29 December 2013

Merry Christmas!  We celebrated Christmas Eve with a special dinner and program, ending with the nativity story.  Sofi was the narrator and angel, Abe was Joseph, Helen was Mary and Gibson, Becky and Brandan were innkeepers, shepherds and wise men.

 The sister missionaries in our ward spent Christmas Day with us.  They came in the late morning and stayed through dinnertime.  Christmas is an extra special day for the missionaries because they can call and Skype home.  After their phone calls were finished, Sofi helped the missionaries decorate T-shirts with freezer paper stencils.  Sister D. is headed to New Zealand as soon as she gets a visa, so she put an outline of New Zealand on her shirt.

We all got special homemade gifts this year.  Abe made origami lanterns for everyone out of waxed paper.  Brandan hung his lantern on our Christmas tree.

Gibson made monster keychains.  He drew the designs for the keychains and helped pick out fabric.  Becky sewed the monsters together and Gibson stuffed them.  This is the keychain he made for Helen.

Abe hung his keychain on his backpack.

Sofi started a new personal progress project this month.  She has asked 10 different people to teach her how to cook one of their special dishes.  She started her project this week with Willie teaching her how to make butter letter (say bootah leetah.)  Willie got the recipe from her Dutch mother-in-law and she only makes it twice a year.

 Butter letter is a Dutch pastry that is mostly butter, sugar and almond paste, with a little flour to hold it together.  Here is a photo of the finished treat.

 At home we made gingerbread houses.  It's been a few years since we've made them.  Gibson doesn't remember decorating a gingerbread house and he was the loudest advocate for making them this year.

 Sofi made a gingerbread TARDIS.  It's decorated with a striped scarf, jelly babies (Dr. #4) and a red fez (Dr. #11.)

 Here's a photo of Abe with his gingerbread castle and Gibson with his house.

 And here's Helen and her house.

22 December 2013

Sofi was inducted into National Honor Society this week.  Her school had a nice honors evening planned 2 weeks ago, but the event was canceled because of the snow.  Instead, all the honors students and about 5 parents met in a crowded, smelly classroom during lunch.  (The lunches were probably the source of the smell.)  Three cheers for Sofi and her good grades!

 Becky thought about getting creative for teacher gifts this year, but December is not a good month for creativity.  Our kids decorated Lindt candy bars as reindeer, snowmen and Santas.  The best part of this activity is they have done it so often, they hardly need any help.

 Abe set up an assembly line to make reindeer.  He kept adding more people to his list-- his school teacher and aide, the high school intern for his class, the principal, the librarian, the office workers, his Primary teachers. . . Abe spread lots of Christmas cheer this week.

Helen got a trophy this week for having 500 Accelerated Reader points at a school assembly.  

We had Gibson's Four Foot Tall party on Saturday.  We celebrate this milestone in our family by watching a movie (Gibson chose Planes) and eating treats.

 We're coming to the end of our Christmas Concert series.  This is the third year we've played mini concerts for some of our good friends.  Our calendar filled up quickly.  We brought a keyboard along this year which added more music to our program.

 Our concerts have all been a little different, but they follow the same general idea.  We began with Sofi accompanying on the keyboard while our whole family sang "It's a Marshmallow World."  Abe played the guitar.  He played some combination of "We Three Kings," "The Friendly Beasts," and "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."  Helen played "Away in a Manger" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on the violin.  Abe played "Carol of the Bells " on the keyboard.  He added "The Holly and the Ivy" when there was a piano available. Helen played one or two Christmas carols on the keyboard.  She learned about 10 Christmas songs this year, so she just played whatever she fancied at the moment.  We ended all of our concerts by singing "O Holy Night" while Abe played the guitar.  Gibson surprised us tonight by playing "Joy to the World" on the keyboard as an encore.  We started these concerts as a family service project, but our kids have left every concert this year with unexpected treats and surprises.

15 December 2013

Our family has been the lucky recipients of the Twelve Days of Christmas this year.  Our Secret Santas delivered terrific surprises for 12 nights beginning on December 1.  All of the nights had a cute note that related the gift to the traditional carol.  Chocolate milk is one of Gibson's favorite treats.

 Although it only snowed last Friday, freezing temperatures have meant icy roads and no school-- for 4 days!  And then the schools had shortened days on Thursday and Friday.  Playing in the snow got old after a few days.  Sofi invited a friend over for a tea party.  They enjoyed getting dressed up, eating fancy food and taking photos of each other.

Helen, Abe and Gib played a game of Monopoly that lasted for 2 days.

 

 Becky assigned some extra chores.  Abe cleaned our game closet.

 Helen cleaned the mudroom.  After 6 days of piles of wet boots and snow clothes, it was a mess.  This is the worst winter weather we've seen since we moved to Oregon.  

 Helen played her Christmas songs at the mall on Saturday.  She played "Must be Santa" and "Silent Night" as solos.  Helen has been taking piano lessons for less than a year and is just finishing up her level 2 books.

 She also played 2 duets with her teacher, "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." 

 Becky sewed some elf hats for our ward missionaries for our upcoming ward Christmas party.  We have a set of Elders and a set of Sisters.  The hats were very fun to make.  Each tassel has a bell in the middle of it.

Becky and Sofi ran a 5K with a holiday theme Saturday night.  Becky sewed 2 more elf hats for the race, but she didn't put bells on the hats because she didn't want to listen to bells ringing for the entire race.  

