Eva has recently learned the word “eat.” When she’s not eating but would like to, she will point to her highchair and say, “Eat!” Aidan has had, since the day we met him, a bottomless stomach: the boy does not know when to stop eating. As a result, I’ve taken to calling them our Eat-iopians.

Every year we do Advent readings, although we always get started late. We missed the first two weeks of readings this year but have been mostly consistent this week. We had some friends and their kids over last night (between our two families, I think we had 47 people here; or 13–what’s the difference, really?) for the Advent reading and lighting the Advent candles. Suz had made a Happy Birthday Jesus cake and the kids made a reindeer candy cane craft together.

Once again, we have a red dragon in one of our nativity scenes as well, a not-so-gentle reminder that there is a great price to be paid for peace on earth and good will toward those on whom God’s favor rests.

After our Advent party, we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on Hulu. Ironically, this classic program about the search for the meaning of Christmas was punctuated by commercials from Best Buy featuring a dad running through the house on Christmas morning, past the kids, to find a huge flat-screen TV in the living room and exclaiming, “How’d it get down the chimney?!” Pathetic, Best Buy.

Not sure how much we’ll post in the upcoming days–we posted a grand total of 14 times this past year. Maybe that’s a new year’s resolution for 2012. Either way, blessings to all of you in this season and the year ahead. Peace on earth and goodwill to those on whom God’s favor rests.

Congratulations to Suz–she’s worked hard to earn this and has done a terrific job.

On a more pleasant note, the other four kids have been playing indoor soccer the last two Saturdays. Although Aidan turns 5 in April, we signed him up to play with the 6 year-olds on Maura’s team since we figured his skills would probably put him beyond the younger kids. After he scored three goals and dominated the first game (Maura also scored a goal in that game), however, the league coordinator felt it would be good to bump him up to the next age bracket. So now he’s playing on Liam’s team with the 7-8 year-olds. How did he do today? Aidan and Liam’s team scored five goals to the other team’s zero; Aidan had two goals and one assist while Liam also had two goals. Aidan’s assist, actually, was a pass to Liam—sweet. Aidan’s soccer chops have become quite the buzz here and it was great fun to watch the boys play together.

“Dad, do you think you can get these screws out?”

I wrestled with it for a few moments and loosened them.

“Wow–Grandma and mom tried and they couldn’t do it.”

“Well it’s a good thing you have a dad then, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d be without you.”

“Right back at you, bud,” I replied.

He smiled, then returned to dismantling his car.