Christmas Top 10

 
Above are some pictures of our Christmas - I sort of hate blogger right now - why is it so hard to put pictures in order?  I can't figure it out.  Anyway, now that you've enjoyed some pictures of our December - here's a top 10 list about this December:

1. Activities: Maggie sings with our Stake (local congregation) youth choir at our town's Festival of Trees, we visit the Oakland Temple to see the lights with Christopher's cousin Devin and his family, we also visited a few locally famous streets with lights, as an aside: everyone should take a three year old with them to see lights, it ups the excitement factor by about 5, we all attend a Messiah sing along - two of us love it, 2 of us think it is ok, 1 of us starts to cry shortly after intermission because it is "taking forever" and we have unfortunately obeyed the rules and finished M&M's in the lobby, we attend Christmas Eve service, which Paige blessedly sleeps almost entirely through.

2.  Gifts: this year, I used an idea from Design Mom and the girls made each other's  gifts: Maggie made pillow cases (pictured above) - on a day that Christopher was home for help with the machine, Ashlee made hair clips and headbands with flowers and Paige made glitter letters.  I loved this.

3.  Food: we had lots of yummy food and delivered treats to Primary teachers and neighbors.  My favorite this year was chocolate covered popcorn.

4.  Time: We had lots of time to spend together.  The girls both had the entire week before Christmas off and even though Christopher didn't have leave, he was able to be home alot.

5.  The girls let us sleep until 7:30 Christmas morning

6.  Ashlee loved that she got to stay in her PJ's all day Christmas day.

7.  We got a real tree this year.  As we are putting it up Christopher tells us a funny childhood anecdote about family friends who thought their tree was just really "thirsty" but really the stand had a leak and they rotted the sub floor.  The morning after Christmas, Paige retrieves her calendar from underneath the tree and it is mysteriously wet - turns out we had a little water issue also, not enough to rot the floor, just enough to leave a big red stain from the felt tree skirt.

8. Gorgeous California weather.  The hills are so green and beautiful right now - it reminds me of summer in our little German town HP.

9.  Christopher got another helicopter and it is a big hit with everyone (one of the pictures above with Paige wincing is her ducking from "Chopster")

10.  Shopping was like going on a date - I love that Maggie is old enough to babysit now, also Paige is old enough to spill the beans about gifts, so we stopped taking her with us.  The end.

November, Try to Remember

In November we: drove to Point Reyes State Park, the water was cold, the weather was gorgeous.  We had a picnic, walked down the 300 or so steps to the beautiful lighthouse, may have seen a whale breach (we caught only the briefest of glimpses, but the girls insist that's what it was AND, as if to prove the point the sign at the ranger's station, read on the way out,  noted that there had been some whale activity to the south of the lighthouse. It was really exciting.) We then walked back up the 300 or so steps and  drove home, stopping first above another beach to fight for the binoculars and observe sea lions taking their leisure far below in the dusk.  It really is a gorgeous spot and we hope to go back many times.  For a first outing, we felt it was very successful.  But then, we read our guide book (weeks after - when will I learn) and it seems we missed out on some world class culinary opportunities.  So, more exploring of the many hiking trails and food stops is in order.

In November,  Ashlee performed in her school play with the San Francisco Opera Guild.  That picture is so grainy, but so are all the others I took - I will figure out how to work our point and shoot better one of these days.  It was a thrill for me to watch and I think for her to perform.  My favorite parts of the whole play, after her performance of course, were: her phone call home to request permission to audition - I have it almost memorized - it makes me laugh every time I listen to it.  "Mom...or Dad...this is Ashlee.I was wondering if I can go to practice for the opera today, it's every Wednesday from 1:45 to 3:00..... thank-you ..... goodbye."  She was talking so quietly so no-one could hear her, and she is always so business like on the phone, it cracks me up.  And - one of the boys in the play went home after school and showered before practice - every time.  Ashlee says the teachers would tell him not to go home, but to go straight to practice, but he always went home to shower and then came back.  Ashlee told us about it because she thought it was funny and so do I, kids are just funny sometimes.

In November, we went to Utah for Thanksgiving week.  We had a really good visit.  All of my siblings were there, so that makes twice this year we have all been together.  I have a real affinity for UT. now, and it has nothing to do with the state, but just that so many people that I love live there.  I don't have that many pictures, I only remembered to get my camera out once while we were actually there.  The picture below was taken on the drive over, somewhere in Nevada, which was actually quite beautiful with all the snow.  So, that's it, next up December....

Fall Sports

 Fall sports are over (have been for quite some time now...)both Maggie and Ashlee played soccer, and Maggie ran for the cross country team at her Middle School.  I love soccer and hope they continue to play.  I do not love hyper-competitive parents / coaches.  Sometimes they are funny and entertaining (the coach in the green in the background is an example of this) but mostly they are bothersome and make me uncomfortable and even a little angry.  It's the only part of youth sports that I don't like.  Best memory I have of Ashlee this season (even though I didn't personally witness this, I was with Maggie at her field): While waiting for the game to start, Ashlee dropped and started doing push-ups.  She loves soccer and is always excited to play - I am smiling thinking about it right now.

