Christmas in Pictures

The tree on Christmas Eve

The stockings and other gifts.

Naomi and Daniel

Sarah loves her new blanket.

Lydia with 2 male cats who grudgingly shared her lap for the sheer joy of being with her.  The weather has been absurdly warm -- it hit 60 yesterday!

I bought these 3 little turtles for Kevin, and they joined the big turtle we already had.

Kids opening presents.

More kids.

More kids

Naomi gave Isaac an awesome shirt which reads, "I'm a Gamer, Like My Father Before Me".  Star Wars reference. She also got me an awesome Star Wars shirt but I don't have a picture. Yet.

I am now the proud owner of a Yoda and a Baby Yoda!

Life

I'm rather snooty where Star Wars is concerned. I love the Original Trilogy. I thought the Prequel Trilogy was Ok though I despised Jar Jar Binks.  Oh my, terrible.

I loathe the current trilogy, whose final film is coming out in four days.  I'm Ok with people liking the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. I just don't.

Anyway, Disney is producing a show called the Mandalorian and Kevin and I are thoroughly enjoying it.  This is a surprise since Disney is responsible for the horror that is the Last Jedi.  (I wasn't thrilled with The Force Awakens but it was Ok.  The Last Jedi?  Yuck.  Urgh. Ack.  Hack.)

The Mandalorian is well done and interesting but the really important person is not the Mandalorian himself, but The Child, also known as the thoroughly adorable Baby Yoda!

Not really Baby Yoda.  It is a child from Yoda's species.  It is so cute.  Oh my.

The pic above is a little Baby Yoda plushie made by, you guessed it, Lydia. That girl has serious skills.

Lydia also does a good job making sugar cookies.

It snowed.  Now it is snowing again. Maybe we'll get some ice tonight as well.  Yeah, the weather is dicey.  Good night to stay home.

Don't even ask me why this girl is wearing sunglasses at the breakfast table.

She's not really asleep. She's pretending to sleep.  Because what kind of self respecting 5 year old sleeps during the day??

This picture represents a triumph.  Sarah and Daniel are good readers but they just want to read Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes and Smurf books.  Oh, they like PJ Masks books as well.  However, I wanted them to read something different.  So I returned most of the comic books and got a whole bunch of factoid books.  For a few days, they held firm but today both Daniel and Sarah are eagerly reading the books and reading them out loud to me.  

I'm tuning them out right now so that I can type and make sense at the same time.

I am glad they are reading something different.

More Ranting about Vaccines

Ok, today I'm going to tackle the other side, the pro-vaccine people.

I read that the World Health Organization reported that 140,000 people died of measles in 2018.

And I thought, wow.  Just, wow.  That is an incredible number of people!  Obviously measles is a really dangerous disease!

I dug in a bit.  So that was totally and completely an estimate, based on some kind of models.  Not actually reported measles deaths.

There have been measles deaths.  The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is in the midst of a horrifying epidemic and over 5000 people have died of measles, most of them children under age 5.

So measles IS deadly, especially to children, no doubt especially especially to children in countries without an adequate medical infrastructure plus poor water supplies plus malnutrition...

I believe vaccination is a great thing, I do. I really do. Polio mostly wiped out here in the United States, and these widespread outbreaks are only happening where vaccination rates are low. 

However.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is, I believe, very much at fault publishing figures based on an 'estimate' from some 'model'.  It makes anti-vaccine people nervous, and I don't blame them.  Just stick to the facts, gentlemen and ladies.  Count up what you really know, the reported deaths in each country, and add them together.  That number will be enough to worry a lot of people authentically.

The DRC outbreak which has killed 5000 is the biggest outbreak in the world this year. So how do they come up with numbers of deaths over 100,000 for 2017 and 2018 and no doubt they will come up with  huge numbers in 2019?

Based on a MODEL?

I understand they are trying to scare people into vaccinating but they shouldn't.  I hate dishonest reporting in pursuit of some desired event, which in this case is vaccination.  There is a good argument for vaccination in at least poorer countries based on what has happened in the DRC.

Be honest, dudes. 

Livin' The Dream (Literally)

I had a dream two nights ago.  I was in graduate school, again, working on my 2nd Ph.D.  (Why?  Just WHY???)

A few of my fellow graduate students told me that a horrible oral exam was coming up in a couple of days and suddenly I had just had enough. I told them I was done, that I already had a Ph.D., this was stupid, and I didn't want to jump through the hoops of academia again.

I went home to Kevin (we were living somewhere else, no idea where) and told him that I just wanted to stay home with our children, though I wouldn't mind working a couple of afternoons in a lab at the school, but I didn't want to be in graduate school anymore.

