Christmas Dinner

Thanks Papa & Maama for hosting everyone at your house!! :-) We opted to go "easy" on the dinner and fix Tacos (good idea, Jeremy, honey!) Mom went all-out, making home-made tortillas - great job, Suki! Angie brought home-made beans. I brought the fresh salsa. When we pulled up to the house, we could smell the BBQ'd beef, a testimony to the Best Dinner Ever inside. :-) It was memorably delicious.

The kids played Club Penguin, somehow finding enough computers available to all play together, what a treat! And we got a Light-Saber show in full dress. Oh... and laughed over Despicable Me.

Christmas Morning

Shad was up at 6:00am. (ugh) He woke up everyone else. They all loved their "big" gifts. We clarified that it was Shad who wrote "from Santa" on his gifts to everyone and no one was sneaking in our house unawares, a concern Trinity had 'cause she met Santa down at the mall last year, and although he was a nice guy, no one in our house wants anyone sneaking in (after the break-in last May) for any reason.

In our house, we celebrate Jesus with a little manger with a baby doll. We don't leave room under the tree for the gifts, we arrange them around baby Jesus because... in our house, Jesus is the reason we give each other gifts to celebrate His birthday. He was the One Who received the first three gifts... and He is the One Who gives us every good and perfect thing. The gifts are what draw the emotions and the kids' crazy love for Wonderful Christmas, so it makes sense. And instead of stockings, we have Treasure Boxes. Hey... if the enemy can tweak something as Awesome as the birth of the Savior into a commercialized, tree-centered, greedy event, why not tweak it right back?

Gingerbread.... tradition

Just because December of 2010 was completely NUTS doesn't mean we ditch Tradition. Just because the kids don't actually like Gingerbread doesn't mean we ditch Tradition. Just because we're all on a diet and shouldn't eat candy at all, let alone cookies, etc, doesn't mean... anything at all! But our creations reflect some of those things... like the houses weren't made out of Gingerbread at all, Aidan having the bright idea to use sugar cookies instead. The houses didn't fit smoothly together because I didn't spare the time to measure and eye-balling is faulty... not to mention, I burnt at least a third of the walls. The candy was eaten almost as fast as it went on the houses, since we have deprived ourselves for months and intense sugar is so appealing, leaving us to work with chocolate chips, which were ingredients for something else, but worked well, of course. The kids built with plans of eating 'em, and after Aidan's birthday, it was an all-out village chow-down. After that, I didn't feel the need to make any more Traditional Cookies... or maybe 'cause Angie whipped up such a beautiful plate with 12 varieties! Despite our half-hearted efforts, we gained 10 lbs in the week of Christmas. Tradition!

10 Yrs for Aidan!

Completely in his element... with a crowd of on-lookers, completely the center of attention, directing the fun and acting loud & silly, the center of the world for a day. I think Aidan could live with being the birthday boy every day if he had the choice. And he's thoughtful enough to share the glory after he got his fill. Aidan has a huge heart and he lives big, full throttle. On this birthday, the family came out earlier and we made tomales all evening. Anna came out with Monique and Aria and everyone had a great time.

Favorite Restaurant

We enjoy the food at the local hole-in-the-wall Mexican place on Sunnyside Rd - can't ever remember the name of it. We have a favorite table near the window. We order fajitas and extra tortillas and extra rice. Aidan does weird things with tortillas - some recipe with ice water dribblings, which I just have no idea how he ever came up with it or why I never declared it Taboo. Or why he thinks it tastes better to eat a dampened tortilla (which explains why I never figured out the other 'why's'.) I'm sure kids all over have figured out how to eat smilies out of tortillas, although I doubt parents let their kids get away with it. Not us!! He caught me off guard with this serious lounge and I had my camera handy. This is Aidan, sure enough.

Amy!!

Amy is in town, visiting from Costa Rica! We met for lunch at Red Robin in Gresham. We met up a few times, the first of which had us both wandering all over having forgotten cell phones or keys or to recharge them... huh. Amazing to have THAT in common. More amazing to still be friends since meeting in 1995 at the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Love you, Amy!!

6th Grade Band Concert

Go Shad!! He's playing the Baritone in there somewhere. He's great!

Camten's 7th Birthday

"I want a 5-Layer cake, Mom!" I think Camten got the idea from looking at the cakes in the Safeway display case. They have a yummy looking 5-layer cake, which would have been easy to buy, maybe, but it's funner to try and make birthday wishes. You can't lick the bowl for a store-bought cake, for starters. Cam's into green (although he likes orange, now, too) and marshmellows, which are fun to decorate with. Camten likes what his brother's like... a lot. But he also likes Star Wars and all kinds of swords. He never has quite enough swords. He likes playing by himself or with someone, anyone, and has an active imagination to make it fun... not figures, of course, but cars, motors, tranformers or legos... or Bey Blades. Maama gave Cam an arena to battle Bey blades in, which made him an instant HIT among the boys. We gave him a scooter, which was amazing... and let all the boys ride their scooters around the house for a while... a loud, crazy while that rapidly circulated air and noise in celebration of our big boy.

Cruise V - Ensenata, Mexico

We loved Mexico... we enjoyed the walk through Ensenata down the tourist street. We asked for the best taco stand & were directed next to the MacDonald's. We shopped until it was time for our bus tour to the blowhole, where we found an 18 mo old lion. He was part of a request for funding to build a wildlife center in Baja. We lingered 'til after dark, the last tourists, almost, to get back to The Paradise. The kids were excited to rejoin Club Paradise for a few hours. We were happy they were having so much fun. Jeremy & I had a delicious dinner just the two of us and watched the lights of Ensenata as we pulled away from the dock.

Cruise IV - Catalina Island

Cruise III - The Paradise

Cruise II - Queen Mary

We arrived at the Queen Mary before check-in time, so we took the Self-Tour and explored the boat. It was so big, we only got though the engine and museum before the Convention sessions started. The kids and I continued our Adventures after completing some homework. We checked out the upper decks and ran down the long hallways. There was a pattern on the carpet of althernate fish and roses.