Hunting For The Christmas Tree

Christmas Crack

Nikolas bearing the firstborn responsibility of carrying the saw.
He was quite proud of himself:)

Where's Lukas?!

Nikolas claimed this tree,
too bad it was too short for mommy's standards.

Talk about a happy boy!

The farm we went to has a little barn with two "reindeer", a llama and some other creature I can't remember right now. Nik liked them, but Lukas, our little horse fan, wouldn't even go inside the barn.

Nikolas helping to decorate the tree.

and Lukas as well,
though he would have nothing to do with the lower half of the tree.

The finished product!

Why is it that a tree can look perfect at the farm
but once inside the imperfections become glaringly obvious?

I'm going to just admit here that this was a bit hard for me to relinquish control of the tree decorating. I was given the task of decorating the Christmas tree when I was 15 and no longer had a brother or sister at home to help. (Not that I remember John ever decorating the tree...but maybe), so then when I married I happily took over decorating the tree to my own liking. After 8 years of marriage before children I had a system and a certain way I wanted the tree to look. Now that the boys are a little older and actually want to help I want to encourage that attitude of helpfulness, but it makes me cringe a little as they are reaching for the breakable ornaments or the ones of sentimental value. I know I don't have to let them hang the breakable ones, and I do steer them towards the paper and plastic versions, but I also don't want to be overbearing and make decorating the tree a stressful time. So I just repeat, "My boys are more important than things" over and over again......as the violin ornament my mom gave me when I played the violin gets dropped and bent.

My boys are more important than things.
My boys are more important than things.
My boys are more important than things.

My Christmas Craft Resolution

I started New Years early this year and made a resolution at the end of November that I would do a Christmas activity or craft everyday of December. I am happy to report that I have actually been keeping this resolution so far!

Here are some of our crafts we have done so far:

Tissue Paper Snowman

I just cut out the circles and attached the contact paper. They did the rest! (Though I did point to where Lukas should stick his carrot and hat) I think tissue paper crafts like this are my all time favorite craft. I always have the material on hand, they don't take much prep work and once I get the shape cut out and backed with contact paper I can move on to other things while they work on their creations for at least 15-20 minutes.

Cottonball Snowmen

Notice how the goofy looking one with the eye on its lower body and the hat upside down was created by the 4 year old. That is what the snowman would have looked like had Lukas not had me pointing to where things should go, but I figured that Nikolas would know where eyes belong and which way a hat goes. Apparently not. I like it, though, and next craft we do I'm leaving Lukas to his own devices:)

Hand Print Christmas Trees

I cut a tree shape out of paper bags and then had them paint their trees green. Then, while we waited for the paint to dry I traced their hands onto construction paper and then cut them out. They were in charge of gluing their hands to the tree.
I love how these turned out and they look really cute taped to our window. I'll be keeping these in their keepsake boxes for sure!

Reindeer Ornaments

This one is a pretty well known craft. They colored their sticks and then I put the hot glue on and they stuck everything together.

Hand and Foot Print Reindeers

This one is another keeper! I love their little handprints for the antlers:) Next time I would paste the hands behind the feet prints as then I could see their little toes as well.

We also did some easy Foamies crafts and have gone to look at some pretty fantastic Christmas lights as well as getting our tree the other day and decorating. I have a list of other crafts and activities I want to do in the coming days, and it's a good thing as Lukas has started asking for crafts now. He says, "We do crafts now, Mommy?" and then runs to my craft bins looking for things.
I really hope to stay motivated with this December resolution so if you have any cute and simple ideas for me to try let me know!

I found many of the craft ideas from various homeschooling blogs found here and here.

And In Everything, Give Thanks

Tone' has been praying with the boys before bed since he has been home and I just have to share what is being prayed for as it is just too cute:)

Tone' starts out by asking the boys what they are thankful for and that they can thank Jesus for these things. They both come up with different things like family, friends and their toys. So then Tone' starts praying and it goes something like this (I listened in recently):

Tone': "Dear Jesus, thank you for mommy and all the things she does for us, and thank you...."

Now here is where, every single night without fail, Lukas urgently interjects with, " that mommy gives us M&M's!". So Tone' has to thank Jesus for mommy giving them M&M's before going on, and once he does he begins again with, "and thank you...."

Then, Lukas interjects again with, "that mommy gives us chocolate chips!".

So, apparently, the way to Lukas heart is with chocolate.

Which isn't too far off the way to his mama's heart. I do prefer Dark chocolate, however....
hint, hint.

Introducing:

our baby girl:
Estella Erlene

An old fashioned name, for sure, but with significant meaning. Unknown to many, Estella Erlene was my mothers full name, though she went by her middle name, Erlene. My middle name is Erlene as well, a fact I was always embarrassed about growing up, but am quite proud to bear now. Estella was also my Great Great Grandmothers name (or was it just one Great?) and so there is alot of family history behind this name.

Our Little Girls Namesake:
My sweet mother who I miss terribly, especially now that I am having a little girl.
This picture was taken the last Christmas we all spent together in 2004.
She would have turned 70 last Friday, the 3rd of December.

