Happy Holidays

We had a very happy holiday season this year. We were so lucky to get to have my mom and dad come and stay for Christmas. We had a blast. They came a few days before Christmas and we got to take mom on her first "train ride" (the light rail). It was so much fun - albeit very crowded that week. The kids love riding the train so getting to go with Grandma and Grandpa was a real treat. We went down town to visit one of the largest book stores in the United States -Powells Books. It was AWESOME! While not the prettiest book store, it is so worth visiting. I have never seen so many books in one place at one time. They sell new and used so the prices vary from super cheap to super expensive (they have a collectors room - pricey :). We all enjoyed it although I will admit I was afraid I was going to lose one of my kids. I could not keep track of them to save my life. Thank goodness for grandparents :).

This was the tree they put up in Pioneer Square down town. It was HUGE! It was taller than many of the buildings. It was so pretty when it was lit up.

My camera is has issues with inside pictures, but here was our table setting for Christmas Eve. It has been a tradition in our family (for as long as I can remember) to hang a small present from the chandelier during dinner to open as soon as dinner is over. I loved it growing up and it is something our kids love as well. The girls actually hung them for me this year.

David got these fun little crackers form target. You pop them open by pulling them apart and there is a fun little gift inside. It is a British tradition and I hope we do it every year. It was a great little addition to our celebration.

I know the lighting is horrid and my camera doesn't take the best indoor pictures, but our little feast was delicious. We have started doing our big meal on Christmas Eve and our soup on Christmas day, and we are really liking it that way. It just helps fill up Christmas Eve, and then gives us great food to eat all day on Christmas. It is a win - win situation in my book :).

David decided to dye the eggs green for a more festive look. They looked so crazy, but they had the same great taste they always have.

Jello has become a new family tradition in our house. We don't celebrate a single holiday without jello anymore. It is by far Jacob's favorite dish :).

Hurray! Time to open Chandelier gifts.

I never got an after picture of mom and dad's gift either. It was the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." I couldn't believe they didn't have that one yet (on DVD). Who doesn't love that movie.
"Merry Christmas Bedford Falls!"

The kids got Pokemon tins with tons of Pokemon cards. They all spent the night trading cards. It was great and gave them something to do.

Katie isn't into Pokemon so she got a Dora puzzle (in case you can't see it since my camera puts a glare on anything with a smooth surface).
I know hair ties are nothing to get that excited over, but I have been wanting these for a long time and just kept forgetting to buy them. I was so proud of David for getting the right ones. Way to go babe!

We all enjoyed his gift. I have never seen mini Toblerones. They were perfect. I think mini things are the best!

David made the best sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. He took the time to totally decorate each one of the 4 cookies. The 5th one on the far right was done by Katie. These five cookies were put out for Santa and the carrots were for the reindeer. In the morning we realized Santa wasn't very hungry this year because there was only a small bite taken out of one of the cookies, and the reindeer forgot to take the carrots with them. They must have been really busy. Maybe Santa just couldn't handle devouring such perfect cookies and thought that David deserved to eat them himself. I don't know. Either way, we enjoyed them ;).

Once again, the glare! Our 3 older kids have been riding the same bikes for the last 4 years. Santa decided it was time to get them some bikes that fit their heights. It was a very fun Christmas morning. They actually got to ride them that day because it wasn't raining. But it was very cold so they didn't stay out very long.

Nana and Papa always send something super fun for the family. This year it was actually called a family fun box. It had tons of great movies and games and treats. It was definitely a family favorite. Thank you so much! What a fun idea! How well you know us :). (I had more pictures of the family fun box, but somehow I deleted them off my blog and as it is 11:30 I realized I am to tired to figure out how to get them back on. Just know that it was an AWESOME gift :)

Jacob got a Konzu Pet (however you spell it) battle station from Santa. It was fun to watch those little guys battle away.

Katie has had her eye on this dress up from Target (and Santa's workshop:) for months.

She looked like a real little princess.

Emma loves the Percy Jackson series and so does David so this was really killing 2 birds with one stone :).

We got Joelle this fun little microscope not even knowing if was something she would really want. It turned out to be a favorite. They keep talking about what they think things will look like under the microscope. They played "little scientists" for about 3 days straight. Taking notes and everything. Thank you Costco for such fun, learning, inexpensive gift ideas.

David gets me a can of mixed nuts every year. I love them!

Not to mention he also gets me the cutest clothes. He is such a great gift giver (just like his mom:).

