The Eve of Christmas Eve

 One of our favorite holiday traditions is the Eve of Christmas Eve. It is the night we get our new Christmas pajamas, watch a new Christmas movie, and sleep under the Christmas tree.

This year we started things off with a Mexican dinner with my Uncle Scotts family. I was too busy talking the whole time I didn't get a single picture. :(  It was very fun catching up with my cousins and see how their little kids are growing up. I just wish I had  gotten a picture or two. 

 After dinner it was time to get our new jammies. The kids looked adorable in their stripped pajamas. I was more than a little curious at how James was going to react to his newest little cousin. I was pleasantly surprised to find he was very sweet with her.

 It was a fun night, but I'm pretty sure everyone was asleep before the movie finished. It's was a busy few days.

Always an Adventure...

 You know it really was only a matter of time. I knew every day this kid didn't have a broken bone was a lucky one, but I really didn't expect it to happen the first day we were at Grandma's house. We got to St. George late Friday so Saturday we were having a great time together. My mom had made several comments about how she thought I was exaggerating a little bit about how wild James was at times. I was, in fact, impressed that he was leaving things alone and not up to his usual antics. But just as we were getting dinner started Hailee and James were playing on the couch in the living room. Hailee reclined the couch and James fell off. I knew instantly that it was a different kind of cry than usual. Only Hailee saw what happened but from what we gathered his arm got stuck in the couch on his way down. His arm looked a little funny to me and along with his sadder than usual cry we decided to take him to the ER.

Just after the accident he calmed down considerably, but we decided to check just in case since he was still favoring his right arm. Then once we got back to see the doctor we were feeling even less confident that he had broken his arm since he was using it to play with toys. The doctor came in and was very nice. He moved and twisted his arm and wrist without so much as a peep from James. He concluded that James had probably just dislocated his arm somehow but he wanted to take an X-ray just to make sure everything was okay. After the X-rays came back the doctor was shocked to find a broken arm. He came in and said "Well James you are a real man." He couldn't believe that he hadn't even cried during the exam.  The only time he cried during the entire exam was when they came to put on the splint. He wanted to keep playing with his toy and the splint made that impossible. Tears came again later in the evening when he discovered that he couldn't hold two cars in his hands.

The splint from the ER was huge and really quite annoying for James. Unfortunately the pain medicine worked a little too well and he was back to his normal craziness in no time at all. You would think a broken arm would slow him down a little bit. It didn't.

He did quickly learn how to play his favorite games on the ipod with his left hand.

He was excited to get his permanent cast on Monday. It's a lot smaller and he can pick up two cars again. I'm thankful because it seems a little safer and sturdier than his splint from the ER. Even with a broken arm he still wants to be going a hundred miles an hour, hopefully this one will keep him a little safer.

Traveling

Things have been so crazy getting ready for Christmas, with school parties, presents to buy, and getting things ready for our trip we had very little time to breath until about 5:00 Friday evening when we got in the car to go to the airport. With our flight leaving just after 8:00 we knew traffic was going to be terrible, but it was nice to just relax a little. (Traffic was a lot worse than I thought, so there was a little stress involved driving to the airport as well). Once we got our car parked and made it to the airport we were right on time. Unfortunately our plane was not.

I was somewhat prepared with things to color and things to play with, but what I did not realize was the airport had plenty of thing to keep two kids busy. Our plane ended up being delayed almost 2 hours but Hailee and James kept very busy all on their own. Who knew the moving sidewalk would be the best thing in all the world? There were hardly any people in the terminal (we were the last Southwest flight of the evening) so the kids could ride the moving sidewalk all they wanted. They had such a great time.

It's beginning....

to look a lot like Christmas...at least a little bit.

Since we're thinking about traveling for Christmas we didn't want to get a real Christmas tree. Last year since we were going to be gone for two weeks we didn't put up a tree at all. Hailee was so disappointed last year that we didn't do a tree, I wanted to make sure we did a tree this year even if we do travel. Todd is usually adamant about not using a fake tree. Here in Oregon it is really easy to get a Christmas tree since they are the leading producer of Christmas trees (according to Wikipedia). But since we didn't want to leave a real tree in our house we decided to buy a fake tree for the years that we travel. I miss the smell of a real tree, but this one will work for this year. Hailee was thrilled and wanted to start decorating as soon as we got home.

