Christmas Time Is Here!

We've had a busy week!  Monday morning, the younger kids went to Sister Shum's Christmas music camp and had a great time!  On Monday night, we had our annual Bagna Caulda party with carol singing.  The carol singing part was especially wonderful and the Bagna Caulda came out good!  One of my favorite moments was sitting at the piano surrounded by my kids and their friends and our friends all singing the 12 Days of Christmas at the top of our lungs!  It was wonderful!!   We had a great time with friend and family.  Sandi and Taz and Kai were also able to stop by for a bit after getting home from Texas.  

Tuesday was recovering from Monday.  The kids had been up late and we had worked hard cleaning the house and cooking food and getting everything ready, so we were all tired on Tuesday.  The kids had been a ton of help!  

Wednesday was spent getting things ready for Christmas and the kids decorated gingerbread houses.  Nothing fancy, just the ones from the store, but they had fun and made cute houses!  

Thursday morning, we met up with Sandi and the kids and Dan took a break from work to join us at the Ice Skating rink.  The kids all had a blast, but after an hour and a half, most of the kids were tired, sore or ready to do - except James who could have kept going all day.  He LOVED it - he had Taz had a blast falling on purpose and sliding on the ice and skating.  

While the older kids were still skating and David had gotten tired of it, Dan took David to see Santa who was right next to the rink.  David loved it!  He had such a great time chatting it up with Santa.  James and Evelyn wanted to see him too after we were done.   After, we got some lunch at the food court, then headed home. 

Friday was Christmas Eve.  We finished getting some things ready and doing some grocery shopping to get us through the weekend.  Then we had a wonderful evening reading the Christmas Story and the kids opened their Christmas Eve gifts.  The kids loved the pajamas that Dan picked out for them!  David was especially cute as a baby shark! 

Christmas morning came bright and not too early (thankfully) and we headed down the stairs to open presents.  We took our usual break for breakfast after opening the stockings and then we finished with the rest of the presents.  The kids had a great time and we had a fun little chat with Grandma and Grandpa Jones.  Then we spent the rest of the day playing with our gifts and having a fun time being together.  

Grandma and Grandpa Cox flew in that evening, but they got in late and went straight to Sandi and Jon's, but we are glad they are here safely and look forward to seeing them! 

We got a bit of snow in the evening, but it didn't seem like it would be enough to stick, but Sunday morning, we woke up to about an inch of snow on the ground.  The kids  took the sled and had a blast on the hill until the snow had mostly melted off the streets.  

Church was cancelled, so we did a church lesson at home today which was really nice and had a fun time singing songs together and learning about the Gifts that Christ has given to us.  

In the afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa and Sandi and Taz and Kai came over to hang out and chat.  We had a fun time and Sandi and I managed to sneak away to finish up Dad's present.  The kids always have a blast together and it was wonderful to see my parents and to get to our house to my Dad!  

No More School!

We've had a fun week full of music and fun.  The kids have mostly had a fun week at school.  Eileen has been working like crazy to get her school stuff done so that she is ready to start early college in January.  She did manage to get all her ceramics stuff done which is good and was the thing that was stressing her out the most because she had the least control over it.  She got them done and back home and we've been having fun using them around the house!  We put dip in her big bowl and used the smaller ones and dip bowls for a finger food night!  

David's preschool group has had a wonderful week full of donating food and giving gifts and making Christmas Crafts (including his new favorite jingle bell necklace) and singing Christmas songs.  Plus he used his Pajama Day coupon to wear his monkey pj's to preschool.  He loved it! 

On Tuesday, Dan and I went to watch Anna perform in the school Yuletide concert.  It was a lot of fun and the band sounded amazing!  She was a little hard to find since she was mostly behind people from where we were sitting.  But we had a great time! 

The kids had a great time at their youth activity.  The young women got to go watch Encanto in the theater and Eileen and Anna have been talking about it ever since.  (Anna was at her second night of concerts.) 

David was so proud of this domino building he made that he demanded that both Dan and I come and take pictures of it so everyone could see how awesome it was!  