Julie told me about this game "Last Word". She says they had a blast playing it with Tim, Katy, John and Tiffany. I got it for David because we love trying new games. We hope to try it out soon with Wendy's family.

Somehow I missed getting a picture of Ben by himself. He was quite happy with his bike and his Harry Potter legos (Hagrids Hut - which I believe the girls had the most fun building.) I also didn't get a picture of the super cute blankets my parents brought for the kids. We were in desperate need of more blankets up here with all this chilly weather (especially since our heater broke they day before new years eve and we haven't been able to get it fixed yet... thank goodness for blankets!!!!). Thank you to everyone for all your wonderful gifts. We love you all and hope that everyone had a very happy Christmas and hope for a happy New Year!

Funny Stories

Yesterday after homeschool the girls were playing with my stamps, and Joelle noticed that it seemed like she was a librarian.... stamp.... stamp.... stamp, etc. She came up with the great idea of playing library. This was a new one I had never heard of :). Basically it consisted of the girls sitting at their little school table in their room writing a bunch of little books so that they could stamp inside them just like they do at the library (which they don't do much anymore since it is all computerized now :). Ben kept running out with a new "book" that he had checked out for me to read to him. They were really funny little stories. Then he and Jake decided that they wanted to make a book to put in the girls library. The boys are not as patient as the girls as far as writing and illustrating their own books, so they asked me to type for them while they told me what to write. Here are their stories for anyone who is interested. I tried to type exactly as they said it. Enjoy!


Deadly Dinosaurs (by Ben Christensen)

The first deadly dinosaur that we all know of is called T-Rex. The T-Rex is the biggest, most
largest dinosaur that we know of.

The Pterydactl is the flying dinosaur. It can sometimes be deadly. When it is deadly you might
not want to be near it because it will fly down, pick you up, take you to it's natural habitat.
Usually their natural habitats are on super high rocks, like a cliff. The super high rocks are
usually skinny. If they are skinny, they usually don't have babies. (It took me a second reading to understand that he meant the Pterydactls don't have babies if the rocks are skinny :)

The Triceritops is a really deadly dinosaur. I think it weighs over 200 pounds. It has 3 horns.
2 horns are on it's head and the 3rd one is his nose. If you get hit by one of these sharp horns, usually you will die. If you are lucky, you will just have to go to a doctor.

Stay tuned for the next book.


The Backyardagains Super Hero (by Jake Christensen)

Here is Jacob.

I am going to type in a story.

It is about backyardagains. It is probably going to be a christmas one.

Once upon a time there was 1 abominable snowman, and 1 ice was in his way but I don't know why. Then there was 4 elves and 1 santa. Santa had lots of presents, wind up toys, dancing dolls, and butterflies, and snakes. He has all sorts of stuff.

And then they found a jewel. There was green, yellow, blue, red and sparkle blue. Then white. That was a costume and at the white part there was a smoker that can play 5025 smoke.
But incase there was two blocks of ice and then a wall full of 225 blocks of ice and then there was a dinosaur.
Then we found a stack and then there was no toys in there and then they put in toys.

The End.
(I was actually spelling out all of the numbers at first, but he said he wanted to see the "real" numbers. He is a number kid.)

Gingerbread Ornaments

This week we made some gingerbread Christmas tree ornaments to hang on the fresh Oregon Christmas tree our landlord dropped off. We didn't have any good gingerbread man cookie cutters, so we just made snowmen, Santas and Christmas trees. The kids had a fun time cutting out the cookies and frosting them.

Recipe

I'm Getting Nuttin' For Christmas

One of our kids' favorite Christmas songs is I'm Getting Nuttin' For Christmas.

Here is Katie's version.



Translation for those who don't speak Katie language:

I'm gettin' nuttin' to Christmas
Mommy and Daddy mad

Ok, we do that again.

Mommy or Daddy are mad

Oh, I need to do that part ... Mommy ...

I'm gettin' nuttin' to Christmas
Mommy or Daddy mad

I love the holidays!

Okay, so we all know me, if there isn't a ton of pictures it isn't my blog. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to put less on, but until then.... enjoy! So, two Sundays ago I came home from visiting teaching just as it was starting to snow. I was so excited to go in and tell the kids. They had already noticed and were jumping up and down with joy. I joined them of course and we satat the back door just watching the snow fall. It fell for maybe 10 min. and none of it stuck, but it was fun to watch. If you look closely at this picture you will see the snow flakes around Joelle. It is so funny that it is snowing and yet my grass is so green. I love it up here :)!
That morning when we had woken up there was frost on everything, so the kids took these pictures, thinking it was snow. I was so glad it snowed that afternoon so they weren't too disappointed.

