A Very Merry December

Christmas is still a day away, but our December has been very busy and Christmasy indeed! Warning: Lots of pictures ahead! These were all taken with my phone and some under very questionable lighting, so they're not all super wonderful, but they captured the moments and that's what I needed.

We started December off like we always do - getting a tree from our favorite U-cut tree farm. It has no name, so I can't tell you much about it. It's just some guy's property with lots of trees that he charges $20 a pop no matter what the size. It's out in Sherwood somewhere. This was our 5th year, so we're some of his "regulars" now.

Nathan had his very first piano recital! He's been taking lessons since September and he is OH SO CUTE. He's doing very well and I can't wait to see the look on his face Christmas morning when he opens his new full-size keyboard with stand and seat. He's been practicing on a $25 child's play keyboard that's missing a key, so it's definitely time for an upgrade.

John and I had our December evening that we look forward to every single year. John's company Christmas party! (Ignore John's crazy eyes. Apparently that's what happens when you have a co-worker take your picture). This year the party was a the Hotel Monaco in downtown Portland. They rented out the entire hotel restaurant and paid for everything - even our room there that night. It was so gorgeous and quiet and relaxing and child-free...... It is wonderful to get super dressed up and spend time with other adults.

 We took the boys to see our friend Erin Charles as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. It was beautiful! They loved every minute. At one point, Aiden turned to me and said, "I'm going to have to check the DVD when we get home to see if Erin's name is on it, because she sounds JUST like Belle in the movie. She has to be the one doing the voice!". We paid a little extra to do the cast meet and greet after the show, and it was very worth it.

Yes, I got in on the picture with Lumiere. He's my favorite character in the movie!

Nathan's kindergarten class had their Christmas concert. Nathan is the one with the un-tucked white shirt.

My child loves performing. He ate up every little bit of attention after the concert.

On the first day of winter, we woke up to a letter from our Elf on the Shelf, Piper. He had brought the boys new pajamas and had a letter that said:

"Dear Aiden and Nathan, Santa has an adventure for you today. You must wear these pajamas, and have your mom and dad drive you to this address:

110 Railroad Avenue

Hood River, Oregon

It will take a long time to get there – almost two hours! – so please try to be patient for the long car ride. You must be there around 6pm. Once you arrive, tell your mom and dad to give their names to the people there. Follow their instructions, and something special will be waiting for you.

Have fun on your adventure today! I can’t wait to hear all about it from Santa when I see him tonight!"

Aiden said it felt strange to follow directions from an elf, but we loaded up in the car a little after 4pm and headed out to Hood River.

Once we got there, we went into a station and gave our names. The person handed us golden tickets for The Polar Express! The boys were thrilled! Aiden said, "Are you kidding?!? We actually get to ride on the Polar Express!!"

John and I had bought the tickets back in November and it had been SO hard to keep this a secret. We weren't exactly sure how we were going to pull the whole thing off, but we finally decided a few days beforehand that our elf would be the one to get us the tickets and send us off on a secret adventure. I'm so glad Aiden still believes in Santa and the elf this year. It brought so much extra joy to this event.

We were served hot chocolate and cookies, and the conductor came through and the punched the golden tickets! (The train was wobbling super bad and caused a terrible picture, but at least I got one. He moves fast!)

Aiden had questioned whether or not we were headed to the real North Pole (it was pitch black outside, so they couldn't see where we were going), but once the conductor announced that we had arrived at the North Pole and would be picking up Santa, who we could see if we looked out the windows on the right.....Aiden believed. He saw Santa outside and said, "Oh, I was wrong! This is the North Pole!". I nearly cried. He was so happy.

I had gotten us tickets in coach and didn't think that Santa visited with the kids in coach - just handed them a silver bell as he came through. So imagine my surprise when Santa boarded our train car and sat with every single child, posing for pictures and talking with them about what they wanted for Christmas.

The boys asked for very reasonable things from Santa, so I went out last night to buy what they had asked for, even though I had finished their shopping two weeks prior. I know this will be Aiden's last year believing - he's questioned it so much already this December that I wasn't sure we could pull the belief through Christmas - so I want to go all out for him. We have a plan in place for when he questions it after Christmas has passed: A letter that explains why we encourage belief in Santa. I found it earlier this year and I knew it explained it exactly the way we wanted to. We'll probably have to word the beginning a little differently, but the rest works perfectly.

(I wish I knew who to credit for this, but I have no idea!)

So that's our December in a nutshell so far. Have a wonderful Christmas!

Catch up on....July

Yes yes, my blogging has taken a complete nose dive. I've blogged half as much this year as I did last year. Blah. So guess what? I'm doing a recap going back until oh......July. June was about when things came to a screeching halt, so July seems like a good place to start.

