the minivan voorsts.: what's up weekly. (atticus turns fourteen, and the second tree's the charm.)

Well, hello there party people. I'm sure you were wondering if we have continued to survive our winter of death, and I am here to tell you we HAVE! It was still kind of touch-and-go at the beginning of the week, but by midweek we seem to have finally pulled out of it. (Knock on wood.)

On Friday night, Todd surprised Atticus with a late night viewing of 1917 after the other kids had gone to bed. They had movie snacks and drinks and had some 'guy' time while I spent two hours folding laundry I had let myself get far too behind on.

On Saturday morning, we planned to head to a neighboring town to visit a tree farm to look for a new Christmas tree (remember how last week's tree was a fail?), but Todd suggested calling them before making the drive, just to be sure they had what I was looking for. The guy on the phone told me that while they did indeed have three trees left over nine feet, one was $180, the second was $249 and the third was $349. "And," he added, "none of them are in great shape." Well.

So we called the Lowes 45 minutes north of us, and they said they had tall trees in good shape, for much less. So we decided to go there instead. But once we got in the car, I started to feel funny, and Atticus was as white as a sheet and complaining of stomach pain. We decided to brave it, but were so relieved when, five miles out of town, we randomly passed an unlisted tree farm. We drove up and asked if they had any precut nine-foot trees, and they did, and when they heard we were headed to Lowes, they cut the price of my favorite by a full third. So we left the house, picked out a tree, and were back home in under a half an hour. AND our money went to a small local business, AND it was on the Missouri side of the border so the taxes on it were literally half of what we would have paid in Kansas. Win-win-win.

We got home and got it all situated, but had to put tree-related activity on pause to celebrate Atticus' upcoming birthday. He spent the afternoon opening gifts and getting tackled by siblings.

The little sisters were in high-form cuteness.

Wave of babies.

Atticus had felt okay from the time we got home, but began to feel sick again later in the afternoon and felt so awful by dinner that he barely ate, and still was so sick by bedtime that we set up a mattress on the floor for him to sleep on (we have experienced a variety of crises involving sick kids in the bunk bed). I stayed home from church with him on Sunday, and Finneas stayed home as well as his head was hurting. It was good I was already home, because I started feeling so gross as the morning progressed. I did what I could to get the lights up on the tree while I had a little extra time. When Todd and the kids got home later, it was ready to decorate!

Luckily, Atticus felt pretty good through the day and was back to normal by Monday - his fourteenth birthday! He got to pick all the food for the day - breakfast burrito bread and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, spaghetti bake for lunch, and tacos for dinner. It was a full day of cooking, but I think he loved it.

We have all enjoyed watching him get older. Literally. I like to call this series of photos, "The Gallery Gradually Grows."

Atticus is steady and sweet. He's responsible, hard working, creative, and much too hard on himself. He is an amazing artist and he loves babies. He still devours anything about World War II he can get his hands on. He is so stinking tall, and his voice is so stinking deep (or 'dark,' as Lissy says). He has been so enjoyable to know and love for these last fourteen years. It has gone so quickly.

The day after Atticus' birthday is St. Nicholas Day, and you know we partied it up real good. The kids set out our wooden shoes the night before, and hung a candy cane on the tree for St. Nicholas, who stealthily filled up the shoes with Dutch chocolate, marzipan fruits, real oranges, ribbon candy, Dutch letters, and chocolate coins. On St Nicholas Day morning, the kids get to choose a treat from their shoes to eat with breakfast.

The Little Dutch Girl

Dutch cookies, the traditional treat for this day. They're like little tiny button-sized ginger snaps.

Now, I could see where you could start to wonder if our steady diet of sugar is the culprit behind our monthlong illness, but NO. We ate all this on Tuesday, and everyone but Ophelia has been healthy since then. And she was the only one who DIDN'T eat candy and cookies all day. I'm personally starting to wonder if we were sugar deficient and St. Nicholas Day treats were the remedy that brought us back to health. Anecdotally, there is some evidence to support it.

So like I said, Ophelia did run a low fever on Tuesday, but she may have just been teething. The next day she slept like ALL DAY, and then that night she was awake like ALL NIGHT. Rough stretch, but she seems to be back to her old self. She's even learning to drink raw milk from a sippy cup, and the girl would live exclusively on chicken if I let her. She loves chicken.

As for the rest of the week, the weather has been beautiful so the kids have spent many hours outside, we have completed yet another week of school (one more week until the end of term and a three week break!), Todd hung lights around the outside of the house and the deck, and the big girls baked Cookie. It was like a rat king made of cookies.

Lolo was pretty excited.

Penelope was pretty confused.

Todd was pretty hungry.

Rocco finished Charlotte's Web for the first time. He said, "That was sad." I said, "Yuouoiublubblubblub" through my tears. It gets me EVERY STINKING TIME. "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both." BAAAAAAAAAAAHwahhhhhhwahhhhh.