 Saturday was busy, but fun!  Eileen and Anna and I went out for an outing.  Eileen and Anna wanted to find some primer for their makeup adventures, and we went to a sushi place for lunch, and did a bit of Christmas shopping.  Then we got home and Dan and I went out for a bit more shopping (mostly grocery though) and then we headed home for a fun evening!  

Today was a wonderful sabbath!  Our ward had our Christmas program today.  Evelyn was asked to help out with the primary song since the girl who was playing the flute was sick :(  She was happy to serve and did a wonderful job too - she also played with the choir.  Eileen and Anna and I also sang with the ward choir and it was a wonderful program of music and scripture!  Then we had the primary time - lots of fun Christmas songs and fun plus a wonderful Christmas video and story for the lesson.  After church, Dan was running around visiting people in the ward, and I stopped by a couple people's houses to drop off some stuff from the primary, and had a fun time chatting with them too.  :)  

Christmas Fun!

 We have had a fun and busy week with a lot of the usual.  Monday, I finally started working on getting our Christmas cards out, so Monday night for family home evening, we all got in our onesie pj's (well Dan is wearing some of mine...) and took our family picture for the Christmas card.  I think they came out cute!  

On Friday night, we went to Lightopia - it was a fun light show up in Hillsboro, we drove around in the van looking at tons of fun Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music!  The kids all seemed to have a fun time, so it was a great little evening activity!  

Saturday was a bit busy.  I took James to get his second Covid vaccine shot - his arm is a bit sore, but he is otherwise feeling good!  It went pretty quickly and then we headed home for lunch and then COOKIE MAKING!  We had our great cookie cook off and made and decorated tons of cookies!  We are looking forward to passing them out on Monday!  Some of the kids had friends over to decorate with us and we had a noisy and fun afternoon. 

In the evening was Dan's company party.  We had a fun evening and a fun time chatting and eating.  The party was over at 8:30, but after that Dan and I were both rather tired, so we headed home and to bed!  

Church today was wonderful - I helped out in Nursery since we didn't have enough leaders - it was fun, and a bit of an adventure.  :)  

Christmas is Coming!

 We started our week off with a Family Home Evening of decorating our Christmas Tree.  We had a fun evening putting up ornaments and drinking eggnog and listening to Christmas music!  David helped me during the day with putting up some of the other decorations, and Dan got lights up this week, so all in all, it's beginning to look like Christmas at our house! 

We have had a busy week with school and activities and friends.  Eileen is in the ensemble for the High School's latest production, so she had rehearsals.  Anna has swim practices and music stuff and leadership stuff.  James has a standing date to meet up with some friends from school at the park a few times a week when the days aren't rainy.  David and I spend our days playing and walking and running errands.  

On Saturday was the ward Christmas party.  It was a brunch and it was a lot of fun.  Eileen went and helped with the decorating on Friday night and it looked amazing in the gym.  The kids had a ton of fun - especially with all the balloons.  The primary kids got to sing, and I was asked to sing O Holy Night to close out the music program.  

We are Grateful!

What a week it's been!  Monday, we picked up Taz and Kai and took them down to Silver River / 10 Falls.  We only managed to make it to two of the falls before the kids were done, but it was a gorgeous day!  We had been worried that it would be rainy since that was what was on the forecast, but when we got there the sky was blue and free of any clouds.  It was still chilly, but it was still a beautiful day!  The kids did great considering that they were doing more walking than they were used to, but all in all, we had a fun time together!  I got us a cute little birdie statue family souvenir and some bird cards.  :)  

On Tuesday, we went to OMSI.  We had a great time checking out the exhibits, including the Nelson Mandela Exhibit and watching a show in the planetarium!  We also got to take Sandi and Taz and Kai with us!  We had a wonderful time together and still managed to get Anna to her Swim practice today.  

We had a great time with Julia visiting!  We had lots of fun together and David just adored her!  He wanted to spend every second with her - and it was really helpful when cooking dinner to have him wanting to play with her so I could cook!  

Julia had to head home Wednesday morning to be with the rest of her family for Thanksgiving, but we are so glad she could come visit us!  Evelyn, James and David went to one of Sister Shum's music camps and they had a blast making turkeys and singing and playing instruments.  

