Elijah's creations

Monday night, we made our way back over to my parents' house for an extended Christmas, because Eric, Penny, and Hannah were stuck up in Portland, and unable to venture down for Christmas day. Hannah was buying for Elijah, and gave him some awesome crayola art supplies. In the box was some great molding clay and some "Mr. Potato Head"- like appendages. Here are a few of Elijah & Eric's silly creations that night:

Elijah's

Eric's

Grandma's Creatures

For Christmas, one of the presents my parents gave to all the grandkids was a sock creature, and their own sock creature book, which contained a picture of every creature my mom has ever made and their corresponding stories. On the first page of each book was this poem:

Grandma likes to have some fun

Making creatures one by one,

Rocking in her chair at night

Holding thread and needle tight,

Sock and stuffing, buttons too

Make a crazy creature who...

Has big lips, four arms, a hat,

Or wears a cape and looks for cats,

Or has an arrow thru his head

Or wears pajamas black and red

Or has big stars upon his pants

And likes to do a disco dance.

Maybe one that has big toes,

A white bow tie and big black nose.

One with glasses, one with hair,

One that's twisted here and there.

When Grandma thinks the creature's done

Her jobs are finished, all but one...

She asks each creature, "What's your name?

What's your story? What's your game?"

This is where the fun begins!

Creatures turn to her with grins.

One by one they all tell their name,

Who they are, from where they came.

'Till every one is like a friend

Known by Grandma top to end,

Don't you wish that you could hear

Those creatures speak into her ear?

But if you try it you will find

They only speak to Grandma's mind

And so she makes them one by one

Rocking, laughing, having fun!

As if that were not enough, she also took the time to write individual poems about each child:

Elijah:

When he wants to have some fun

Elijah Newton likes to run.

With his Nikes on his feet

He is mighty hard to beat.

Race him if you want my friend,

But he'll defeat you in the end.

Up a hill or down a lane,

In the sunshine or the rain,

Wearing gloves and woolen hat

Or holding tight his favorite cat,

Shorts and t-shirt in the park

In the sun or after dark.

Mom and Daddy watch the show,

Gramps and Gran yell, "Go, go, go!"

When Elijah wants some fun,

He's out the door to run, run, run.

Rogue:

Ethan Rogue's a boy that plays

On swings and slides on sunny days.

But if outside it starts to rain,

He'll grab a car, a truck, a train.

Lightning McQueen and Thomas too

Make him happy when he's blue.

And blue is just what shade he likes

On shirts and cars and toys and bikes.

On a board he skates around

Upon a sidewalk, up and down.

His smile is big, his hair is long

He loves to hear a Wiggles song.

He eats "B-zert" when dinner's done

That's Mom and Daddy's second son!

Alexandra:

Alexandra Pre's a girl

Who likes to jump and dance and twirl.

She loves to eat and eat and eat

Breakfast, dinner, lunch, a treat.

She'll eat her own and when she's through

She'll eat her brothers' dinner too!

Alexandra hates her clothes

She strips them off from head to toes.

Dad and Mommy think she's cute

Even in her birthday suit.

Her will is strong, her brothers know

Don't push her 'round, you'll take a blow!

She can sing and run and twirl

She's Mom and Daddy's precious pearl.

Now that's one creative woman! Thanks for the wonderful addition to their family history, Mom. These books are wonderful treasures that can be passed down for generations!

Colorful Girl

Sunday morning we didn't make it to church until the last 5 minutes of Sacrament Meeting. Why? Because we awoke to a very colorful Lexi. Travis and I had slept in, mistakenly leaving Alexandra to her own devices. This is how she greeted us when she was done with her mischievousness:
Apparently, she had stripped (nothing new there), then proceeded to color her body with markers. She had a little difficulty with her back, and Rogue was happy to be of help (although he thoroughly denied it at first). After all the kids spent some time in timeout (Elijah was in trouble also for standing by and watching instead of alerting us to the on-goings), Lex got cleaned up, and we finally made our way to church, where Lexi was able to show off her still-purple face.

Homemade Gifts

I love making gifts for Christmas. This year, instead of attempting to tackle EVERY present, I just made a few. Most of them were paintings. I've been wanting to try this out for some time, and was glad for the excuse to buy all of the supplies. There's one missing from the group, because my brother, Eric, and his girlfriend were unable to make it to my parents' house for Christmas, and I don't want to post a picture of hers before she gets a chance to see it herself. Anyway, here they are:

Shane & Alissa's (the Japanese kanji symbol means "love")
Kathleen's
Dad & Mom's

Karen & Randy's photo collage

Other handmade gifts this year, were small paintings by the kids for grandparents:

A pop-up book the kids made for Travis:



And my mom's awesome sock creatures and their very own sock creature books. Each of the books also included a poem about the individual child (which I will post more about later).

UPDATE: I gave Penny her gift tonight, so here's now I can post a pic of it/them. I made her a trio of pictures with the names Eric, Penny, and Hannah on them.

Christ's Birthday

Christmas day, Trav and I awoke to cries of, "Wow!", "Whoa!", & "Look at that!" Elijah had snuck down before the rest of us, and was checking out the loot that Santa left. All of us got up then, and headed down to celebrate. The kids had a great morning opening their presents and playing with them all. When we had all had a good, hard playtime, we gathered ourselves together for some morning grub, made ourselves presentable, and headed out to my parents' house. Unfortunately, we were missing two members of the immediate family this year. Mike was with his wife's family in Arizona, and Eric was stuck up in Portland because of the roads. I think this is the first year that more than one person has been away for Christmas Day. It seemed like such a small group. We had a scrumptious meal after opening our gifts, and the kids all played fabulously. Rogue was Princess Emily's Prince Caspian, and Elijah kept putting on balls for them to attend. Lex and Nicholas pretty much did their own thing, but did make it to the ball for a few minutes to have a few dances together. That evening, we spent some time back home, playing with toys and playing games together. All in all, a very successful holiday :)

Surprises left by Santa

Lexi's new dollhouse

Elijah kept his new ipod on for most of the dayAnd Rogue hardly let his new crank flashlight out of his sight
New sock creatures and a sock creature book by my mom- so awesome!

