The day after

My good friend Melissa Hamblin had one of these when I was a kid and I thought it was the coolest. I have looked at them on line and they run $350 bills! So when I saw one at Tuesday Morning on sale for $150 I decided to check after Christmas to see if it was marked down more. I walked in right as they opened and scored this beauty for $60!

The woods used and carving are absolutely beautiful.

I hope my kids love starring at it as much as I do.

When I got back from the store Eric had already cleaned up the carnage from Christmas and had already started taking down the decorations.

By 12:30 all the ornaments were off the tree and he had his sawzall out to cut it into pieces.

It is always fun to decorate for Christmas and it always feels good to get it all put away!

Christmas Morning

Eric and I had finally cleaned up all the food and dishes from the party and accomplished all the last minute Christmas tasks and gone to bed. We had been quietly laying in bed for about 15 min when we heard Ruby yelling "He came, Santa came" from the balcony overlooking the living room.

It was 12:15 pm so I walked out and told her it was still the middle of the night and she needed to go back to sleep until morning. I went back to bed only for a few minutes before I could hear Ruby and Lucy whispering. They were standing on the balcony with flashlights trying to see what Santa left. I told them to go to bed. About 20 min later Ruby and Haley were jumping on our bed saying "Read this... You are not going to believe this!!!" Eric and I looked at each other and realized there was no way we were stopping this train, so we all got up to open presents.

They were so excited to hear that Santa was giving our friend Anna (who desperately wanted a chinchilla) her own chinchilla... and it was in our laundry room for Haley to take care of until Anna's family got back in town.

Eric and I sat in an exhausted stupor while the kids ripped open the gifts.

Haley was thrilled to finally get the box turtle(now named squirtle) she has been begging for.

At about 1:30 Eric and I finally went back to bed while the girls stayed up playing for hours.

The dog wash

One of those times that as a Mom you say to yourself...

"I can't believe I thought this was a good idea".

Then you get in the car and the kids say

"That was sooo much fun, can we do it again?".

Fyi- the dogs are still alive and we did not have to pay any fee for damages.

Our 1st snow

It may not look like much, and it may not have lasted for long.. but this was very exciting for us!

A great idea

One of the Mom's in Ruby's class had a fabulous idea for their class Christmas party. All the kids made fleece scarves and wrapped them up to donate to the local center for homeless teens.

I was super busy helping them cut the scarves so unfortunately I didn't get any photos of them making them. They were very serious about making the scarves and wrapping look good. When all was said and done we had 38 scarves wrapped and ready to go. The kids really enjoyed making them and I know the recipients will enjoy the extra warmth.

Say WHAT?

12/18/09

"Mom, it doesn't matter if I peed in the bathtub because Ruby and I peed in the bathtub last night." Lucy

"I did not pee in the bathtub." Ruby

"Yes you did." Lucy

"Ok, that is just disgusting. Did you seriously pee in the tub???? That is like trying to take a bath and get clean in a dirty toilet that someone has used. Really, no more baths only showers." Me

"A bath in the toilet???... coool!" Lucy (as if she was day dreaming about it).

12/14/09

Tonight we may have had the worst family home evening I can remember. These are a few of choice examples of how the night went.

"Ruby it's your turn to choose the song, what do you want to sing?" Dad

"Jingle bells" Ruby

" Ok... Mom it's your turn to conduct" Dad

"Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh" Mom and Dad singing

"NO, NO, NO, NO!!!! I said Jingle bells!!!! Ruby screaming

"This is how it starts, jingle bells is the chorus" Mom, while Dad continues with the song.

"I said Jingle Bells" Ruby throws a screaming tantrum during the entire song while we continue singing.

I googled "Jingle bell lyrics" and read them to her explaining that is how the song starts.

"You guys are totally lying!" Ruby disgusted with us.

We had a lesson on compassion and the importance of helping others and focusing on others more then ourselves. I explained that each of the girls were going to buy a gift that they would like to have, and donate it to a little girl their age that needed help this Christmas. I passed out the tags with the kids ages to each of my girls.

"Why should I give her a gift... she is going to give me NOTHING!" Lucy with a mean looking sassy face.

So much for my lesson.

12/7/09

"OOUCHH!!!, this Christmas tree must be a boy because it just scratched me" Lucy

12/1/09

"My favorite thing about Christmas is remembering and thinking about the birth of Santa"... long pause while I looked at her (Ruby) puzzled.... "I mean Jesus, the birth of Jesus" she said.

11/20/09

On the long flight to Puerto Rico my nephew Jacob was furious and said

"Dad, Ali hit me!"

"That's ok, when we get off the airplane you you can hit her back" Jake's Dad

Jake turned insta-happy with a big smile on his face and said "Really??? OK!"

Then Jakes Dad said "No, not really I was just kidding"

Jack folded his arms and turned insta-angry again.

11/20/09

While standing on the ramp thing waiting to get into the airplane a man standing next to Ruby said "So are you excited to fly on an airplane?"

Ruby casually replied "Not really, flying just not my thing."

Oh dear!

There goes Ruby's career in fashion!

I'm so sad.

I have spent the entire morning looking for a nativity.

It is Christmas so I thought this would be easy, it was not. As I asked sales people if they had any nativity's some did not even know what a nativity was. The salesperson at JC Penny said "No we just have Mickey Mouse christmas stuff". After looking through shelves full of Santas, snowmen and nutcrackers I finally found a nativity on the bottom shelf of Kohls.

I realized today that the world has officially dropped Christ from Christmas.

WARNING: Objects on mountains may be larger then they appear.

We wanted to do Christmas as true Oregonians, so Eric and I went to the Land management office and purchased a permit to cut down our own Tree.

We drove for about 45 min into the mountains, then got out in 19 degree weather and walked and walked all over looking for "our" tree. We both finally agreed on this one.

We had walked a lot farther then I realized so carrying this baby back to the car was not easy.

It was not until we got home and put this tree in our living room that we realized the how huge this tree was. We cut 3 feet off the bottom and it didn't even make a difference!

Haley decided on an angel this year instead of a star. She had to climb so high to put it on it on the top, she was terrified.

We had to move furniture out of the room to make space for this tree. Eric purchased 10 additional boxes of lights and then we put every ornament we own on it (even though it still looks empty).

At 13 ft, I'm sure this will be the largest tree that we will ever have in our home. Eric and I both agree that next year we are going to a tree farm to cut down our own tree.