Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We've enjoyed the mellowest Christmas ever, with quiet, agreeable kids all day. A string of late nights are finally catching up to our kids. Or maybe they're slipping into a sugar induced coma. Either way, it's been a lovely day.

Gibson was not so quiet on Christmas Eve, demanding attention while Becky was trying to make dinner. She finally found reprieve by giving him half a pomegranate to play with. He really enjoyed digging the seeds out and eating them.


We try to do a Nativity play on Christmas Eve with mixed results. This year, only Sophie and Abe were willing to participate. Sophie was the angel and Abe was a shepherd, leaving Becky to play Mary, Joseph and the sheep. Sophie ended the play by singing "Silent Night" while holding a lit candle, simply beautiful. All the kids joined in singing "Joy to the World" after Helen put Baby Jesus in our porcelain nativity scene-- a definite parent payback moment.


A typical sight on Christmas day-- Sophie sitting somewhere reading. In the photo, she's lounging on the remains of our Christmas Eve bed. Every year, our family sleeps by the Christmas tree all together on Christmas Eve. This has gotten a lot more comfortable now that we have a fold out bed.


More reading. We've enjoyed being together and sharing all day.

Christmas snuck up on us this year, but Brandan still found time to make two cool wooden toys for the kids. He made Helen a 3D version of Connect 4, with wooden beads that slide onto dowels mounted on a block. Helen stayed in her pajamas all day, even when we went for a walk to look at Christmas lights and when she dressed up like a ballerina.

Brandan and Helen finished making the game together by painting half of the beads in bright colors. Sophie painted Helen's face with face paints in a rare moment when she wasn't reading.

Brandan made Abe a 3D puzzle from a beautiful piece of walnut. He used a router and a sander to carve valleys and hills into the piece of wood. When the pieces are scattered, it's a challenge to get them back together again.

We leave tomorrow for a trip to San Diego and will post again when we get back.

21 December 2008

We've had snow every day this week with zero accumulation on the valley floor. It's like living in a snow globe, with none of the negative attributes of snow. Here's Sophie trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue while wearing her nightgown and flip flops.


Monday was the only day with enough snow to build a snowman. Strangely enough, it was not the day school was canceled. That was Thursday. The forecast was for lots of snow, but it mostly rained. The forecast spooked the school district into closing. The snow in the photo had all melted by noon on Monday.


We put together a gingerbread train this week. We pulled a frightening amount of candy out of the pantry to decorate it with. Each person decorated a train car, except Helen who wanted to decorate the witch's house from Hansel and Gretel. "But this is the nice witch who lets Hansel and Gretel water her plants and flowers and then they go inside and have hamburgers and french fries for dinner."


We corralled Gibson in his high chair with a limited amount of frosting and candy. We don't have a photo of the finished train-- it's all about the process (and the candy) anyway.

Brandan's medical assistant gave us a puzzle which we've been working on for a few days. We haven't seen one like it before. The pieces on the outside are big and then get smaller as you move to the middle, designed so that all ages of a family can work on it together. It's hard to walk by the puzzle without stopping and trying to fit a few pieces together.

It's the season for shipping packages which means bubble wrap! The kids enjoyed hopping on some scraps Sunday morning.

No photos here, just news-- our family sang a duet with another family (well, 13 people total, hardly a duet) in our ward's Sacrament Meeting Christmas program. We sang "When Joseph Went to Bethlehem." The kids looked super cute, although we're not sure anyone beyond the organist could hear us.

14 December 2008

Gibson had a pretty awful earache last weekend that caused his eardrum to burst. He was miserable for a couple of days and only content on Brandan's lap. Thank goodness for antibiotics! He's got his game back and is running circles around us now.


We had our first snowfall of the season on Saturday. Where? Can't you see it piled up on the stairs? The snow is at least 3 or 4 snowflakes deep.


A couple of years ago, a secret Santa left a cute nativity set on our doorstep for the 12 days of Christmas. The kids like moving the pieces and it gets rearranged several times a day. The pieces, made of plastic molded to look like painted wood, are perfect for little hands.


This time, Abe creatively moved the stable outline to the front of the display to make a doorway for the stable.

Helen likes to arrange the pieces crowded close around Baby Jesus, each figure touching him, if possible. This might not be an artistic arrangement, but we love the idea of Jesus right in the center of attention, all eyes on Him, and symbolizes our best hopes for Christmas.

7 December 2008

Sophie, Abe and Helen each have an assigned night of the week to help cook dinner. They like cooking and Becky likes the company. Helen's night is Monday. In the photo, she's sauteeing onions for meatloaf, one of her favorite dinners.