I blogged briefly about our start to July. Aiden taking a three-day baseball class.

Me and the boys getting burnt to a crisp no matter how much sunscreen we applied. I swear someone HAD to have switched out the sunscreen with oil.... Nope. I'm just that pale.

Any guesses on where my shorts ended?

For 4th of July, we headed out to Rockaway to spend the holiday with Laura and Kevin. It was a nice break and spending a few days on the beach was super fun! I bought a sport tent to keep myself out of the sun and it worked! We had a yummy BBQ at Laura and Kevin's, we watched fireworks over Rockaway Beach, we spent lots of time in the hotel pool and hot tub, and we flew kites and played a little baseball on the beach.

Nathan started gymnastics and LOVED it! This may be something we continue at a later time. He's quite the nimble little gymnast.

We bought our minivan (which I'm still totally in love with, by the way. Best car ever!), and said goodbye to our Subaru. John drove it to the junkyard and told me, "You know, I think something might be wrong with that car's transmission". Oh, you mean the violent shaking and growling whenever I tried to drive wasn't normal?

We got to watch the Hillsboro Air Show from the comfort of our front yard. There are benefits to living right by an airport.

Our New York friend Charlie came to visit. We treated him to a "country experience" by taking him to a gun range. As we pulled in, he looked around and said, "People are just....walking around with....GUNS. And no one is stopping them!!". If you recall, we treated him to his very first hiking experience last summer and told him to eat berries in the wild (he refused). Charlie is a computer science and robotics teacher for "elite" (translation: famous) NY families, so he really isn't used to this kind of thing. We thoroughly enjoy shaking him to his core. Although this last July is going to be hard to top next year. Especially since we were standing at a gun range with a full air show happening over our heads. In Charlie's words, "It was perfect. But it's the last time I'll ever do anything like that again!".

We also spent lots and lots of time walking around the trails at the library, feeding baby ducks and finding big sticks. We also discovered a duck with one leg. The boys were very concerned and I had to discourage them from attempting to bring the duck home with us.

And that is July in a nutshell. Busy, but it's got nothing on what we did in August!

When You See It.....

We got the boys some fun straws that they could put together in various ways, making double straws and things like that. John wanted a picture of them using the straws they'd made, so I snapped this with my phone. As I went back to look at it, I noticed the little addition in the background. A very desperate, wide-eyed PomChi peering in through the sliding glass door. 

"I want to use the fun straw too!"

It gave us a good laugh. And then we let him come in from the rain.

Chaos

I like my life simply scheduled, fairly underwhelming, and calm. I am not the type who enjoys being busy or always out and about (I really dislike driving). I like having - at an absolute minimum - one day per week where I don't have to go anywhere. This school term is shaking all of that up and rocking me to my core.

Everything is in chaos. I'm gone a lot. I don't have a handle on anything. And for those of you who were over at my house last Saturday and saw upstairs, you got a pretty good visual as to how insane things are at the moment. So embarrassing. The one year I decide to not stress myself out about cleaning upstairs for a birthday party is the one year Aiden decides everyone needs a tour. Thank you, child.

Anywho, this term is absolutely bat-poo crazy, but there is an aspect of it that I am super grateful about. This term includes my very first practicum (internship). I managed to get in at the library just down the street from us and I am loving every single moment of it. It's the 5th busiest library in Oregon and I'm getting a good handle on what that means. They are being so wonderful with training me like I'm an actual employee and providing me with this fantastic opportunity to have this experience under my belt for future employment. Everyone is helpful and fun, and I feel so comfortable there. The time is really going too fast and I know I'll miss it once it's over. I do plan on staying on as a volunteer once per week after this term is over. I just can't imagine walking away from it all once the practicum time is done. I'm there four times a week, so I'm fairly immersed into the place. Most of those days, I still walk back to my car trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm doing actual library work. It feels so right and I can't wait until I can do this somewhere permanently.

The practicum is definitely the most enjoyable part of this term. I'm not having as much fun with driving to North Portland every Monday at rush hour to go to a four hour class on how to design bulletin boards (I'm not joking. I wish I was joking.). That's after doing my Monday stint at the library, grabbing the boys from school, and immediately taking them to the babysitter. Then there's the online course that requires more library service time, but it has to be at a different library (because I have time for that!). Nathan is taking piano lessons, Aiden is in Lego Robotics, and starting in two weeks, they'll both be in bowling. And I'm in dance class again, which definitely adds to my schedule but is good for my soul.

So that's how things stand. Not my favorite way to live, but I'm keeping in mind that it will slow down come the second week of December. I'm not even going to think about the fact that next term will probably look almost identical.