Anna was babysitting for Taz and Kai on Wednesday, but she still wanted to go to swim practice, so I picked them all up, took her to swim practice, then took all the kids back to our house to decorate cookies. 

 The kids had a blast and Sandi also stopped in to chat for a bit when she came to pick them up.  Dan's parents also got in Wednesday afternoon and we spent most of the evening with the kids playing games with Grandma and Grandpa and Dan and Eileen and I making food for Thanksgiving.

We had a special Family Home Evening Talent Show with Grandma and Grandpa here, so the kids demonstrated some of their many talents including David pretending to be a dragon in his Dragon PJ's and posing in funny ways, Evelyn playing the flute, Aaron playing the Euphonium, Anna playing the Viola (which she started trying to learn with some help from Julia this week) Eileen showing off her drawing skills, Dan doing a magic trick, Me singing and playing the piano, and James made slime, and Grandma and Grandpa Jones danced!  It was a wonderful evening together! 

Eileen has been helping Dan with the turkey this year.  She planned out when things needed to be done to get it ready, she helped with making the brine and prepping it for the smoker and with keeping the smoker going.  She was really helpful and it was fun for Dan to work with her on it!

Thursday was crazy.  The morning was spent cleaning up and setting up the house for a big group of people!  We had 30 people for Thanksgiving!  Dan's parents, Steve and Claire and their kids, John and Melissa and their kids, Johnny and Emmalee with baby Evelyn, and especially exciting for me, Annalisa and Steven drove down with their kids from Washington to join us for Thanksgiving dinner!  It's strange to think that I haven't seen her in person for over 20 years, but since I stalk her on Facebook, it doesn't really feel like it. We had a great evening chatting and catching up.  Her kids are adorable and I think they had fun being surrounded by all the other kids!  I hope that now we live close to each other that we can make this more regular!  I'm already hoping to get a camping trip in with them next summer. 

Friday morning, Dan's parent had to head out, but it was wonderful having them here for a couple days!  Then we met up with Sandi and Taz and Kai at a nearby tree farm.  We had fun looking around and roasting some marshmallows, hanging with the Grinch and of course picking a tree!  

Friday afternoon, we got together with some friends from the ward to play games and eat pie.  We had a great time together and had fun playing games.  The kids had friends there to play with and Eileen found a puzzle and it was a blast!  

Saturday was more of a "take it easy" day, kinda...  I took Evelyn out to the grocery store in the morning to get some food for the weekend and to have her pick out a birthday present for a friend's party that afternoon.  We dropped her off for her party and 1 and picked her up after 8.  

Christmas lights are officially going up in the neighborhood and Anna and Eileen and I went out on a Christmas Lights walk - rather than my usual route, we were walking to look for Christmas lights!  We had fun and the weather wasn't too bad.  

Church today was wonderful!  The talks and lessons were wonderful and after church, we had choir which was a lot of fun.  I've been subbing for our choir director who is out of town and it's been fun!  I love Christmas music! 

Pokies and Fun!

 It's been a fun and busy week.  It's been strange to have our nights to ourselves again.  Anna has started swimming - Eileen isn't doing it this year.  Anna is working hard to keep up with the varsity workouts and enjoying herself.  

Tuesday, we had the Water Polo end of season banquet.  It was great!  Almost everyone was there and we had a fun time eating great food and remembering our season.  It was sad to think that the seniors won't be back next year, but this has all been an amazing experience.  

This Saturday, I took James and Evelyn (and David) to a Covid vaccine clinic so Evelyn could get her second shot, James could get his first and I could get my booster.  It was well run and they even had crafts for the kids to do while they waited to make sure there were no adverse side effects.  All went well, and then we headed home!  

In the evening, Aaron went to go play D&D with some friends from the ward.  They get together once every couple weeks and he's been loving it!  

Julia is here visiting for a few days during the break, and she got in just in time Saturday to go out with Sandi and I to dinner and Karaoke!!  (Sandi had decided to take me out for my birthday... yes it was a bit late, but it was all my fault!)  We had a great time eating yummy food and singing together!  