After serving together since May 2010, our Relief Society presidency was released today.  It's been a remarkable journey.  Willie, Pam and Myrna are three of the hardest working women I know.  We have been through a lot together and I will miss their companionship.  All of these women have more experience than I do, but I have only felt complete support, loyalty and compassion from them as I tried to figure my calling out.  It also helps they all have a good sense of humor and we can all laugh at ourselves!

8 December 2013

We're running behind ordering our Christmas cards this year.  Here are some of the photos we didn't use for the card.  Helen elbowing Abe is certainly an honest Hull family photo, but not the greeting we want to send.

 Abe posing with a pineapple?

 Helen taking a bite out of our glass pickle ornament?

This is a photo of Gibson pretending to be Santa Claus.  His coat is from Sofi's Cruella DeVille costume of about 6 years ago, turned inside out so the red lining shows.  

 Friday was St. Nicholas Day.  The kids all woke up to find candy in their shoes.

No one ever remembers that St. Nicholas Day is coming (except for Becky.)  Gib was very delighted.

We had an even lovelier surprise on Friday-- a true snowstorm!  We got about 4 inches and with the cold temperatures, the snow has stayed all weekend.  This is the most snow we've seen and the longest we've had snow since we moved to Oregon.

School was canceled before the snow even started falling!  Helen is our polar bear.  She has spent most of the past three days outside.

 Our neighbors built a small jump at the end of their driveway and the kids have spent hours sledding down the short hill.

 Our church was shortened to Sacrament Meeting only.   Brandan took some photos of the frost outlining spider webs.

 Here is frost on the railing.

 And here is snow on a Japanese maple.  We're trying to enjoy the snow and not think about the probable damage to plants not meant to withstand temperatures this low.

We haven't gone out much the past 3 days.  Our town doesn't have snow plows or a way to spread gravel and the roads are very icy.  The time at home has been very cozy.  Abe surprised himself by checkmating Brandan.

The theme for our Christmas advent this year is from Isaiah 1:18, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."  Every night we unwrap a crocheted snowflake and read a scripture about Christ's Atonement.  We hang the snowflakes on a small tree in our entryway.  By Christmas the tree will be decorated with 24 snowflakes, probably not enough to cover the tree, but enough to remind us of the blessings of repentance and forgiveness.

1 December 2013

We stayed in town this Thanksgiving break and we've enjoyed going to the special events that we usually miss.  We've been to the pottery show, the woodworking show and the gingerbread show.  The photo below is of Becky, Helen and Gibson's favorite gingerbread house-- a very detailed replica of Gru's house from the movie Despicable Me.

Abe's favorite creation was this three-headed ice dragon.  The rules for the gingerbread show require everything used in construction to be edible.

 Sofi started out her week with a frenectomy in her mouth.  She was swollen and sore the first day, but recovered quickly and was eating normally by Thanksgiving.

A highlight of our week was this motor-trike invention.  A man in our ward built it from a wide assortment of loose parts.  Its registration calls it a 500cc Honda motorcycle, but the only Honda parts on it are the headlights.  He built a model out of 2x4s and cardboard to figure out the dimensions before building the body out of steel.

 The seats are from a Buick sedan.  His wife likes plenty of leg room, so riding in the passenger seat feels a bit like sitting on a throne.

 The inventor, Joe, painted the trike yellow to increase visibility, but now he calls it a lemon because he has to fix it all the time.  We're impressed it works at all and think he's being picky.

 The engine and transmission came from a Chevy van, the rear end came from a Volkswagen, the fork and handlebars came from a Harley-Davidson, the speedometer came from a Freightliner semi-truck.  For cargo space, Joe bought 2 coolers from a discount store and painted them yellow to match.

 It has an automatic transmission.  The position of the transmission didn't line up with a convenient location for a gear shift so Joe attached bicycle gears and a bicycle chain to provide the necessary connection.  The shifter is a square aluminum rod.  The ball at the end of the shifter is the ball out of an old computer mouse that Joe drilled a hole in.

 Joe took each of us all on a short ride.  Becky was pretty excited for her turn.

 With a V6 engine, the trike can accelerate quickly.  Joe thinks its top speed would be around 130 mph, but he's never driven it that fast.  It is completely street legal and he and his wife have driven hundreds of miles on it since he finished it this Spring.  This is the third trike he has built.  He sold the other two.  One was built from 1918 Model T parts and painted bright red.

 Abe finished his robot this week.  For his first configuration he built a front end loader.  In the photo he is navigating the robot through a maze.

 Our family started out Thanksgiving at a Turkey Trot 2-mile fun run/walk.  Becky made everyone a matching hat, mainly to be a little goofy, but the blaze orange hats turned out to be great for keeping track of the family in a crowd of over 600 runners.  Abe isn't in the photo because he was waiting for the race to start up in front with the fast guys.  He was our fastest finisher with a time of 16:56.

 We spent a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors.  After dinner, all the kids made pom poms. This one kind of looks like a panda.  All the kids, even the 14 year old boy, liked making pom poms- mainly so they could throw them at each other.  A few of the boys went outside to play hide and seek in the dark.  While out for a walk the next day, Becky saw short snippets of yarn on the ground far from home.

Sofi made a fantastic and authentic Chinese dinner for our dinner tonight: barbecued pork, chicken and vegetables and stir fried vegetables and then persimmons and papaya for dessert.  We ate the way she ate when she was in China-- everyone serving themselves with chopsticks from the serving dishes in the center of the table.