She had so much fun decorating the tree. We kind of cheated a little bit and decorated the tree while James was sleeping.

He didn't mind one bit when he woke up. He enjoys pulling things off the tree far more than putting them on. I'm just hoping our ornaments survive this year.

Now that we have a Christmas tree all set up we are all feeling more in the Christmas spirit.

Thanksgiving

We were all ready for a break and Thanksgiving turned out to be the perfect weekend for it.

Hailee and Spencer on Thanksgiving

 Some of our good friends invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. It was so nice. Everything was so lovely and I only had to make pumpkin pie. Quite possibly the easiest thanksgiving assignment I've had. We also discovered that James doesn't like to wait for his pie. I was eating my pie while feeding him his pie. That was taking way too long for him so he just picked it up and finished it on his own. Over the next few days he ate 5 pieces of pumpkin pie. It cracks me up that one of the few words he uses regularly is "pumpkin pie."

We had a crazy November with Todd being gone and busy with work, so we were looking forward to relaxing and catching up on some house work. Saturday we decided to party a little with the Lyman family. They are big BYU fans like us.

 It is always fun to have them over for BYU games, They are one of our favorite families to hang out with and watch a game. We were all a little sad at the outcome of the game, but it was fun to get together no matter what the outcome.

Overall is was a near perfect weekend. Lot of family time, fun with friends, and good rest. I almost feel like I can make it through the rest of the holiday season.

Snow Day

One of the funniest things to me about Oregon is how people here are paranoid of the snow. One tiny little skiff and everything shuts down. It's the only place where I've had church and school canceled because of snow.

 This is what a snow day looks like in Oregon. To the school's defense it was really icy. Hailee was thrilled to have a snow day. But at about 10:00 she told me that she hoped school wasn't canceled tomorrow. I guess we're not as exciting at home.

 James wasn't too sure about his snow pants and gloves when I got him dressed for going outside. He didn't really like how they limited his movement, but that was all forgotten once we got outside. It's his first time really playing in the snow. He was very impressed. I was happy that he let me take a picture of him at the beginning, because once he got going he wasn't ready to stop. Thankfully he was okay coming in when it was time. It was quite cold.

 Hailee was a little disappointed with the snow once we got out and played in it. She is used to quite a bit more. Since there was no place to make a snow angel on the ground she decided to try on top of the picnic table. A table snow angel was just as cute as a regular snow angel.

 There really wasn't enough snow for a sledding adventure, but James and Hailee were quick to find the slide. I guess that is the best way to go sledding in Oregon. It was so much fun to see them having fun in the snow, but I was glad when it was time to go inside. I'm just not cut out for the snow and cold.

New Things

 There is not much more I love than trying new things, especially when it comes to farms around our area. Friday I got to go to my friends house for a play day with James. She lives around some really great farms. Just before going down for a visit I got an email from a farm saying all there winter squash was 50 cents, each. Wow what a great deal. Well I had to check it out on the way home. I was expecting the normal winter squash, but I was surprised to find some new ones to try. We are used to acorn squash and butternut squash, but I had to try a few different ones to. Twelve winter squash later, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of them, but they should last a while. So far I've made a butternut squash sauce for ravioli and a pumpkin curry soup that were both really good.

I also convinced Todd to stop by a hazelnut farm on Saturday. Sometimes he thinks I'm a little crazy, but he humors me and is usually pleased with the result of my madness. I am now the proud owner of 5 pounds of hazelnuts. It probably would have been more, but I stayed in the car because James fell asleep. Any time I try something new, I always worry that I'm really going to like it and then I won't be able to get it again until next year. This hazelnut farm was closing after this weekend. I found several recipes I'm excited to try including a homemade nutella. I think even Todd will be sad we didn't get 10 pounds if that recipe turns out.