While our family went to church and tithing settlement and ward choir, Julia went out to hike Multnomah Falls and a couple other beautiful hikes out that way.  We are also taking her tomorrow to do the 10 falls hike - I don't know how much the kids will be able to do, but it will be fun either way!  Then we had a fun evening playing Wingspan!  

Water Polo State Championships

 It's been a busy and stressful week!  The week was full of school and preschool and water polo and fun.  We've been enjoying having some time together as a family and look forward to having even more next week!  The kids had Thursday and Friday off of school (except David who still had preschool) so we had some fun with friends and got some errands run.  Things are finally starting to get finalized for our Thanksgiving week - we are so looking forward to time with family and friends!  

Water Polo practices this week were a bit rough - the girls are largely feeling burnt out and it was hard getting them to focus, even with the Championships and two very hard games coming up.  I think it was good for them to have Thursday to rest and recover before Friday night's game.  We went up against Lakeridge, who were ranked number 2 in the state, and were able to beat them in overtime.  It was a long hard game, but the girls did a great job!!  It was an exciting win, but with the game against the undefeated Sam Barlow the next day, there was little relief.  

Saturday morning, Dan took the older kids to the youth service project in the morning - they had fun working hard and serving people in the ward! 

Then I took the boys outside to do some yard work - they had fun playing in the leaves and helping me rake them into a pile, then once jumping in the pile got old, the deserted me :(  But they had fun, and we got some good work done.  

In the afternoon, the boys decided to pamper mom a bit - James and David did my hair and James set up the foot soaker and Evelyn painted my nails in Mountainside colors.  

In the evening, we headed back down to the State Championship game.  The team we played was and remains undefeated, but we played hard and had a good game.  It has been such a privilege to work with these girls - they are amazing and I am super proud of all the work they put in to become the second best team in the state and we are way excited to be able to say that we got 2nd in the State Championships!  

Today we had a wonderful Stake Conference.  After a stressful weekend, I was rather beat, but loved the talks and testimonies borne.  After Dan and I each needed naps, so we traded off with the kids and nap time.  Then we had a nice dinner and family time and game time and now (even with a nap) I'm beat!  

I'm excited because Julia is going to be coming out to stay with us for a few days during Thanksgiving week!  I am making plans for the week off with the kids and I'm looking forward to a bit of down time next week! 

Wait...WHAT???????

Dan and I have been a little shocked to discover that we have a 17 year old daughter.  I'm not sure how that works when we are totally not THAT old....  However, it has been an amazing 17 years.  She is an amazing young woman and the last couple months would not have been possible with out her help with the younger siblings and her patience with all the crazy busy schedule we have had lately.  

She has been planning for this month all year, and no, not because of her birthday - she's officially deep into NaNoWriMo.  
 

It's been rather rainy this week and David keeps wanting to pick up all the worms he finds and show them to me, and it takes a bit for me to convince him that the worms would much rather be in the dirt and to let them go back home.  But he really wanted a picture with this one because it was big. 

This week was crazy - at least for me.  I had offered to host a pasta dinner for the water polo team before heading into the State Playoffs.  So I spent Tuesday running errands and getting the fall decorations out and set up.  Then I spent Wednesday making masks for the girls who are not always good at remembering to bring masks on deck.  Then I spent most of Wednesday afternoon Thursday and Friday cleaning the house and getting things ready for the dinner.  

The dinner went well, but as usual, we made way too much food!  :)  We are going to be eating spaghetti for awhile.  :)  David was in heaven surrounded by teenage girls who all thought he was the cutest thing ever.  

Saturday was a busy day - James had his final soccer game.  He liked the season well enough that when we asked if he would be interested in doing it again, he said yes, so I count that as a win.  In the afternoon, Anna and I headed down to Corvallis for the Water Polo State Playoffs.  Our first two games should have been easy wins, and while we won easily, the first of the games was not an easy game - the team was brutal and vicious and while the score board showed that we beat them easily, the girls were all feeling a bit battered by the end of the game.  Thankfully the second game went better.  While some one of the girls took a bit of a hit, she was feeling much better and despite having a ref that we have had bad experiences with in the past, things went pretty well for us and we finished the game strong and excited for next week!  Plus we had a couple awesome goals scored by our second string players!  

