Christmas Eve

There was no question what the kids wanted most this year for Christmas – they wanted to spend it in Utah.  With my Mom serving a mission in Hong Kong the last two Christmas’ the kids and I actually hadn’t even been in the state of Utah for 3 years – crazy how that can happen when we have always visited at least once or twice each year.  Thankfully it hadn’t been that long since we’d seen my family.  Both of my sisters and my brother Ray visited us in Washington during that time and then we saw everyone this past summer in Idaho for our reunion.  My Mom’s only been home from her mission for less than a year, but with coming up to help when Drew was born, the reunion and now Christmas, we’ve spent about 5 weeks with her this past year – we could definitely get use to that!

So a major perk of the trip was having enough Southwest points to fly down.  Thanks to tips from Justin’s brother-in-law we’ve been working the credit card system to get some nice perks.  Actually we were short one leg so we ended up having to pay a few hundred dollars for all SEVEN of us fly down – not to shabby!  We told the kids that will probably be the last time we all fly to Utah – just not practical for a large family.

The plan was to borrow my brother Ray’s van while we were in town.  Unfortunately, when my Mom and Val went to get it so they could pick us up at the airport the car suddenly wouldn’t work.  They scrabbled to figure out how to get us from the airport to my Mom’s but had it all worked out just after we arrived.  Thankfully, my Mom and Val have three cars so we were able to borrow a car anytime we wanted while we were there.  However, if we wanted to go with all seven of us we had to take two of their cars.  It really wasn’t a big deal though we probably spent more time hanging out at my Mom’s than we otherwise would have, but it made for a much more relaxing week.

We spent our first full day (Christmas Eve) prepping for the big family dinner that night.  Justin and I ran to Wal-Mart that morning to pick up a few last minute Christmas items and then we made our traditional sugar cookies for Santa.

Throughout the day I wrapped the gifts that I shipped to my Mom’s house.  As I placed an order on Amazon on Black Friday I was asked if I wanted a free 30-day trial membership to Amazon Prime.  Best Christmas shopping decision ever!  No longer did I have to wait to finalize an order when my total reached over $35 to qualify for free shipping – I could order anytime I ran across a good deal regardless of how much it cost.  I even ordered a $0.77 hair bun and had that shipped separately.  My Mom was getting multiple packages a week.

The family came over that evening for dinner, gifts, and the traditional nativity performance.  We were missing my brother Lee who spent the holiday backpacking in New Zealand (who can blame him?!?), Cammy is a bigtime Wal-Mart manager and had to physically be at her store to close up for the holiday, and Robyn’s kids were spending Christmas with their Dad – so that made dinner for 27.

Alan directs the nativity each year. 

Tyrone is always willing to play the role of the donkey

Brooklyn was his impromptu little lamb

Jason was selected to play Joseph, Abigail was behind the scenes on the piano, and Carly and Katie were grouped together with the sheppards and wisemen.  

After the performance and songs, my Mom divvied out Christmas cash to the grandkids older than 8 and gave gifts to the younger grandkids.  Jason was super excited to get Legos and a BYU sweatshirt and Katie loved her new winter coat and books.

My Mom also organized a gift exchange for the kids.  Each bag was filled with lots of different goodies (though all had souvieners from Hong Kong and varying amounts of cash.)  The kids were allowed to steal from their cousins, but everyone ended up happy with their bag so nobody did any trading or stealing.  

I think it’s funny that Abigail got a pad of ledger paper in her gift bag – the daughter of two accountants has already put it to use by recording the money she was given and has organized the ledger to account for any expenses she will make and additional funds she will earn from future babysitting jobs.

Katie was so excited to see her cousin Brooklynn again.  We asked them to stand next to each other so we could look at their heights and they squished their faces up against each other – so cute!

After everyone left we let the kids open up a gift before heading to bed.  Jason didn’t quite understand why we would only let him open up a specific gift of his and was upset that he couldn’t choose which gift he could open.   He had such a pouty attitude about it that he didn’t open up his Christmas jammies that night.

See him pouting back there?

When Justin and I were at Wal-Mart earlier that day we found a fun pair of footed Cookie Monster jammies in the women’s’ section.  We couldn’t resist buying them for Abigail even though we’d already bought her another pair of pjs.  In order for the feet to fit (she’s size 11!) we had to go with an XL – which made the waist ridiculously huge, but my Mom was able to adjust the elastic waistband the next day so they fit just fine.

Santa’s cookies were set out (we neglected to write a letter to Santa this year) and the kids were off to bed.  Apparently the girls were so excited they woke up multiple times during the night and early morning.  Drew gave me a wonderful Christmas present and slept through the entire night – something he hadn’t done in weeks and hasn’t done again since.

