December 2014

The kids all take a turn putting up the star, angel and other star. 

 The girls performed their dance recital at Randall Children's Hospital. We couldn't do this last year because of the timing and the girls were really looking forward to it this year. They're in the same class and have loved it. We had to take them out of school a little early and then hit rush hour traffic going home. A three hour trip for a 3 minute dance. I was ready to tell them we weren't going to do it next year, until the girls were talking about being on tv (closed circuit broadcast to Randall's and Doernbecher's) and how they hoped that it helped the sick people feel a little bit better. 

Yearly tradition of horse back riding at the Huffman's. 

I came to check on the girls before I went to bed and found this. There are times that they fight and argue about the littlest things, but, when it all comes down to it, they love each other more than anything. I keep asking Avery if she wants her own room (she's very tidy and Briella is very not), but she doesn't want to. They love sharing a room, and occasionally a bed.

Bethany came to town! I was needing a sister fix and thought about heading to Texas but could not bring myself to leave Oregon. Luckily she came to me! We had a full itinerary of Christmas things and projects to do. She has totally acclimated to Texas weather so she was absolutely freezing here. We went to the Zoo Lights and she was wearing so many layers and STILL freezing. 

One of the things we worked on was decorating my mom's house for Christmas. She had picked out the saddest looking tree that made us laugh like crazy. Decorating it was an experience I will never forget. The amount of hysterical laughter was epic. One of those, you had to be there to understand it. My mom has all these birds on clips and we put almost all of them on one branch.

We did have a few nostalgic moments. My parents have the same ornaments from when we were kids and it was fun seeing them again. 

Bethany whipped this out for me in half an hour. She's so talented.

 

James's 11th Birthday! He wanted to go to Famous Dave's for lunch and then see a movie. He also went to his last Lego Movie Making class.  He made it super easy for me and requested a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. I can't believe he's 11! His birthday interview will be coming up next.

Briella made this for our elf Chris to give to Santa. 

Paul was in town for Christmas but had to leave in the afternoon Christmas day, so we had our normal Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve. It was also Kira's birthday so we celebrated that as well. Avery helped out in the kitchen this year and I loved it. It took me a couple years to be allowed to cook with my mom. She's very particular about how things are done. Once I proved myself worthy we have loved sharing the kitchen. Having Avery help made it really special. 

Michael is a play thing for the kids.

This was the first Christmas we had in our new home (last year we were in Utah). We were really looking forward to having a low-key morning, just us. We did Christmas as a family and then headed over to my parent's house to do Christmas with them, Chris and David. 

Santa presents all ready to go

My parents found her the perfect present. A purple electric blanket.

Since Hilde has six kids, we give Christmas presents to three of them and Arianne gives to the other three. We had the three oldest this year and Ben wanted to do something different with the boys. He wanted to give them money but make them work for it. He put a $20 bill in between two pieces of wood and then staple gunned them together. For York's he wrapped it in duct tape, put it in a box and then filled that box with spray foam. Finn's was stapled, screwed and glued together. When we FaceTimed with them, York was taking an axe to his and Finn was trying to drill through his. They were all laughing and then sent us this picture. York had gotten his out pretty easily, Finn's took a bit longer.

He tried to burn it!

 A good friend had asked if she could use our house and have a New Year's Day football watching party. We thought it would be a little more fun (I was not interested in watching football) to have a party New Year's Eve instead. The guest list got a little crazy and I was concerned about having close to 50 people in our house. It turned out great! We had homemade tamales and all the fixings. The adults (and some kids) played Rockband downstairs and the kids played games and watched movies upstairs. It didn't feel too crowded, we had plenty of seating and everyone had fun. It was very loud, but a good kind of loud. Ben rigged up a balloon drop and we had a countdown with the kids before midnight.

The girls singing "I Love Rock and Roll". It was such a fun night!