While Anna and I were at the playoffs, Dan took the rest of the kids to OMSI for a couple hours, and they had a great time!

Church today was wonderful!  We had a great fast and testimony meeting, then after the block of meetings, we got to have our first ward choir rehearsal since COVID!  It was wonderful to be singing again, and we had a great turnout!  

This is Halloween

 Our week started out much like most weeks.  School, sports and other fun stuff.  James has soccer practice on Mondays, so we have moved family home evening to Tuesday nights while soccer is going on.  We had, of course, planned on carving pumpkins for family home evening this week, so in the bit of time we had between dinner and Anna and I leaving for our water polo match, we had fun carving pumpkins.  

Tuesday evening was our last in-season game, the girls will be going on to playoffs and then state, but for the boys, this was the end.  We had some fun games and we finished the season with all of our players having scored at least once which was exciting.  The girls won and the guys lost, but a good time was had all around and we had our senior night before the game.  We have some amazing seniors on the team and it was wonderful to be able to honor them, though it will be sad to see them go.  

David is still loving preschool, though it often feels to me like I still can't get anything done, at least he's learning and having a good time!  He was so excited that he got to wear his costume to preschool on Thursday!

On Wednesday, Anna had her final cross country meet of the season - It was the big metro meet and she got a new PR again!  She has PR-ed in every race this season!!  She has done so well!!

Saturday was a busy day as usual.  James and Aaron both had soccer games.  

Dan took Anna to watch and support the marching band - Anna has become obsessed with my cloak recently - and David was cold while watching the band, so Anna kept him warm.  :) 

In the evening, Dan and I went to the temple, then we dropped Anna and some friends off at a youth dance before heading out to dinner at Outback.  We had a fun time together and it was so wonderful being at the temple!  

Sunday was the Primary Program.  It went so well - the kids did an amazing job - it's crazy to think that we only have 2 kids in primary now.  James and David both did really well saying their parts and singing!  

Right after church, I had a water polo seeding virtual meeting that I needed to be at.  I was a bit stressed about the meeting, but it all worked out the way we wanted it to, and we are excited to head into the upcoming playoffs next week! 

And of course, it's halloween!  The kids got all dressed up and Dan and I took them out trick-or-treating with another family in the ward.  They loved it - especially after last year when there was no trick or treating.  Of course, now we have way more candy than we need....  It was so fun though, because the whole neighborhood was out!  

Life and other things like it

 This has been a busy and tiring week - but good!  When weather has been good, James and David and I have been going to the play ground after school so James can run around and play with friends for a bit.  We've had rainy days - but mostly sunny afternoons.  

This week was kinda crazy for Anna and I - we had 3 water polo games this week, including one all the way down in Eugene and one very stressful one on Thursday with a ref that didn't seem to care about the safety of our players at all.  They did well in their games though!  It's crazy to think about just how close we are to the end of the season.  

This weekend was a busy one as usual.  Aaron and James had soccer games on Saturday.  James took a ball to the head during his game and sat out after that.  But he did well while he was in.  Aaron has been working hard and practicing a lot in hopes of getting to play high school soccer.  

After James' soccer game, I took Evelyn out for a make over.  I had promised her that when she was 12, I would get her some make up and do some of those grown up girl things.  We had a fun afternoon together and she had fun getting her eyes all prettied up.  Then we picked out some make up for her and got her a case to keep it all in.  She had a fun time and I did too!  

before

after

After we got home, we headed out for the Ward activity.  We had a chili cook off and of course there were game for the kids that were run by the youth and after, there was trunk-or-treating!  The kids had a great time and came home with WAY too much candy! 

After, we got the kids to bed, then Dan and I went to go see the new James Bond.  We had a fun time together and enjoyed the movie! 

Church today was wonderful!  The talks were all amazing and during second hour, we practiced the primary program for next week!  The kids did a great job and it's going to be wonderful!  Our afternoon was spent playing games and talking to family, then in the evening, the Sister Missionaries came over to share a lesson about service and sharing God's love.  Then we had some dessert and got the younger boys to bed before playing a couple more games!