Family Pictures

Happy 2014!  Getting back into the swing of things after a vacation always takes time.  I could definitely use another week before we jump back into busy school and sports schedules, but tomorrow it’s back full force.  We had a great time in Utah and I’m excited to look through the pictures we took and get it documented - until then I thought I’d update the blog a bit and share some of the pictures we had taken in November.

Our 2013 Christmas Card

*   JUSTIN recently celebrated his 38th birthday on Black Friday by test driving potential cars to replace the Maxima we purchased nearly 15 years ago.  We didn't make a purchase, but over the next few days we each received a phone call that we'd won prizes in the dealership's drawing.  Holly won a $250 gift card and Justin won a 60" Samsung TV.  Justin has a reputation for being the "King of Free Stuff" but this was his largest win yet.  We're hoping his next winning will be a new car or a free vacation.

*   Besides chauffeuring kids around, taking care of a new baby, and running a busy household, HOLLY tries to attend two book clubs, keep up on the family blog, and enjoys photography.  She is busy, busy but wouldn't want it any other way. 

*   ABIGAIL will be 12 in January and is excited to enter the young women's program at church.   She keeps busy with soccer, basketball, art club, piano, flute, and hanging out with friends.  She just got braces in November and thus begins our investment in teeth for years to come.  She recently started babysitting for hire; she's so great with kids we're worried we'll have a hard time utilizing her services for ourselves from now on. 

*   CARLY also played soccer this fall and is excited for basketball season to begin.   She continues to play the piano and likes to accompany Abigail on the flute.  Carly is our biggest helper with baby Drew; she loves to help and he adores her.  Carly enjoys doing her hair in braids, buns, twists, and curls.  She often exhausts our hot water supply with her long showers.

*   Starting first grade this year rocked our usually sweet and content little boy. Thankfully JASON kept his struggles to home life and is doing wonderfully in class.  He seems to be adjusting better to the long days now that we're several months into the school year. He was our third soccer player this fall, a logistical nightmare, but we realize conflicting schedules will be something we continue to face.  Jason enjoys playing catch, football with friends and keeps busy at home with Legos, drawing and cars.

*   At 3.5 KATIE has gone from toddler to big girl this past year.   She continues to light up our lives with her big, beautiful smile; however, she's extremely shy and serious around people she doesn't know well, completely opposite of her true personality.   She shows the best manners in our house and makes the biggest messes.

*   Our family is absolutely smitten with baby DREW.  At 6 months old he is a happy, easy-going, chubby little bundle of JOY!

*   We are blessed to live in such a beautiful area and enjoy the many hikes and lakes nearby.  In August we spent a fun-filled week in the Yellowstone area with the Hipwell family.   The kids were thrilled to spend every moment with their cousins.  Somehow three years have passed since we've been to Utah; we are excited to return during our Christmas vacation.  We are so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives and hope that this holiday season finds you and your family healthy and happy.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Tis the Season

Life has been busy around here.  I keep find myself saying, “I just need to get through _______________... (fill in the blank, examples below)     

•       Coordinating volunteers and donations for a huge community giving tree project (which falls under my responsibilities as the new Relief Society community humanitarian specialist)

•       Hosting a large luncheon to say goodbye to a friend who is moving away

•       Deciding whether to buy a car

•       Days jam-packed with birthday parties, errands, concerts, basketball, etc...

…and then I'll be able to think about ______________” (fill in the blank, examples below)

•       Sending out the rest of our Christmas cards

•       Figuring out my new lens

•       Buying Christmas presents

•       Getting ready for our trip to Utah

•       Making invitations for Abigail birthday so she can hand them out before Christmas break

•       Ordering new family pictures

There's so much going on I feel like I can only focus on the next big task or event coming up otherwise it's too overwhelming.   

In an attempt to not fall too behind on the blog I’ll post a few pictures taken recently. 

The first weekend of December our stake holds a huge nativity event at our stake center (located behind the temple).  Like last year Justin pulled an all night security detail on Friday night – the guys hung out in the high council room playing xbox and eating loads of food.  We attended the event that Sunday after church.  Our first stop was the picture room.

We ordered personalized Christmas decorations for the kids last month and we’re excited when they finally arrived.  They came individually wrapped in pretty red boxes, but we didn’t know whos box was whos so we made a little game out of it.  Abigail was pretty stoked to open her own and was happy to help Drew take a turn opening a box.

