Christmas Break

Destroying the gingerbread houses after Christmas

Indoor skating

Ryan and Michelle stayed one night at our house on their way back home to Sisters after Christmas. It was a spur-of-the-moment, quick visit, and it was a lot of fun. We found out our house can fairly easily accommodate 12 people overnight, especially now that we have an offical "guest" bed. We bought a new california king bed (LOVE it), and Kari inherited our queen. The kids were so excited to spend some more time with their out-of-town cousins. We adults even got out for a quick Burgerville date while Kari and Ashlynn babysat the crew.

silly Bailey Sue

Moda Center game

Joel's basketball team had the opportunity to play a game at the Moda Center on the Blazers' court--so exciting! They played a 5th grade team and lost, but Joel said it was still fun.

Meet Fluffy

We surprised Joel with a hamster for Christmas. We kept her hidden in our closet for two days and then Greg put her in her plastic ball in a gift bag just before the kids started opening gifts. We got Joel good! :)

I accidentally scared her with my camera flash.

 The cats find her very intriguing. They were VERY interested when I first brought her home and snuck into the closet, where we were hiding her, whenever they got the opportunity.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was relaxed and low-key. We opened stockings and presents here at home and then headed over to Grandpa and Grandma A's to spend the day with them and Blake and Lindsay. We celebrated Mom's birthday on her actual birthday, too. It was a very nice day together.
(I failed in the photo-taking, though. Not many photos to document our relaxing Christmas Day.)

Christmas Eve

Gingerbread

Joel helped me cut out and assemble the gingerbread houses this week. He kept a tally of the pieces we made and let me know how many of each to cut out.

Our neighbor friend, Kate, came over and decorated a house with us this year.

Family Christmas Photos

We braved the cold and took some photos Sunday before church while everyone was dressed up. It's never all that fun to do, but I'm always glad later that we did it.

Santa Sighting

We've never really pushed the whole Santa thing in our home, and so our kids have never really believed in Santa...except for Grant. Grant believes in Santa, so we just neither confirm nor deny his existence. Avoidance is our chosen method on this one. If he asks us the truth, we'll tell him, but I don't think he'll ask because I don't think he really wants to know. :)

Last week, I had an errand to run at the mall, so I took Grant to see Santa. He didn't want to go say hi; he just wanted to see him. So, Grant studied him from afar. After he'd watched him for a while, he turned to me and said, "Mom, that's not the real Santa." I thought he looked pretty real, but Grant said it wasn't him.

Later that day, Grant was lounging in the cart while we were shopping at Costco, when suddenly, he sat up and said,"There he is!"
"Who?" I asked.
"Santa!" exclaimed Grant.
"Where?"
"Back there!"
I looked behind us and didn't seen anyone resembling Santa, so I asked,"Was he wearing a red suit?"
"No," he said, "He was wearing overalls."

I'm not sure how long this Santa stuff will last, but it sure is funny and cute!

Grant's Program

We enjoyed our last preschool Christmas music program last week. Grant was pretty cute up there, waving to us and singing his songs. The music teacher taught the kids how to play "Jingle Bells" using real bells. It was so impressive that they were able to read music, count, and play the notes at the right times. 

Kari's 12th birthday

It was a full house for Kari's family birthday party. Ryan and Michelle were able to be here, too, (same weekend as Moffat Christmas), and Kari was very excited to have ALL her cousins here to celebrate with her.

birthday breakfast with Grandpa

This is the Facebook update I posted on her real birthday after dropping her off at school:

"Our oldest turned 12 today. We sure do love this ponytailed, hoodie-wearing, high-achieving, self-driven, silly-sided, chocolate-loving, independent, oh-so-organized, piano-playing, drama-free middle schooler!"

That pretty much sums up Kari these days. I could have added "clarinet-playing, friend-loving, youth group-loving Jesus-follower, and babysitting-pro" and so much more. She's quite the young lady. :-)

Barlow Bruin

In November, Joel tried out for the 4th grade Barlow youth basketball team...and made it! He was SO excited and so were we. It was stressful having to try out and stressful waiting for the news! It was fun to see him so happy and eager to do something.

His team has been practicing twice a week since then, and they had their first games December 12th, the same weekend as Moffat Christmas and Kari's birthday party. It was a full weekend, for sure. We're looking forward to watching him play these next few months. We've got a lot of basketball viewing ahead.

Here's our young Barlow Bruin!

Moffat Christmas

We gathered early this year to celebrate Christmas with the Moffats. It was a short but sweet time with everyone. We hadn't all been together since summer (and ecoli), so we were especially grateful to have this time to celebrate Christmas as family and to reconnect. That night I couldn't sleep and found myself reflecting on our evening and feeling overwhelmed with thankfulness for the people in this photo and for God's mercy, God's grace, and His faithfulness to us.  God is good.