Monday night I took the 3 older kids to see Harry Potter. When we came out it was totally snowing. It was so cool. We were shocked. We didn't even know it was coming and when we came out of the movie it was all over our car and the grass and everything. What a cool way to end such a fun night.

Look how huge the snowflakes are. It was perfect snow for snowballs and snowmen. Even though it was nine o'clock at night we were all out making both :).

Somehow we have winter gear for the girls......

...but not the boys. I am not sure how that happened, but I am shortly going to rectify that situation. The boys didn't notice or care, but I did. Ben actually went in and got a pair of socks to use for gloves. They wouldn't even change into pants. Ben does have a coat, he just wouldn't wear it. He was so fun to watch in the snow. He was made for this weather. He only complained about his hands being cold. And even that was after about an hour.

Katie (or "Little Missy"as we call her) was in heaven. She just walked around singing to herself and watched the snow fall. She made a snowball or two, but mostly just to eat them. She thought that was the best part. She is in jammies and rain boots (we haven't outfitted her yet for snow either - I have got to hit some yard sales this summer :).

For the first time since we moved up here David admitted he was cold that night. He had a blast with the kids though. He got his gloves and was out there making snowballs and snowmen right along with them. I love to watch him with the kids. Sometimes I think he is just a big kid himself. He makes everything so fun.

Look at those flakes. They are amazing! The man in the picture is pretty fabulous as well. What would life be like without David. I am sure you would all agree.... BORING!

I know I have been saying snowmen, but as you can tell there was not enough snow for that. It was really one tiny little snowman. But they were proud. It was their first snowman they ever built in a town we actually lived in. We love this little guy. (Look closely, he is there :)

This was our backyard the next morning. It really wasn't very much snow. Good thing though, because we were leaving that day to go to Grandma's and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving. The snow actually helped because if it snows here at all tons of people telecommute instead of going to the office. Such was the case with this day, so our drive on the freeway that evening was great. Thank you snow! We made it to Port Orford in five and a half hours including a dinner break. That is a record for us.

The kids couldn't resist another play day in the snow :).

A weird thing happened over Thanksgiving, we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for 5 days, we helped Wendy unpack, had an amazing dinner at Joan and Jean's (thank you laddies - you are amazing) and the only pictures I got were a couple of us freezing at the beach the day after Thanksgiving. I don't get it, I had my camera the whole time I just forgot to use it. Just know, it was a wonderful week!

The ocean was amazing that day. It was cold and the wind was crazy but the waves were awesome and were huge. The funny thing is, Thanksgiving was sunny and beautiful and Sunday was sunny and beautiful. But the one day that was totally open to us (David was driving Jose back to the airport most of the day on Saturday ) was rainy and cold. Isn't that how it always happens? We loved it anyway. It was just great to be on vacation.

Katie couldn't handle the wind. She kept burying her head in David's shoulder. She was so cute. When he set her down by the big rock she started to blow away (and she wasn't being silly - she could hardly stand), it was making us all laugh.

I love this picture. Emma was imagining something, I could hear her mumbling to herself. I could tell she was happy and enjoying her imaginings. She was the last one off the beach. I turned around and had to get a shot. I thought it was so neat to see her with the huge angry ocean behind her and have her be so calm and peaceful. It was a very special afternoon.

When we first got to town David noticed that their tiny little theater was open for the weekend (it isn't always open) and the only movie it was showing was "Megamind". We had wanted to take the kids to see it so we decided Friday afternoon was perfect. They had 2 showings a day. One at 4 and one at 7. We took the kids to the 4:00 showing Friday afternoon. I know it is a bad picture and the place looks pretty drab on the outside, but we were pleasantly surprised when we got in. I love the small town feel and the theater was just as great. They took your money at the door (it was $5 a person since it was a matinee). We got a Med. popcorn (which was also much cheaper than here) and had a great time watching the movie with the other 15 people that ventured out that afternoon. As we left the owner's little boy (maybe 8 years old), stood at the door and passed out candy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes small towns can be so great.

We had a wonderful time with all those wonderful Port Orford folks. We can't wait to go back. Mom and Dad are amazing hosts and are so good to us when we stay. It was so great to be with Jose, Wendy, and their kids again. We miss the rest of our family and hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We love you all and hope you are enjoying your holidays!