Mom: Unprocessed: December 2008

The Christmas season has been great for us so far. We've attended a couple of really fun parties with our unschooling friends. One involved an insane cookie exchange, jumping on the trampoline in the rain and lots of High School Musical (Charis' new favorite). The other was a raw dessert making party - yeah! My good friend Ginger arranged it, and we had such a lovely time of not-cooking, eating, laughing and relating with each other. I really like those girls!

My parents invited us to go to their church's Christmas program.It involved lots of Christmas carol singing. Everytime Charis knew one of the songs she looked at me excitedly and whispered (really loud) "I know this one!" She hasn't figured out yet that there are only 10 carols that get recycled every year. This first picture is waiting for the program to start.

After the program they had set up this elaborate village they called "Christmasville". Every little house front had a carnival game to play with a candy reward. It was like Halloween all over again. There was even snow falling the entire time. Kinda insane, but the kids loved it. Charis got a reindeer painted on her face.

And, classic thing to happen, Paxton was chosen to help with the magic show. This magician was hilarious, and Pax was pretty confused. He had him take off his shoes and socks (which Pax was not too sure about) and finally found the missing handkerchief in his shoe.

We had an early Xmas celebration with Caleb's uncle and aunt. They got a bunch of fun little gifts -the kinds I don't buy for them. So, I don't have to feel bad for saying no to those things anymore. Here is a picture of Jonas walking his dog.

Caleb and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary December 18th. It was a great night. Luckily we had stayed up late the night before talking through a big "issue" we were having. So date night was cleared up to just enjoy each other. We went to dinner in Del Mar at a yummy restaurant called Paradise Grill. Then saw an amazing movie, "Slumdog Millionaire". Caleb says its his new favorite movie (which is not easily proclaimed). I highly recommend seeing it. It takes place in India and is about a poor kid who makes it on India's version of "So you want to be a Millionaire". It is primarily a love story, but interwoven with the horrors of India, brotherly relations, and destiny's pull. The filming is really creative and I loved the soundtrack.

Im really really happy to be married to Caleb. Its been overwhelmingly clear to me the last few years that God made us perfect for each other. We have both learned so much from our relationship and become more full people because of it. And, best of all, we still really like each other. I still think he's super cute and funny. And want to hang out with him more than anyone else. I feel thankful to have been married to him these past 9 years.

Caleb's work had a craft day last week. Employees were encouraged to bring homemade gifts to sell and everyone was invited to come purchase. Caleb asked if Charis could bring something and they agreed. She was really excited to have a place to sell some of her stuff. She makes things all the time and often has elaborate plans of how she's going to sell them (involving knocking on all the neighbor's doors or something like that). So this was a perfect opportunity.

Once we settled on making gift tags for Christmas presents we got to work. I did the cutting and gluing, and she did the coloring and designing. It was a really fun project to do together and they turned out awesome. She was really nervous that no one was going to buy them. And I was too when she was planning to charge $5 per tag. But she was okay with 2 tags for $1.

Everyone loved her and her tags. She made over $20! She spent some of it right away on other people's crafts and then spent most of the rest on a new video game (Cooking Mama).