A very merry Christmas!

Hope you all enjoyed your day with Santa!

Merry Christmas to you all...

... and a Happy New Year!

Basketball, birthdays, and business

What has kept us busy and away from blog posts this month?  Aside from the normal keeping-up-with-five-children routine and the various activities the holidays bring, we've had a lot to do!

Kyle and Grant finished out another great season of basketball.  They were on the same team and really enjoyed playing this year.  As always, they were quite entertaining to watch, and I'm always amazed at the improvement in their abilities from year to year.

Kyle improved significantly with his ball-handling skills and his confidence with the ball.  Grant showed some great competitiveness during the games.  I think he enjoyed challenging his opponents more than he liked scoring points.  He would dribble the ball down the court, stop, and wait for his opponent to defend him before dodging strategically around him and heading to the hoop.  He scored quite a bit and even threw in a dribble under his leg a time or two.  If you know Grant, you know it's all about the show.

Later in the month, Jason surprised me for my birthday by taking me out on the town.  We headed to downtown Portland and to The Old Church where my favorite local pianist (Michael Allen Harrison) was performing his Christmas concert.  It was AWESOME!  And what a husband to even notice I like this pianist, especially when piano music isn't his forte.

We stayed at the Vintage Plaza Hotel that night, which was very nice.  It had a bathtub the size of a small pond, of which I promptly took advantage.  It was a lovely time together before the holiday bustle settled in for good.

As if we didn't have enough to do this month, Jason and I also spent a day together at a business conference in Portland.  It was such exciting material I had to start tallying how many times the presenter said a certain phrase in his presentation that was driving me crazy.  From the time I started counting to the end of the day he had repeated it 17 times.  Unfortunately, I didn't tally the first hour and a half of the seminar when he said it the most, which was what prompted me to start keeping track in the first place.

I also began to wax poetic a couple of hours into the conference.  It was purely a protective instinct to preserve my sanity, I'm certain.  Here is a sampling of my collection:

Faces glazed over
Ears filled with rambling words
Seminar.

Words spilling out
Information overload
Verbose.

Financial market analysts
Brain cells squandered
Faithless.

Continuous blathering
Silence is relief
Help.

It has certainly been an event-filled month for us, with much more excitement to come with the holidays approaching.  Happy December!

The perfect tree

Ah, picking out the Christmas tree.  It's one of my favorite holiday traditions.  In this beautiful state, Christmas tree fields are a part of our everyday landscape.  Where is the romanticism in picking out a tree from a parking lot?  I know, most people don't have a choice, but Christmas trees are another reason why I love Oregon so much.

For me, picking out the tree is a process, a challenge even.  It starts weeks before the actual cutting by scouring the countryside for the perfect tree farm with the perfect price.  Ten years ago, when the economy was booming, Christmas trees were wildly expensive, even here in Oregon.  Finding a tree for a good price meant saving quite a bit of money.  Now that the economy has "corrected itself," price isn't too much of an issue anymore.  But, I always love a bargain so my search continues for a tree with a low price tag.

Usually the first weekend in December, we bundle up, don the boots, scarves, and hats, and head out into the weather--usually cold and muddy.  This year was cold, sunny, and beautiful.  Typically, the process goes something like this:  I walk into the tree field, find a tree within a minute that fits my parameters, and then.... I go in search of something else.  It's no fun if you just pick the first perfect tree that comes along!  (Of course, if you're my husband you wonder why not?)  That's the fun of the whole experience!  This one's too tall, that one's got a bare spot on one side, this one has branches too spread apart, that one is squatty and fat, this one has yellow needles... it goes on and on.  Finally, after much scrutiny (poor, picked apart trees) the perfect one is chosen and the hacking begins.

I've had a few times when Jason couldn't be with us to cut the tree.  Usually, if my Mom's with us, she'll be smart and ask the owner of the farm to help us and he'll cut it down in 2.5 seconds with his chainsaw.  But, I have this fiercely independent streak that prevents me from doing this myself, so I start hacking at it on my own.    After 20 minutes of huffing, puffing, sweating, and hollering at the kids to "Just pull on the tree so I can get my saw through the stump!  PULL HARDER!  Are you even pulling at all?!?!", the tree finally falls.  Of course, if Jason's there none of this occurs.  Thankfully!

Then we load the tree up and take it home to fill our house with it's crisp, yummy pine scent.  I love it!  See what all you non-Oregonians are missing out on?

We let Dallin have a go at it this year.  It's not as easy as it looks, he discovered.

A Thanksgiving poem

Mariah wrote a nice poem about Thanksgiving--thought I'd share.

                                                           families Giving thanks

everyone Remembering good times

                                                           meeting All together

                                                               being Thankful for all creations
                                                                    all Eating as a family
                                                                   big Family get together
                                                                    all Unaware of troubles
                                                                 love, Laughter

Santa's lap

I have a confession.  I've never taken my kids to see Santa.  Is that totally terrible of me?

I've pondered why this is the case.  I think it's because Mariah, being the first child, never wanted to see Santa.  I remember entertaining the thought of taking her a few times when she was little, but she never showed an interest and when she saw him in the stores around Christmastime, she would hide and never go sit on his lap.  So, I supposed all my kids would be shy and not want to visit the man in the suit.

It's probably a good idea not to assume every child is alike, because guess what?  All the kids (except Mariah) were excited to see him and sit on his lap.  I was pleasantly surprised (and felt a bit guilty for not taking them sooner).

We even had some time to visit with Santa after the pictures because no one else was waiting in line.  We asked him the question we always wonder and discuss in our family:  How does he get into the house?  It's a huge debate for us.  I say he always comes down the chimney, even if there's a fire.  Jason says he comes through the front door, so we have to make sure to leave it unlocked.  Some of the kids think Daddy lets Santa into the house in the middle of the night.  It's quite the mystery.

Santa said he likes to go down the chimney, but not all houses have chimneys.  So, in that case, he goes to the door, and somehow, every time, it magically opens when he reaches for the knob.  He said it has always happened like that.  He reaches for the door and..... it just opens.  He's never had a problem with it.  He definitely has some Santa-magic going on.  And now we know the answer to our mystery.

Mariah still didn't want to sit on Santa's lap.  She hid herself in the store and didn't show her face until she knew he was safely out of the building.  She said, "I don't like people dressed up."  So, she posed for me anyway in Santa's chair, just to prove she was there.  Silly girl.