We sold the TV we won from Toyota on Craig's list last week for $850, our full listing price.   I'd posted it on our neighborhood website for only $800.  Needless to say we were pretty happy about the extra $50.  The night before it sold though I had just relented and told Justin I would let him hang it above our mantle, replacing our 46" TV.  So glad it didn't come to that.

Our new 65" TV arrived last week.  We set it up in the bonus room and to be honest, instead of being overwhelmed with its size, my first thought was that we could have actually gone bigger.  It's a great fit though and it looks awesome. We'll be hanging out in the bonus room a lot more now.  As we were getting ready to open the box it was in I was reminded of this picture of Jason we took when we bought our 46” TV.

Our new one is just a tad bit bigger.

This past Saturday was our ward Christmas breakfast.  Only Katie and Drew were feeling up for sitting on Santa's lap.  

Though I was able to get all the kids to stand in for a group shot.  

If it looks like we just rolled out of bed it’s because we did.  The breakfast started at 8am and we live 20 minutes from the church.  We didn’t stress about getting there on time, but it was still an early morning for us.  Switching to 9am church in January is going to be painful.  Really, really painful.

Basketball season is underway.  Abigail practices three days a week and has already played two games.  The whole family went to her game on Saturday night and she didn't disappoint.  She scored 10 of the twenty-something points for her team.  While we were at church on Sunday her team played their third game of the season (their first loss). 

Abigail was asked to play the prelude music at church on Sunday.  I think it was one of the noisiest pre-sacrament meetings cause from our pew in the back I could hardly hear her.  From what I heard from others though she did great.  

The kids are excited for their last few days of school.  Today Abigail had a field trip to a skating rink in Bellevue then at art club this afternoon she made gingerbread houses.  Carly is baking cookies tomorrow and wrapping gifts for a family in need that her class adopted – both Jason and Carly have movie days on Friday.  Doesn’t sound like they’ll be much going on educationally, but they’ll be good and ready for a fun Christmas break.   

Too Close for Comfort

I was the first to leave book club last Thursday night.  I walked out of the house and noticed a bag of trash lying open in the middle of the street.  I immediately thought about a possible bear, since in this area trash in the streets usually means a bear has been rummaging around, but since bears are supposed to be in hibernation in the winter and it was freezing cold outside I wasn’t too concerned.   I had my keys in my hand and as a precaution started pressing the unlock button repeatedly.  Thinking the little beeping sound would warn any wildlife lurking in the shadows that they were no longer alone and continued walking to my van parking down the street.  Then I heard the rummaging to my right and was stunned to see a huge bear in the driveway picking through a bag of trash.  I’ve seen bears before.  At the zoo, through the window of my car, etc…  never before just 15 feet away without any barriers or safety between us.  He was ridiculously huge, seriously just ginormous.  No doubt a healthy, adult black bear.  His back was turned toward me so we didn’t make eye contact.  I had to make a split second decision – continue the 50+ feet to my van or turn back and walk the equivalent distance back to the house.  

I chose the van and went against all we’d been taught and ran.  Yes, I’m sure if I’m ever on fire I won’t stop, drop and roll, but I will panic and run around screaming.  I heard him moving away from his dinner and back toward the street, but couldn’t bring myself to face him.   Once inside my van, I locked the door multiple times, then fumbled around for my phone so I could call the rest of the gals still inside the house and warn them not to come out.  By then I could see he was walking in the street back toward the house and away from me.  I was freaking out, shaking, just in total disbelief of what had just happened.  Had I seen him from the protection of my car or from inside the house I would have been excited and grabbed for my camera.  But it’s a whole different situation when there’s nothing between you and a wild animal that could kill you in seconds.  Not something I need to experience again – ever!  Once back at home I started thinking about all possible scenarios – playing a disturbing “what if” game.  What if my carpool hadn’t fallen through and I had walked out of the house with a friend – our talking certainly would have caught him off guard and there’s no way of knowing how he would have responded.  What if his back hadn’t been turned to me and we found ourselves face-to-face?  What if I had one of my kids with me?  What if Katie had been walking along side me?  How could I communicate what do to?  Could we get to the car safely? 

The next morning I wouldn’t let Jason walk to the bus stop alone (Carly leaves early on Friday mornings for choir).  Even before this if I was coming home late at night I always closed the garage door behind me before getting out of the van.  Hopefully I’m not too scarred.  The very next night Katie woke up crying after having a nightmare – yep, about bears.  Wish I could give her the ole’, “there’s no such thing as…”

Thanksgiving Weekend

Goodness, I’m getting a little behind here.... so a few days before Thanksgiving we put together our annual gratitude turkey.   I can say "annual" because we did it for the first time last year and have enjoyed it so much we fully intend to do it every year from here on out.   Everyone took turns adding a feather to our turkey and sharing what they are thankful for.  