Maggie's back during a race - I am really proud of her - she worked hard at cross country and improved her time by about 1 1/2 minutes during the season.  What makes me more proud is the fact that she showed up to try-outs/practice without a single friend (new school, only a few friends).  I would not have done that in a million years in school.  I played sports in high school, but I always knew someone until my senior year and  I probably wouldn't have played that year, but my dad found out about the off-season team for my school and got me to try-out, thanks Dad!   Anyway, Maggie is awesome.

So, there you go - one update down, several to go. . . . 

All Hallow's Eve

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

 

Peace Out - Flower, Bride of Frankenstein, Nerd!

(p.s. I will try to post some other updates soon)

Redwoods

Over Labor Day Weekend, we took a trip up the North Coast to see the Redwood Trees.  On the way up, we stopped at  Glass Beach - so named because it used to be the city dump, now all the glass (because it is heavy and didn't get washed out to sea) has been buffed/polished into little pebbles.  Christopher says that the thing embedded in the rock in this picture is the rear differential of a  pick-up truck.  I have lots of thoughts about this beach -

The rest of the pictures:
2. Redwood Grove - the trees were AMAZING.

3.  Blurry picture next to the base of a fallen tree - Paige was done with: walking, smiling, using her nice voice, being happy.  She had been sick and was a little out of sorts.
4.  Christopher trying to re-create a picture he remembers of older brother Michael jumping from a Redwood into his dad's arms.  We did this shot with both older girls, twice with Ashlee.  I have a hard time pulling the trigger at the right time.  These were the instructions he gave - "Mom's going to take a picture of you jumping to me."  If you tell Ashlee to jump, if you tell her that you will catch her, if she trusts you - she will really jump.  I guess her jump was a little bit too authentic - he meant for her to sort of lean and fall - not jump.  The five minutes after this shot were filled with jumping around, rubbing a kicked leg, saying "I didn't mean really  jump" and lots of laughing.
5.Maggie being silly, I like that you can see the tree's dimensions in this picture.  I don't think this was the biggest one we saw, but read the numbers, they are impressive.
6.They are singing.
7.  Beautiful coast line on the bluffs above glass beach.

We had a great time on this trip - this area of California is so beautiful.  I just scrolled back through the pictures - I think the theme is blurry....

Back to School

The Girls are back in school - week 4.  How old does Paige look in jeans?  She begged to have them, I bought them, she put them on once, for 10 minutes to have this picture taken and hasn't looked at them since.  Does that sentence sound familiar?  It does to me. . . every year at back to school time, I buy them clothes they won't put back on, clothes they insist they love.  Paige proudly continues the tradition.   We took a whole bunch of pictures for their "back to school" fashion show.  I was going to send them to their dad in the desert, but I just downloaded them 5 minutes ago.  Anyway, it is fine with me that she doesn't want to put those jeans back on - she's looking a little bit too grown-up for me in that picture.

The transition has been the roughest on Ashlee - as you can see in the picture above.  She is not hanging her head just to avoid the camera, she didn't know I had it out.  That is how I left her, waiting in line on the first day.  She came home much happier (see her smiling above , after school!), but she still has a few days of crying in the morning, not wanting to go.  The whole first week, I reminded her to just take things one day at a time, that things would be better, easier as time went on.  She is settling in.  I am proud of her for struggling through.  It helped that Chris came home the Friday of their second week, he makes everything a little easier for all of us.  Maggie is in 7th grade - she has been really excited most days about the new school and new opportunities.   Middle school!!!!  I can't believe it.

Dinner Group

One more item that I intended to blog about, but haven't yet - dinner group.  A friend from the ward started a dinner group with 4 other ladies some time in the fall of last year.  In March, one of the families dropped out and I got to be the replacement.  I had heard about the group and was really excited to participate.

Here's how it worked - every week, you cooked five of the same meal on your assigned day, one for your family and four others to deliver to the other dinner group members.  On the rest of the days (Monday through Friday only) you made a salad, maybe cooked some green beans, maybe cooked some rice or pasta (to go with the main dish) and then waited for your dinner to be delivered!  I think the rules were - delivered ready to eat by 5, or ready to cook by 3.  It was so awesome!  We ate dinner at a decent hour every single week night, my kids tried new things, clean-up was a breeze!  This my sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but it was like a little Christmas gift 4 days a week.  The only drawback was on my cooking day, my kitchen was a DISASTER.  and it usually took almost 2 hours to clean everything up, but even then, because I had to have it delivered by 5, we were eating at 6 even on my days to cook.  I was really sad to give it up in May when we moved into the TLF.  It was one of the best ideas EVER.  I took the picture above on one of my cooking days.  The kitchen doesn't look too bad in that picture, but that is just at the very beginning of the cooking... by the end, that stack of towels would be down by 4 or 5, those bowls would be at the bottom of an extremely large stack etc....

I would love to do it again here, and I am sort of keeping my eyes open for potential members.