Christmas Snapshots

Wow! I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already! This past week has been full of preparations, anticipation and celebrations.

It began with a perfect day to lounge around, play some games

bake cookies and

eat them right away. There were a few left to decorate, but not even those made it to Christmas.

Even though Christian has been taking saxophone lessons for just over two months with his new instructor, he was able to participate in the Christmas concert. None of the students had had a group rehearsal, they each practiced their parts on their own. It was amazing to see how it all came together and the music was heart warming.It was finally Christmas eve! Shawn was able to get off an hour earlier from work and meet us at church for the beautiful candlelight service. At home we enjoyed our traditional "racklet"meal, read the Christmas story by candlelight, followed by many more stories. Bedtime came, the adults had no problem falling asleep, not quite the case for the younger ones.

We were able to sleep in until 6am, and it wasn't even the kids that woke us up. We did hear some stirring and giggling coming from the rooms next door, so we got up, much to the kids delight. Christian could not find his gift and was a little puzzled until Shawn walked in with a big box that held his .22! Ethan also did not see his big box that contained his "Vulcan" Nerf gun. it would have been to obvious and the look in his face when he finally saw it was priceless.Nolan's gift was small and had to be disguised in a bigger box, when he first opened it, he only saw oven mitts. He was also a little puzzled, but very surprised when he got to the bottom of the box. He was not expecting it.

The day only got better, bringing us grandma and grandpa carrying big bags. Ho, ho, ho!

Nice, warm, mountain climate worthy sleeping bags! They were tried out right away. Nolan and Ethan put them to the ultimate test by sleeping outside that night in freezing temperatures.

The bags past the test. The boys stayed nice and warm all night and only came inside in the morning, with icy noses but warm bodies and spirits.

The next days brought us more family and it was a delight to visit with them. Ethan had a great time playing the "big brother" role with his younger cousin Levi.

There was also time spent outside. How could we not, with such beautiful clear skies. Not to mention that it's a very necessary activity when you have three young, energetic, sweet eating boys in the house.

Some frost, some sun, some evergreens, what a beautiful mixture of nature.

Even a little Christmas surprise left by someone who decorated a little tree on the trail side.

I hope you too had a wonderful Christmas.

Another Belt Under their Belt & Great Gatherings

December brings us Taekwondo belt ceremonies, Nolan is now a Sr blue belt and Christian received his level 4, 1st degree black belt.

Christian also participated in the black belts performance by doing a demonstration of his poomse and breaking a board with a leg kick. That was really cool!

December also brought us a family gathering with my side of the family, some of them are leaving for Brazil tomorrow to spend Christmas with the rest (and bigger) part of the family, good for them. Still, it's nice to have some of the Brazilian family that I grew up with relatively close by, close enough to be able to spend a day with them once in a while.

Here is the best shot I got from little Adrianna, she moves pretty fast and with my disabled camera it was quite a challenge. The boys had a great time entertaining her and being entertained by her.

It sure was nice to see you all again.

The Worst Time of the Year . . .

. . . for a camera to break down would be right about now, don't you think? December, when there are concerts, ceremonies, parties and gatherings. I'm still able to take pictures, but without the flash, which apparently burned out. So there might be a easy fix to the problem, I just have not found it yet. Now I need a steady arm while the shutter stays open for a while, which as you will see, it's usually not the case.

The humorous thing about this all, is that it first happened when a stranger was taking a picture of us at the Seattle Symphony. I thought that she just wasn't pressing it right, so we went back and forth a few times and my friend Erika tried it as well. We had to give up on it since we had less than a minute to get to our seats. This is the best we got, not too bad, but not great.

But wait, I though it would be great to get our picture with us sitting in our box and the Symphony on the background, during the intermission of course. We found a nice and cherry volunteer who was more than happy to take the pictures. She was clicking away until the usher came and told us all that pictures were not allowed inside the Benaroya Hall. Busted!! We truly did not know it, it's common sense not to take pictures during the performance, but during intermission!! We all joked that we would have to go to the Benaroya jail, but at least we had pictures. Yeah right, take a look at the picture that almost got us in trouble.

Nice Christmas wreath in the background!!!

Now, pictures aside, the performance of the Handel's Messiah was absolutely beautiful! The choir, singers, orchestra , atmosphere, decorations and our company were all outstanding. But what truly makes this oratorio so amazing are it's lyrics, proclaiming God's great plan & prophecies, gift & sacrifice and ultimately the final overthrow of death.

Making the Most of IT

Now days with our struggling economy, we have to stretch our resources, be creative and learn to cope with less.

The snow was no exception

Nolan goal was to build a fort, due to the limited resources he might have to settle for a wall, or actually, a speed bump might be all he will get.

Really, the amount of snow does not matter, kids will always find a way to have fun with it.