I woke up and realized that I was living my dream.  I do have one Ph.D., I'm done with school forever, I work a couple of afternoons a week at a lab at the Air Force Base, and I get to spend lots of time with my children.

I adore my kids but life at home isn't necessarily easy.  I always have a to do list, I always have ungraded papers, and there is always cleaning to be done that isn't getting done.  I am on Lexapro for anxiety and that does help a lot, but I occasionally get overwhelmed now.  When we had a bunch of little kids, I got overwhelmed often.

But.

I have three friends who are widows, all of whom are younger than me, all with children.  Two of the ladies are working quite a bit to support their children and the third one may work as well -- I am not in contact with her as much.

I. Am. So. Blessed. 

Kevin makes good money, neither of us are enthusiastic spenders, and we are well able to afford for me to stay home.  I am so very thankful for that.

I'm truly living the dream.

Week of Thanksgiving

I don't have pictures of the clan on Thanksgiving. Kevin has his own stellar camera and he took the pictures, but they haven't been downloaded onto the computer. And frankly, I don't want to touch his fancy camera!

Here is a picture, though.

First Daniel cut her hair, mostly the bangs.   I worked on it a little and tidied it up. Then, like a fool, I bought some sticky putty for the three little ones and the pink putty ended up in Rose's hair. So I cut off more.  Now she has a very cute, short pixie cut.

She's always adorable, whether her hair is long or short.

Isaac and Lydia are finishing their college classes this upcoming week.  I have to arrange for, or take, Isaac to class so that will be nice. Next semester he has 2 classes but they are scheduled back to back so it will work out well.

One of these years, he will learn how to drive. We haven't even started teaching him yet and it is rather an arduous process.  Besides the actual "teaching him to drive" part, we have to do 40 hours of driving WITH him, plus we will have to pay for an expensive 8 hour driving course.  If we wait until he is 18, he won't have to do all that.  We can just teach him to drive, he'll take the test, and pass (we hope) and he'll be done.

But with more college classes next fall, it would be good if he could drive.

We'll figure it out.

Tomorrow is a big day as our 4 oldest kids are getting baptized at church!

It is kind of strange that they haven't been baptized before this as all four have been saved by Jesus for many years, but we just never had quite the right time for it. So tomorrow is the big day.  We're excited for them.  Baptism doesn't save a person, but it is an important step and it is a Biblical directive for a true Christian so yes, we're happy.

We took off school this week (except for Isaac and Lydia, who kept toiling away with college classes).  I got quite a bit done in terms of cleaning and tidying room, washing floors, etc.

This morning, I was working on school prep for the upcoming week and Rose played happily on the floor by herself with Duplos for like an hour. It was incredible. It was very nice.

This Week...

So other than the birthday this week, which was significant, this week was also notable in that we had lots of socialization!

We had neighbor kids over today for video game time, and right now our neighbor (bless her heart) is hosting a movie night for 6 of our children.  And 6 of hers.  It is so delightfully quiet in the house right now.  It is no doubt a madhouse next door.

We also had a dear friend's youngest son visiting for parts of 2 days this week. He is close to Sarah and Daniel's ages and they adored having him over!

Thanksgiving is next week and then comes the slow, inexorable march towards Christmas.  It always feels like a super busy time of year in spite of the fact that we really do NOT do a lot for Christmas compared to many families. But we do have those 3 birthdays at the end of the year. And Christmas :-).

I love Trader Joe's soy creamer and it has been out of stock for several weeks. This week I called and yes, they had it and yes I got (wait for it!) 19 containers.

19.

Saturday I am taking Isaac to an intro to engineering thing at local Wright State University.  I hope it'll be valuable and interesting.  WSU is a curious case; in some ways, it is not a great university for engineering because their lab facilities are not top notch.

But.

They are so close to the base that many faculty work with engineers on base, and many students have opportunities to intern at the base. So in that way, it is awesome.

Plus WSU is a relatively inexpensive state school which makes us happy.  So we'll see.  Isaac may end up there.

Mostly it has been a busy and good week but I admit right now, I am incredibly thankful that most of the kids are next door because I'm a little peopled out.  Those people are my people and I adore them to the moon and back, but sometimes they are noisy :-).

But I love them. A lot.

Birthday Girl

Sarah turned 9 this week!

So now we have 19, 18, 16, 15, 13, 12, 9, 7, and 5!

My parents bought her a rock kit. She is digging out rocks from, probably, plaster. She loves it!

Happy birthday, darling Sarah!