meg took over the accessorizing role and Kate was very pleased with her ensemble.
Sweet girl with her daddy.
Something hilarious was obviously happening off camera. (Sorry about all those creepy red eyes!)
An afternoon of laser tag and ice skating.
Erik and Nate compete in a fun and elaborate game show style competition Kylie designed for us all to play.
Our new addiction: Blokus
A real white Christmas at last!
Celebrating Crista’s seminary graduation.
Sunday worship.
Since we were flying to Connecticut on the 25th we decided to dispense with traditional activities and spend Christmas Day in the Big Apple.
Though you can’t tell from this picture, the streets were jammed full of people (and it was freezing!)
Lunch at the Stardust Café on Broadway.
Looking cold in Times Square.
A brisk walk through the corner of Central Park, then back to the warm car and on to Milford.
Stockings, presents, our standard Christmas foods with Pappy and Mema in Atlanta on the 24th. (Evidence of my growth as a person—and probably to Erik’s relief—I did not make everyone wear coordinated Christmas pajamas for our one-day-early celebration. Although this picture would be much cuter if I had.)
Some time ago, Kate invented a dessert that she has been begging to make and serve. A pre-Christmas supper with Pappy and Mema seemed like a good occasion to debut her culinary masterpiece. Yum--Great job sweet little chef!
Meg and I made* this costume for a friend’s book-character birthday party. She wore it again when we saw the Hobbit in the theater.
*robe from Goodwill; black witch hat, santa beard, and grey spray paint from Party City; cord belt and boots from our closets; grey felt from Hobby Lobby (hat covered by Mema; bag sewn by Meg); staff accidentally lifted from the community use-and-return collection of walking sticks on our Thanksgiving hike in NC. By the time we pull one of these little numbers together I wonder if we save that much money (certainly not time!), but Meg declares homemade costumes look SO much better than store-bought.
Another field trip; this time a quick tour of the Governor’s Mansion decorated for Christmas. They don’t allow access to much of the house, but we did enjoy all the sparkly chandeliers and get our picture taken with First Lady Deal.
Last year the kids and I went to the Briarwood live nativity. We didn’t realize how many people attended, which is great, of course. But by the time we waited in a line of cars to park and then stood in line to enter the first scene Pappy’s shift as a wise man was over. This year we planned ahead and arrived in plenty of time to see him as Simeon greeting the Baby in the temple.
For about five weeks we all took turns with various illnesses. A little vomit here, a few sore throats there, a fever or two or four. Looks like several folks were down at once here. (Not sure where Caleb is…). At least we pretty much knocked it all out before the actual holiday. And we did rally enough at some point to decorate gingerbread houses.
I should have included this with the October pictures. I took it during Westminster’s fall family camp: Kate and Rozzie with their new pal Ilsa Messner. The Messners were in town as part of Aaron’s pastoral candidate process. Since I’m finally playing catch up and posting in July, I have the benefit of knowing that we all fell in love with the Messners and we called them and they came and Kate, Rozzie, and Ilsa have been making these crazy, happy faces together every Sunday since. This fall they will be in the same ballet class. Look out.
On our Thanksgiving excursion, I planned to take advantage of everyone dressed up in a pretty setting to check “Christmas card photo” off the list. Lots of almost good shots, but they each had at least one problem: fern in the face, too bright, closed eyes, strange expressions, tops of heads…still a pretty cute little group of subjects, though.
This year we drove up to Black Mountain, NC to spend Thanksgiving with Uncle Ron & Aunt Bertha, Anna, Andrew and their families. We feasted at the Montreat Inn Dining Room, lounged around enjoying the view, and then hiked off the calories on nearby Lookout Mountain (not THE Lookout Mt. of Covenant fame…) A great celebration!
A room full of Siegenthalers: eating and laughing.
If you had access to a lavish buffet heavy laden with holiday fare, what would you choose…? (multi-item dessert plate not pictured).
cousins
Added the so-colorful-it-looks-fake Mandarin duck to our life lists.