Puzzle Addiction

We are moving along with our puzzle, it's starting to take shape and the picture is emerging nicely. It can become quite addictive; the other night it was 11pm before we decided that "this really is our last piece". The boys help us with a piece here and there, but Shawn and I are the ones that can't walk by without taking another look and adding a few pieces.

Now to answer Jill's logistical question, "What to do with the table issue?" I really don't have a good answer!! We have the puzzle on one of those mats that you can roll up while it's still unfinished, but our table is big enough that we did not have to use it yet, so I can't tell you well this mat works. The problem is that when we want to use the rest of the table, we need to move all the loose pieces, and that's a pain. We thought about putting them on a folding table on the side, but then the lighting would not be good. Believe me, you need good lighting to distinguish all those little pieces. So we just use our kitchen island for most meals and occasionally clean up the pieces for a dinner at the dining table. Yesterday we were even able to push all the pieces aside and have our meal on the other half of the table. A sign the the end is near!!

Ice Play

No matter what stage the water is in, it's always fair play for boys. The frozen lake's water edge was just too tempting for our boys, all 4 of them. Shawn warned the boys to be careful or else they would get their feet wet.

Guess who was the one who broke the ice? The biggest of the four boys. Shawn got a nice icy foot bath.

Just a few days of freezing temps can do this!

Good Ol' Tree

I love our Christmas tree. I love that when it's convenient to us, we can go down to the garage, pull the box out of the shelf and begin to set it up. But one year I would like to go and get a real tree. And I mean a real "wild" tree from the mountains, not one from a parking lot or a perfectly engineered one from a tree farm. To drive up, do some bush whacking and bring back our little Charlie Brown tree. So this was the year. Shawn was up to it, the weather was right, we were ready to roll. Until we let the boys in on our plans. "WHAT!!" "You mean we are not putting our Christmas tree up!!" "I like our tree, we always put up our tree." "This is terrible, we already did not put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving like we always do, now we are getting a different one!! It's all ruined!" Woha!! I sure did not expect this. I love traditions and I always hoped that the boys would grow to love them as well, now it came back to bite me.

The tradition of putting up our tree lives on.

So here is our tree hunt . . .

. . . hunting for the right branch that comes next.

The boys put up the tree by themselves and after I strung all the lights, which took way too long if you ask our elves, the decorations came up faster that you can say "Christmas tree".

I really wanted to leave the decorations as is, but the tree looked a little lopsided, so I had to re-arrange it a bit.

I'm leaving the Nativity scene as it should be though, with everyone gathered really close to Jesus. There might not be room in the Inn, but there is plenty of space in the stable.

The Party

You only turn 10 once in your lifetime, so you may as well make the most of it. We continued Nolan's birthday celebration today by inviting a few friends and taking them all for some kart racing. It was a first for all, they did great and loved it.

What's not to love when you are 10, and you are racing around with friends, eating pizza and cupcakes.

And for the icing on cake, look what Nolan and I found for a party favor. Score! How perfect is that for a kart racing theme party!!

A Birthday Wish . . .

. . . that became true a year later. Nolan wished and wished last year that he could go skiing on his birthday. It didn't happen then, but it was just as special a year later.

Specially since he got crisp blue skies for his special day

The day began with a gift waiting , and as you can tell, it was very much appreciated. Now Nolan only has to figure out how to set his watch and he will always be on time.

After a nice dinner of "Tinas' green enchiladas", as requested by the birthday boy, we had a fun session of home videos, Nolan's birth and his first months. It's amazing to see how the time has passed by. How blessed are we for having Nolan in our family.

Happy 10th Birthday my son!

The Puzzle Challenge

December tends to be a busy month for most of us, but it's also what I try hard to avoid; getting to busy and overlooking what really matters. The boys look forward to this time of the year and their favorite memories, (yes, they are are young but already have memories), are gathering around the fireplace to read, play games, set up Legos and so on. This year we added another activity that will help us slow down and spend time around the table (close enough to the fireplace). We are putting together a 1000 piece puzzle. We spend most of Sunday afternoon working on it and got the whole frame and a few other parts put together.It will take us a while, but that's exactly the point.

To break away from the puzzle, (after a while the pieces all blend together), we had some Mechano to work on.

Or we could just sit and dream and wish!!

Caught up in the Hype

As I was shopping at Costco a few days before Thanksgiving, I saw all the commotion around the case filled with fresh turkeys. I thought to myself that this year I would get a fresh turkey and avoid the week long, cold bath turkey thawing saga. So I picked out the smallest one, a mere 23#! Once I got home it it hit me. This is going to be a lot of turkey for the five of us, and since Shawn had to work all day long, I had to take it on by myself. Christian and I did mange to get it out of the roaster and in to the serving platter in one piece, that's always a tricky one. The aroma filled the house and the turkey turned out delicious, not only on Thursday, but also on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. . . Just kidding, we do have a lot of leftovers, but they are now in frozen in containers and ready for many great dishes to come.