I Heard Said the Bird

Advent/Christmas Prep

We’ve kept up pretty well with advent this year despite me moving slower than normal. It’s been a fun couple of weeks.

I got creative with wrapping gifts (thank you, Pinterest). I really like how they turned out!

I snuck a Norwex party in at the end of November. Merry (free) Christmas to me!

I snagged the LEGO advent wreath at Logan’s Christmas work party. They boys were excited.

The boys and I made a sweet pretend post office. We made our own stamps with the cool sticker maker Grandma Kathleen gave us this year. We also wrapped fake packages, made a scale for them and a drop box, sorted felt envelopes into various boxes, scanned everything coming and going, and delivered a lot of mail.

Grandma Kathleen took the boys to our third annual candyhouse workshop at the children’s museum. It did not disappoint!

Lewis brought home a mini one from school...on the same day I got an email saying that 40% of the student population was out sick with fevers and vomiting. Lovely. A finger-licking activity. Great idea. {insert sarcasm}

Another Christmas treat was one of my best friend’s and her daughter visiting us for two days this week. They knew of a cool lights display, so we packed everyone up in their jammies after dinner and adventured to south Lincoln.

It also did not disappoint! It even has its own radio channel that all the lights are coordinated to. Wowza!

We put the kids to bed and whipped up 6 batches of Christmas cookies.

Some of the cookies are keto so I can eat them. I’ve yet to bake the press cookies...a project for tomorrow.

We will take goodies to our Visitation Family tomorrow!

Gingerbread Cookies

Of course, now that Elias has baked with Grandma, the request to do so is often. His new favorite is gingerbread cookies.

He also helped us whip up some St. Lucy bread dough since her feast day was the next day.

But back to the cookies...

“Mom, cookie making is hard work.”

Yes it is, Elias. Exhausting.

It’s A...

Boy! The Burda Frat lives on. The boys don’t really care that it’s another brother...they just LOVE a baby to hold, so they are happy.

We did a gender reveal Christmas present. The confetti inside was green for a (Christmas) boy. They got their trucks out and played in the confetti for a while. It was fun, but man was it a project to vacuum that all up.

We took the opportunity on the day of our ultrasound to show our love to our baby doc. She is the absolute best and we never cease to feel very well cared for and loved by her. We made t-shirts and wore them as a surprise that day. She liked them even more than I thought she would. (Thanks to Debbie for making them for us!)

Elias stayed home from the baby appointment due to nap time, but he still wore his t-shirt in solidarity.

The best part was that the joke lived on because our good friends also go to the same baby doc and had the same t-shirts on an hour later at their appointment!

A Day Home

Lewis was hit fast and furious with strep throat a few weeks ago. He was better the second day home but not yet able to return to school.

We sent Elias to Grandma’s house to keep him away from the germs, and spent the day together. It was fun!

We played at home, made salads at HyVee for lunch, and made a whirlpool viewer.

Lewis LOVES to watch the whirlpool in the drain after a bath, but it’s hard to see and not very big and (in my opinion) gross. So this experiment was very exciting for him!

Daddy Adventure

Logan took the boys to the library for some woodworking fun!

They each made a pencil box.

They also got a free book and a coupon for a DQ Blizzard, so they enjoyed that snack after all the pounding.

They had a great time, but poor daddy came home with a pounding headache from all the pounding.

Every Day with You

This guy is easy to have around. He keeps me company every day. And laughing too.

As of late, he insists on eating at my “cafe” for lunch. I have to serve him at the breakfast bar from the kitchen.

The electric company finally decided to send a crew 10 months after marking the tree that needs to come down. It’s too close to the access way that runs along the back of our yard. It was as good as Disneyland to Elias. The workers pulled a few tricks on their ropes and Elias was tickled pink. He told me “This is a funny situation, Mom.”