We haven't seen Rudolph, but someone stuck a Santa hat on the baby elk statue in our neighborhood.


December brings back so many fun traditions, like our Christmas advent calendar. We loaded it up with lots of Dove chocolates, milk and dark. The chocolate wrappers each have a message printed inside, targeted to middle-aged women, that say things like "Find a quiet moment in your day and savor it." The kids really like reading the messages, however inappropriate to their ages. Every pocket is crammed with chocolate, so if you stop by, we can certainly find you a piece.


Yardwork slows down in the winter, but never really stops in the Northwest. We did a little weeding on a clear day this week. Here Abe admires a particularly large thistle.

This photo was taken at 2 am on December 6, just after St. Nicholas made his annual visit and filled our shoes with candy. It really disgusts St. Nick that our kids prefer super sugary American candy to European chocoloates. Luckily, they're young and their tastes will mature. In the meantime, they enjoy their M&Ms, Nerds and marshmallow Christmas trees.

30 November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! We've enjoyed a wonderful week-- the kids home from school all week and Brandan home since Wednesday afternoon. Abe brought home a trio of turkeys he made at school.


Thursday morning Brandan enjoyed a game of touch football in the field near our house. It was a misty, moist morning, but they played for a couple of hours.


Our friends, Greg and Pam, invited us to dinner along with two other families. We brought sweet potatoes and pie. Who can stop at one pie? Abe and Helen eye the desserts we brought: pumpkin pie, chocolate pumpkin pie, sugar-free chocolate pie and chocolate brownie trifle. Pam had 4 other pies for dinner so there was plenty of dessert, just the way we like it.


Our kids were the youngest at dinner (the others were teenagers) and after dinner, Pam let the kids settle into her bedroom to watch cartoons while the adults visited. Helen and Abe each snuggled into a recliner. Dinner was at 1 pm and we stayed until after 9 pm, eating and talking.

Saturday we started decorating for Christmas. The best part of decorating is listening to the kids' excitement over the tree and lights. We put a small Christmas tree in each of our kids' bedrooms, and Gibson fell asleep last night pressed up to the side of his crib, as close to the lights as he could get.

23 November 2008

Gibson was very proud of this tower he built with some groceries.


On Tuesday we had our friend, Gideon, over to play. Gideon is 5 years old and has Down's Syndrome. Abe and Helen are confused by him (why is it okay for Gideon to hit but not for us?), but Gibson just treats Gideon like every other kid he knows and enjoys playing with him. Gideon's dad is a doctor and his mom is a vet, so he knows a stethoscope when he sees one.


This is a photo of our neighbors' cat, Tia. Becky hates Tia and curses "Drat that fat cat!" whenever she sees her in our yard. It doesn't help that she digs up our plants and uses our yard for a litter box. Gibson loves Tia and gets so excited whenever he sees her. We'll have to keep our eyes open-- he'd let her into the house if he could.


It was about 40 degrees on Thursday, but Abe insisted he wanted to wear shorts to school. Well, okay. Luckily, Abe is a smart boy and it only took walking outside to convince him to go put pants on.

Saturday we went downtown to see the entries in a gingerbread house competition. The photo is of the grand prize winner-- over 150 pounds of gingerbread, frosting and candy which it took 2 months to build. Our favorites included an extremely detailed model of WALL-E, Cinderella decorating her castle for Christmas, The Wizard of Oz and a Japanese house decorated with sheets of seaweed and rice crackers (maybe not tasty, but very creative).

An art gallery downtown sponsored gingerbread cookie decorating at the same time as the gingerbread house show. Abe can't eat the cookie, but he can eat the candy!

Helen got a tummy ache after decorating her cookie. Becky didn't even think to read the label on the frosting, which Helen ate some of. Even after 5 years of allergies and some pretty scary mishaps, we still get careless. Fortunately, her stomach ache went away quickly.

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Sophie and her cookie-- a dapper fellow.

Gibson caught on to frosting pretty quickly and enjoyed decorating his cookie. Wait a minute, 4 cookies decorated, 1 kid without food allergies-- who ate the other 3 cookies? (Hint-- ask Becky!)

16 November 2008

Becky has no interest in cars and Brandan has no time, so a good mechanic is essential for our family. Luckily, we have a GREAT mechanic named Bob. He's quick, knowlegeable, skilled and completely honest. On Monday, he outdid himself by dropping our van off at our front door after completing some maintenance. Good service like that is priceless!


The kids were out of school on Tuesday for Veteran's Day. We went to the dedication of a memorial to Oregon's fallen combat veterans from all wars. The memorial is beautiful and such a good reminder that we live a pretty posh life at the same time Americans are risking their lives in two wars. One speaker said every combat soldier takes a bullet to the heart-- emotionally if not physically. The rain and low clouds prevented a scheduled F-16 flyover (this is the carrot Becky dangled to get the kids out there in the rain), but we were so glad we went and honored all our veterans. Sophie's friend, Rylee, came with us.