Tone' and I have different nicknames for our little Estella. Tone' plans on calling her "Stella" which is actually quite popular nowadays, it's in the top 150. Apparently there is some movie I have never seen where the character yells, "STELLA!!!!!". So Tone' is down with that name.
I have a different name in mind and it happens to be after my friend, Estie. The same Estie who is just one week ahead of me in pregnancy. How coincidental!
All these names, Estella, Estie and Stella derive from the name of Esther, which means "star".

We don't know yet what Lukas plans on calling his little sister, but Nikolas has an entirely different name picked out. He is adamant on calling her, "Celeste".

Yes, that's right, Celeste. After Babar the elephants wife! The quite hilarious thing is that Celeste means, "heavenly", which is right in line with the "star" meaning of Estella.

Needless to say this little girl is going to be a little confused as to what her actual name is. She'll figure it out soon enough though as I will be telling her all about the wonderful grandmother she is named after, who was also named after her grandmother. And that is how it should be, generation after generation passing on the family history and keeping memories alive.

Two And A Half Months Till Baby!

I don't know how I haven't posted anything about me being pregnant yet, but somehow 6 1/2 months have gone by already. This is also only the second picture of me with child, which is in stark contrast to my other two. With each of them I took monthly pictures wearing the same outfit and standing in the same spot. Hmmmm, hope this doesn't foretell the attention this baby will be getting. Though, being a girl, I'm pretty sure she won't be neglected:)

Two of my friends and I planned a little girls getaway recently and left all our children with the husbands for two whole nights! It was marvelous. Uninterrupted meals, showers, conversations, SLEEP....to name a few. Well, actually, the sleep was interrupted for both my friend, Estie and I, as she is also pregnant and so we were taking turns getting up throughout the night as there just isn't enough room in our bodies to hold out all night. BUT, we weren't interrupted by any other children!

My friend, Rachael, joined us as well. We spent the weekend at my dads cabin in White Salmon, Washington. It's on a little lake, for now, as the dam is soon to be blown up within the next couple years. Then the cabin will be on a bog pit. Lovely. Thanks salmon lovers.

(notice how my belly covers most of Rachael?)

Rachael enjoyed taking the kayak out on the lake.

It is quite peaceful and glides smoothly through the water, unlike the rowboat that Estie and I were in. Peaceful and smooth would be the opposite words for that thing. Tone' actually built this kayak, which amazes me. If only he had made another one, but I really don't want to be a kayak widow for the 8 months it takes to build one.

Estie took a spin in it as well, and by the time we made it back to the dock it was dark.

We decided we're making this an annual or even a bi-annual event. Though next year there will be two tiny babies in tow. But since Estie and I are both having girls, it will still be a girls weekend!

A Book I Should Have

I just saw this book recently and thought it was one I could use often.

It is described as a book that "tells you what to do when any kind of food or drink is.....
overcooked, undercooked, stale, burned, lumpy, salty, bland, too spicy, mushy, too dry, too wet, flat, tough, too thick, too thin, wilted, collapsed, curdled or stuck together." In other words, things that go wrong in my kitchen on a regular basis.

I am the first to admit that I am not a natural born cook.

I really only began cooking (and by "cooking" I mean that I make most of the meal from scratch which doesn't include Bisquick, instant anything or those convenient boxed pasta mixes) after I had Nikolas. Before that it was a lot of eating out, stir-fry and yes, the boxed pasta mixes with chicken tenderloins. Somehow my sister learned enough cooking from our mom before she left home at 18 and was able to cook whole meals from scratch. She once told me that she didn't even realize buying chicken frozen and in parts was an option till she was older. She always started with a whole chicken. I, however, had no idea how to cook a chicken whole and thought everyone, except my mom, bought frozen chicken breast. The funny part about that is that we raised our own chickens and every so often my dad would introduce a chicken or three to his newly sharpened axe. Then, after chasing the headless chickens around the yard for a while, I would sit at the picnic table with my mom and sister plucking feathers. I suppose I then went off to play in the woods or splash in the creek while Kellie and mom went in to finish the chicken cleaning and cooking, because I have no memories of what went on with those chickens once we defeathered them.

My lack of kitchen appearances didn't stop with just chickens either. I never learned to make cookies or bread or sauces or how to brown ground beef. I might have boiled noodles....maybe... ....once. Apparently I spent most of my time outside while growing up and left being quite proficient at swinging a machette at those pesky blackberry bushes. Machette swinging doesn't carry over into daily life very well, though. If only reality shows like Survivor had been around back then!

Now that I've been a stay-at-home mom for nearly five years I think I have graduated into the realm of cooking to say that I actually can cook. I now know how to make a rue, how to fake buttermilk using regular milk and apple cider vinegar, how to make my own cream of mushroom soup, and yes, I even know how to make cookies! I do, however, still have cooking and baking mishaps. It is then that I rely on three friends for advice: Kate, Sheri and my sister Kellie. In fact, just tonight I called my sister for tips on how to make a coconut cream pie for my brothers 40th birthday. (How can he be 40?! Even though he is 5 1/2 years older than me, him turning 40 means it is that much closer for me! Yikes!) I've never eaten a coconut cream pie let alone made one, so I looked up some recipes and then called Kellie for any other words of wisdom. I went to work on making the pie and everything was going well until I dumped all the coconut into the mixture and then immediately realized that I hadn't toasted the coconut yet. Nuts. Start over or spoon as much of the coconut out and then toast it? Hmmmm.... this is where the book would have come in handy.

