Merry Christmas from our family to yours. I am thankful for each of you. Have a blessed time celebrating with your loved ones. God coming to earth to be with us is truly reason to celebrate.
I will see you back here next week.
Sofija
Author: sofijaburton
Christmas Photo Shoot
Here is our 2013 Christmas photo shoot. It was very spontaneous, yet I am happy how it turned out. On Saturday we woke up to a new batch of snow. Emily was available to take pictures, so we decided to do it an hour later. The first one is so sweet. Tasha really wasn’t sure about this shoot; and she was cold when I took her jacket off. So she snuggled up against me to stay warm.
My vision for this shoot was to have the kids walking in the snow, pretending they are delivering presents.
I didn’t really plan for these two crazies to take off with the wheelbarrow. Somehow Shane decided to push the wheelbarrow and Ella jumped in and the whole thing turned into a wild ride. I love when a shoot brings out the kid’s personalities. 
It was Emily’s idea to have the kids stand in one line pretty much at the same spot we took pictures last year. I love the brightness and colors of this picture. 
Lastly a fun silly picture.
What a fun shoot! I had been wanting to do something like this every since I saw these photos.
Have a lovely day,
Sofija
All pictures taken by Lonely Mountain Photography. Styling by Sofija Burton.
Happy 4th Advent
It snowed. We went behind our house and took pictures. More coming soon…
Happy 4th Advent!
-Sofija
Antik Batik Winter 2013
Antik Batik is a French company for girls ages 2-14. I like how they mix colors, patterns, and prints: Tunisian gowns, Aztec Indian embroidery, and tie dye all mixed in with some fun colors and soft vests.
The blue Aztec tunic on top is my favorite. The orangey/yellow pants would brighten up any dreary winter day. The Tunisian vest (second to last picture) would make a big statement on any outfit.
Have a lovely day,
Sofija
A House Filled With Music
Friends,
I apologize for keeping an erratic posting schedule this week. This last week was filled with music, concerts, late nights (really late), great conversations, friends coming and going. And now reality has hit me hard. It is less than a week till Christmas! I am so not ready, and I dread going shopping so close to Christmas.
One of my favorite moments this past week is pictured above. Graig and Graciana Holland were practicing with our friend Jon for a show. I am not a musical person; I tried and failed at the recorder and gave up right then and there. I cannot sing either. But I really appreciate other people who are musical. And when they play at my house it is the best.
So that is what I will remember this next week amidst all the shopping, packing (for Finn as he will be spending Christmas with his cousin), cleaning, and wrapping.
I hope your week and preparations are going well.
See you back here soon,
Sofija
An Advent Poem
On the advent of antiquity
I AM
brought into being
Crows, chrysanthemums, caterpillars, clouds
Creating form and function
Facets and features out
Of nothing?
It was so much more than nothing
That brought calm out of chaos and
breath into being
Mind into matter
Spirit into soul
People into promise
Love into life
Love that gives and graces and generates
Three times as much love
A trinity of capacity
Expanding dimension and scope
A magnitude of out-of-proportion love
A bigger on the inside kind of love
that defies classification, method,
logic, sense, reason,
gravity even
When Love came down
And brought us
Hope
The thing with more than just feathers
But hands feet heart
The thing becoming a Who
becoming a He
Who would rescue our
Deep, dark hearts
From hurt and hate and hell
Harnessing heaven
Hijacking history 
To give us haters and us hurters
Hope
and a future,
hope
in a He who would usher in
Hope
in the face of fear and failure and falsehood,
This swaddled son
the favored One
Who heaps favor on us
To be for us
The friend
the father
the generous benefactor
Of all good things
Given by God
In his great mercy
Granting us more than we could
hope
or expect
From He who is more than we deserve
More than we can imagine
More than we can comprehend
estimate
calculate
correlate
communicate
this communion
state of this union
of faith and hope and love
this newborn stranger,
this hope in a manger
this hope of Israel
the hope of their fathers
the hope of the poor
hope of human hearts
the hope of all the ends of the earth
this hope of salvation
of all who need saving
all who are straining
to receive
struggling
to believe
in a
hope
that
does not
disappoint
Friends, I hope you find some time to rest and prepare for Christmas. For a really cute, creative, funny New Zealand take on the Christmas story go here. My kid’s love it!! Thank you Miriam!
-Sofija
Tammy Perlmutter has graciously let me use her poem. Pictures taken by the talented Colleen Davick. Nice to have creative friends.
The Hollands! Christmas Tour
New Mexico friends, you don’t want to miss this. The Hollands! are coming to Albuquerque for their Christmas tour. They do a great interactive show involving kids buy letting them participate with shakers and rattles. I promise you this show will be a highlight of your Christmas season.
Want to know more about them? You can find my interview about their road schooling (home-schooling on the road) experience here. And here is a post I did on their concert in February at our house. Lastly you can find their blog here.
Hope to see you there,
Sofija
Sisters
Our house endures a lot of fighting and bickering. We are not the mild and meek sort; and with six kids spending every day together, we go through lots of conflict resolutions. So it is extra sweet when this happens…
Have a lovely day,
Sofija
All pictures taken by Esther Burton
Make This: Christmas Banner
I made this banner originally for a Christmas card photo shoot. But it makes a nice decoration piece for your home, too. It is really easy to make, the only thing that took a little time was hand stitching the triangles to the cord. Had I glued them it would have been much faster and I could have done it in one afternoon. I am not much of a seamstress and not a super crafty person. So if I can make this, so can you. 
Here is what I used: a roll of Jute twine (got it real cheap at Hobby Lobby). A yard of muslin for the letters and a fat quarter of red material to separate the words. I cut the triangles free hand, but Hobby Lobby sells packets of them if you need a template.
I bought a red fabric marker and wrote the letters on the triangles. Make sure you have an old magazine under your muslin when you write on it with the marker. The marker will bleed through the material and stain whatever is under it.
I used the blanket stitch to sew the triangles onto the twine. I thought it would look classy. But gluing them with fabric glue would have been faster and easier. 
Here is what I would do differently next time. I would not leave any spaces between the letters. The banner is quite long and this would shorten it considerably.
Materials needed:
Jute twine
1 yard of muslin
1 fat quarter of red material
1 fabric marker
red thread or fabric glue
fabric scissors
Optional:
rotary cutter
cutting mat
If you just buy the essentials I would estimate this project to cost less than $15.
Happy crafting,
Sofija
16 Days Until Christmas
Friends,
Last week we went to see the Nutcracker, had our St. Nikolaus celebration, baked cookies, and bought our tree yesterday. I thought Christmas preparations were coming along pretty smoothly…until I realized this morning that we have company coming on Wednesday and our guest bathroom drain is clogged. Has been clogged for a while now. But I failed to mention it to the husband until this morning. Which makes husband very unhappy and added a whole lot of stress to our week. I hate when I forget these minor details…
Does this happen to you? One day you feel like your life is going pretty well, and the next day it all turns into an uncontrollable mess? The clogged drain is not the only thing on my to do list this week: I got the house to clean, children to teach (I promised my 12 year old to help her study for her semester test which takes hours), I’m doing extra laundry because somebody had an accident, the list goes on. On days like this I am so grateful that I have two older children who can really help with cleaning and cooking.
What do you do when life gets crazy? I alternate between focusing just on the things that absolutely have to get done, and being so frazzled that I waste time on non-essentials. I really hope I can pull of the being focused part this week. If you don’t hear from me the next few days, you know why…
Have a wonderful week you guys, may it go smoother than mine!
-Sofija
Teach Where You Live 