Prince Caspian and Princess Emily

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve was spent with Travis's family, and we had the gathering at our abode. I was happy to be in charge of the meal, and therefore able to make my favorite Christmas dishes- mashed potatoes and deviled eggs (mmmmm). Years ago, I used to always make those packaged, powdered mashed potatoes, and I don't really know why. I guess I was looking for any way to cut corners in the cooking department, since I was in uncharted waters. These days, however, I'm getting better (not great, but better) at making my own creations- and REAL mashed potatoes are the best! I wish I had taken a picture of all the food, but, alas, I have none. It was all so pretty, too.... Anyway, being the only kids in the whole family so far, Eli, Rogue, and Lex made a killing. Everyone loves to spoil them, and spoil them they did. After everyone left, we had a lesson about the Savior's birth, wrote letters to Santa, sprinkled some oats and glitter on the patio for the reindeer, opened a Christmas Eve gift, then headed up to bed for some Christmas stories before turning in for the night. Poor Elijah wanted desperately to see Santa, and kept trying to sneak down the stairs. Travis finally explained to him, that even after 32 years, he had yet to see him on Christmas Eve, and he finally gave up his watch post, and drifted into dreamland.

Tuff came dressed to the nines

Lexi sang us all some carols

Eli opening his awesome new slippers

Testing the Nerf gun out on Uncle Shane

Pretty Lex

Dear Saint Nick

Putting the letter where Santa is sure to find itOpening their Christmas Eve present
Sporting their spiffy new p.j.s

Wicked Iceman

Woo Hoo! Last one before I'm finally caught up! Please pardon all of the spelling and grammar errors of recent posts. I was typing so fast, that I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes, but my objective at the moment is just to get updated. So, here is the final installment for your enjoyment:

After years of annual anticipation for snow, we have gotten more than we bargained for. The initial snowfall was wonderful and exciting... until it cancelled most of Rogue's last week of school, and all of Elijah's. Therefore, I didn't get to see the fruits of Rogue's daily singing labors- no Christmas program :(, and Elijah didn't get to say goodbye to his classmates (he is transferring to a local public school over the break), or give them all the special sock creatures he made and named for them all. Rogue also had to have his birthday party cancelled, and a small family party that almost didn't happen either because of the freak ice storm.

At our house, it was all awesomeness. Everything was so pretty, and our power never went out. At my parents' house, however, they're power has been out for over 24 hours, and their whole 5 acres is now littered with fallen branches and trees- HUGE trees. Although it has been incredibly destructive to the fences and a utility trailer, they are very lucky that their house, barns, tractor and camping trailer all remain untouched- amazing considering the number of trees surrounding them all. Needless to say, all excitement over the snow and ice is long gone, and I can't wait for it to be over, so we can help my parents clear their property.

Our House:

My Parents' House, Day 1:

My Parents' House, Day 2:

Home Christmas Craft Day

I had two crafts set up for us to do this night: oranges and cloves, and gingerbread men wooden cut-outs. The gingerbread men was Elijah's idea, and he made sure everyone was quiet and listening when I made that announcement to everyone :) We turned the yummy smelling oranges into even yummmier (not a word, I know) smelling clove covered oranges. Then, we busted out the markers for some serious coloring of our gingerbread men.

Ready to go to work

*sniff* *sniff*- yuuuuuuuuummmm

Run, run, as fast as you can

Let it Snow!

Snow, Snow, Snow. Yes, I know the title isn't very original, but I'm trying to whip out these posts as quickly as I can- I don't have time for imagination, so please bare with me! The kids were so thrilled to see the snow coming down, and we threw on our snow clothes, and went outside for loads of snow-filled fun. Lexi mostly just ate the snow, but we also built snowmen, made snow angels, and had great snowball fights.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

The weekend of the first snowfall, we ventured up past Silver Falls to get our tree. There's a great little farm up there, where we got our last year. I realized, that part of what made it so great was the young man that was working it last year. He was so great with the kids- talking to them, letting them help cut it down, and making sure that they got to see the tree go through the binding machine. This year, there were different kids working, and they did a great job helping us, but it just wasn't the same. We picked out the tree, and by the time the kids and I had thrown a few snowballs, the tree was already bound and up on top of the car. They were fast, but we didn't get to help or even watch the whole process this year- oh well. On our way up to get our tree, we noticed that there was a holiday festival going on at the Falls. So, on our way home, we stopped to check it out. They had tons of craft tables set up, with a huge variety of projects for kids to do, with fantastic teenager helpers that were awesome with the kids (which is so rare now-a-days). There was also a story reader, free cookies, AND FREE TREES! It was great, and we have plans of making it a Christmas tradition to attend and craft up a storm each year. We got the tree home after that, and we brought it in to dry for 2 days, before finally getting it up and running. I handed out the ornaments, and the kids helped Trav hang them up. We're getting close to being able to cover the whole thing in homemade ornaments. Thanks to the craft tables at Silver Falls Holiday Festival, I think we'll be able to cover the whole thing by next year!

Lex kept getting "stuck in the snow"

It was COLD!!

Found the perfect one

Stories

Graham cracker houses

Decorations going up

Eli's Christmas tree for his sock creature, "Long Tongue"

...and the stockings were hung....

Long Tongue's stocking :)

Us