We weren't allowed to say the same thing more than once.  A day or two afterward I was expressing to Jason how much I loved him.  He quickly responded, "No, you said you were thankful for Drew ('squishy thighs and chubby cheeks'). Dad said he was thankful for his kids."  I knew he was thinking he was pretty clever cause he was trying to hold back a smile.  I quickly responded that he must not love me then because Katie said she was thankful for, "Mom" and he only said "Dad". Ha, point proven and we all just accepted that we love everyone.  

That reminds me of another little story.   For a awhile there Katie would say something like,  "I love Mommy, and Daddy, and Drew", when Justin or I tried to add the rest of her siblings to her list she would say no, just those three.   We realized that the kids weren’t expressing love to each other often enough for that to sink in with Katie.   So one night we challenged the girls to tell Katie they love her.  That was all it took.   In the days that followed everyone was telling each other that they loved them, it became a funny thing, but it's important that they feel comfortable saying those three words to the people they care about. 

So onto Thanksgiving.  The girls helped me prepare a double batch of crescent rolls that morning and finish up the desserts we were bringing and before we knew it it was time to wake up Drew from his morning nap and head to Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher's house for the feast. 

I didn't take along my camera but thankfully Justin's sister Tami did.   

The kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins.   Hallie was especially attentive of Katie, which Katie took full advantage of. 

The kids came home with workbooks and color-by-number pictures that we worked on in the following days.   Even I got a color-by-number page, it was fun to stay up with the girls that night and work on them.  I haven't worked in mine since (how often does a mom have time to sit down and color?) but the girls both finished their pictures the following morning. 

Black Friday also happened to be Justin's birthday.   We don't usually do much Black Friday shopping, but I thought it would be fun to go out and test drive cars while we had a free morning.   It's inevitable that Justin's car will need to be replaced soon.   We bought it used nearly 15 years ago and the fact that it's still running (for the most part) is amazing.  We really have been blessed that it's lasted this long, but we're pushing our luck at this point.  We headed to Toyota to drive the Prius and Camry.  Right when we got there we noticed they were doing a big Black Friday giveaway all weekend long so before the salesman could even talk cars Justin made sure we were both entered to win. 

The idea was to go with a smaller car than the Maxima we have. Something with great gas mileage so we were also considering hybrid.

This is a Prius V that we pretty much eliminated immediately.   Not at all a fan of the style and after test driving another Prius version we’ve decided it’s just too small of a car for a 6’ 6” tall guy to drive around.

Justin test drove a few cars, we got a ballpark idea of pricing, then we ran a few more errands, picked up a salad to share at CPK so we could redeem Justin's birthday coupon for a free dessert and then headed home.  We meet up with Justin’s family at Red Robin that night then Justin and the three big kids went into Seattle with them to watch a UW volleyball game.  Great end to a fun birthday. 

We spent most of Saturday hanging around the house and cleaning things up.  As we were getting ready to go to a friends house to play games that evening I got a phone call from Toyota informing me that I won a $250 visa gift card.  Needless to say I was super stoked. Since college Justin has had the reputation for being "King of Free Stuff" but I rarely win anything so I was thrilled with my winnings. 

The good news didn't stop there, Sunday afternoon Justin had a message on his phone, also from Toyota, informing him that he had won a Samsung 60” TV. Thankfully he was listening to a message because he totally freaked out, screaming and jumping up and down, the kids thought he was hilarious. Ironically, we had just purchased a new TV online Saturday night.  Justin had Monday off of work so as soon as we got the kids off to school we drove into Toyota to pickup up our prizes. The gal was a little taken back when after Justin had signed for his new TV I mentioned that I had also won a gift card. What are the odds that two people from the same family would win 2 of the 21 prizes they gave away over a 4 Day weekend?  We ran a few more errands including a stop into a Honda dealership to check out the competition.  Making a decision of this magnitude is not going to be easy for us.   Toyota or Honda?  Full size or compact? Hybrid or gas? New or used? Buy here or in Utah?...

I've listed the TV we won for sale, but if we don't sell it soon I'm afraid Justin will have it hanging above our mantle.  We had some friends over to watch a BYU game several weeks ago and my friend commented that our 46" TV was too small.  Justin now thinks he would rather keep it than to sell it for more than $250-300 below retail.  Sure we can look at it as a free TV, but you can also look at it as $800 cash and cash sounds good to me. 

Clearly we had a pretty awesome Thanksgiving weekend: food, friends, family, and free stuff!   We have much to be grateful for!