Well, I ended up spooning it out and toasting, 2 different batches as I burned the first one, and then added it back in. It's cooling now, so we'll see how it all turns out. I'm sure glad there are going to be other desserts at John's party!

Summer Recap: Beach Trip!

My life is now slowing down long enough to finally post some of the summer fun we had. That, and Tone' is sort of back in town. Sort of meaning; he still has to travel to Seattle area during the week, but at least it's only 2 or 3 days now instead of the whole week! That seems so much more doable than him being gone Sunday afternoon through late Friday night.
So here are the pictures from a week in August when the boys and I stayed near Depot Bay with my good friend Sheri. The blue sky is just about killing me right now amidst all this RAIN we are so fortunate to experience here in the beautiful Pacific NW. If I could move with all my family, friends and church to southern Utah, I WOULD! Sun, rock climbing....sun, rock climbing...okay, that's about all that I need apart from family, friends and my church family.

Moving on from the dream.....here is the beach:

Nikolas is athletic in every way....
except catching a ball.

He can throw pretty well though:)

Sheri enjoying the sun, sand and magazine reading.

This picture hardly looks like Lukas,
especially now as his hair is buzzed.
He's a cutie, I must say.

We stayed in a little cabin just a couple blocks from the beach.
The boys spent the evenings playing trains, reading books and jumping off the bunk bed.

They also rode their bikes in the evenings.
Nikolas was in rare form pushing his little brother around.

Auntie Shewi, as the boys call her:)

I love the little Lukey pouty face

I love the smiling Lukas even more!

Our little private beach.
Or so it seemed as we were always the only ones on it.

Nikolas Earns "The Big Brother Award"

On the way to drop off the boys at a friends so I could go to a meeting Lukas started crying in the car about the impending separation. Here's how Nikolas stepped in:

Luke: Mommy, if you leave me at the Davis' house, I cry.

Nikolas: Luke, it's okay. I'll take care of you.

Luke: Okay. You have to kiss me though.

It was a "melt my heart" kind of moment. I love those boys.

Trick or Treating

The gang.
This is the fifth year we have been trick or treating with this group of kiddos.
Well, obviously not all the kiddos.

Actually only half of them were around when Nikolas first joined as a little
six month old bat. Now we have doubled the numbers! That is wayyyyy more than the average U.S. population growth. Just doing our part to help out the social security system.

If it's still around by the time these guys are all working....

The little boys
(just don't let them hear you say "little"!)

These cute boys are within 4 months of each other in age, yet, by looking at the size difference between Lukas and the other two you would think there was much more. Sorry Luke, I'm afraid there isn't much hope for you....

The big boys
They took this superhero business serious!
Absolutely hilarious.

All the boys, including the littlest little boys.

Eight boys five years old and under. You could say it gets a little loud and rambunctious when we are all together. In fact, you could ask Kate, mother of the little chicken boy, who has two older girls and was just recently introduced one evening to what it is like to have boys. All six of the bigger boys stripped down to their unders and had a wrestling match in the living room after dinner. It was crazy. It was loud. There were tears, but they all had fun and would have kept wrestling had I not put an end to it finally. That's boys!

Cookie Monster!

I went down to Cannon Beach and picked up my niece Alexandra from college so she could spend the weekend with us. She always comes up with the most unique costumes and this year was no different.

Willy and Nikolas, aka. Batman and Batman, are plotting against the girls here.

Run Audrey Bee, run!!!

Counting the loot.
Nikolas did well and was not ready to stop.

Lukas did well too, considering he missed half the houses due to being
the slooowwwest child ever to go trick or treating.


The best part of the night?

Drinking pumpkin spice lattes my friend Angela made in the Crockpot!
MMMmmmmmm!!!!

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

On our return trip from Oklahoma we stopped at the Manitou Indian Cliff Dwellings in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This was a really cool history lesson about the Anasazi people and all the magnificent cliff dwellings they built. It was also really beautiful, both the dwellings and the scenery.

These cliff dwellings are actually reconstructions of the original, though they did use the original stone and built them in the same dimensions and layouts as the original which were located in Mesa Verde. This was done because of the looting and destruction going on. The nice thing about this being a reconstruction is that the stones were put back together with concrete mortar instead of the mud/clay mortar used by the Anasazi. Now people can walk and climb through the dwellings and not worry about the stones coming crashing down on top of anyone. That is nice.


Nikolas and Lukas had fun exploring this place and we didn't hear Nik say he was bored even once! Except for maybe in the gift shop.....

Hello Alex!

The boys loved being able to climb through all the openings and up the ladders.
This is a great place to teach the more hands-on learners some history.

This was a great reminder to me that there are so many places within a couple days of driving that will be fun and wonderful history lessons for my children. Not to mention for me!