Becky's grandpa and dad both served in the Army, in the 82nd Airborne division. These are the guys who jump out of airplanes. Her grandpa served in France during World War II. The photo below is of her dad in his uniform-- so brave, young and handsome.


Thursday afternoon was beautiful and warm-- T-shirt weather-- so we went to the park. Gibson loves to go down the slide by himself, although he looks nervous in this photo as he lets go.

Saturday Brandan took the kids to the Clayfolk show, an artisan pottery exhibit. The kids had fun making their own projects out of clay. Brandan was inspired by the beautiful pieces they saw and wants to get his pottery wheel out and experiment on some plates and platters. Becky wouldn't mind-- her favorite dessert bowls are some Brandan made in college.

9 November 2008

Becky klept a great idea from Family Fun magazine to get the kids a piece of Election Night action. The kids nominated dinner choices for 4 catagories: main dish, side dish, drink and dessert. Becky made ballots with pictures so everyone could vote without help-- except for Gibson who was completely disenfranchised. Sophie is holding up her ballot in the photo below.


Here's a photo of Abe putting his ballot in the ballot box. We voted Monday night and ate our dinner Tuesday night as we watched the returns. The winners were chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes with gravy, smoothies and brownies with ice cream. It felt like a party to eat such a big dinner in the middle of the week. (It helped that our guy won.) The kids definitely want to do this again.


The kids love piling blankets and pillows at the bottom of the steps and jumping on them. They call this a "jumping case," so if you hear them say "Let's build a jumping case," this is what it means.


Sophie's turn to jump. It only took 18 tries to get a photo of someone in the air.

On Saturday, Sophie and Abe went to a pirate-themed birthday party. Becky asked them to scowl for the camera. Shiver me timbers! Them be fierce scalywags!

2 November 2008

Hip hip hooray for Brandan's medical practice! His group was voted "Favorite Medical Group" in our newspaper's annual Readers' Choice awards. The only prize is mention in last Sunday's newspaper. Brandan also received the highest rating for patient satisfaction this quarter. That award comes with a $50 gift certificate.


The firewood we ordered was delivered this week. We have no idea how much wood we'll use and we don't have a lot of room for storing it, so we started with one cord. Abe helped Becky stack the wood alongside our garage. He liked testing his limits and carrying the big pieces. The wood is madrone, a common hardwood in our area. The trees have red bark and wonderfully twisted trunks.


Halloween was our big event this week and it was our best Halloween ever. Four kids equals 4 times the fun. The rest of the photos are from Halloween, starting with Sophie in her costume. She dressed up as Night Rider (not to be confused with Knight Rider.) Night Rider is a villainous character made up by Sophie who commits all kinds of terror as she pursues her main objective, destroying Tom, the man who jilted her. Sophie has written short stories and a musical starring Night Rider. This whole thing took waaaayyy too long to explain, so Sophie would just say "Evil" when she was asked what she was.


No need to guess here-- Abe was Spiderman. He loved the padded muscles on his costume.

Helen changed her mind nearly hourly in the weeks up to Halloween about what she wanted to be. Luckily, we have lots of dress-ups and could stay flexible. She dressed as a princess for visiting Brandan's office (scored lots of candy there) and for watching the school parade. . .

. . . and as Pippi Longstocking for trick-or-treating. Helen thought if she said "Trick-or-treat" first, she could take candy from our bowl of trick-or-treat candy by the front door. Just wait, Helen-- when you're an adult, you don't even need to say "Trick-or-treat!"

Gibson was a monkey.

He went headless most of the time, but Sophie coaxed him into his hat for one photo.

We all went to school for the Halloween parade. A band of fifth graders, including Sophie, played salsa rhythms to accompany the parade. Sophie played the go go bells. The bells are 2 metal cones that she hit with a stick.

Here's a photo of the band- lots of percussion instruments.

Here's friendly neighborhood Spiderman in the school parade. Surprisingly, the werewolf behind Abe is named Ava. Abe says she has the best growl ever.

In the evening, we went to our ward trunk-or-treat and then trick-or-treating to a few neighbors. We were home by 7:30 pm. The kids poured their loot out on the table to gloat over. The 4th pile between Helen and Sophie is the contraband candy-- stuff Helen and Abe got that they are allergic to. Becky let them swap it out for candy they can eat in our trick-or-treat bowl. Not that they need more candy, but it makes a raw deal seem a little more fair.