December 2013 Moments Not to Be Forgotten

I got my first smartphone in November 2013. While I sometimes felt like the last person to finally get one, I really knew that I wasn't. I'm typing this in February 2015 and Damon is still a hold-out.

Anyway, once you always have a camera on hand, the photos multiply. It's so easy to quickly snap a photo of those cute and funny things your kids are doing. It's so easy to make a record of so much. It's a treasure and a great resource for remembering the past--a gift to a tardy blogger like myself, but it can also be a little overwhelming. How does one create a post, a story, for each one of these adorable, silly, creative, fun moments? Answer: One doesn't. One just lumps them all together in a post that can capture a dozen individual (or small group) moments.

Holly as Hello Kitty, as rendered by big sister Maggie:

We finally said goodbye to our trusty red wagon, a hand-me-down gift from our White Salmon neighbors the Andersons. It was warped and troubled after too many times being out in the rain and too many trips loaded full of kids, blankets, rocks, dirt, patio pavers, or rummage sale donations,

Three cute kids all dressed up for church. (Not sure where that 4th cute kid was.)

 You've heard of a jack-in-the-box? How about sisters-in-a-box?

If I remember correctly, she fell asleep in the car and then transferred to the Jo-Ann's shopping cart.

I made these baby Jesus crafts with Holly's preschool friends:

And these paper plate Santa masks:

Silly Holly, all wrapped up in our Christmas blanket:

In early December, we visited the annual Christmas Creche exhibit. It's a display of hundreds of Nativity scenes donated to the event by people in the greater Silicon Valley area. It is hosted by the Menlo Park Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in partnership with some of the neighboring stakes, including ours here in Sunnyvale. We were not permitted to photograph the many wooden, ceramic, glass, metal, and other scenes. It is an impressive collection set up in several beautifully decorated rooms throughout a church building. Small musical performances are on-going in one room and there are concerts by local choirs and musical groups in the chapel each evening.

We were allowed to photograph in the children's room, where a marvelous tent was set up with dress-up clothes, I believe with the intent to recreate characters from the Nativity, or at least from Bible times. My children loved it, especially Adah. She didn't want to leave, and when we returned in 2014, she made a beeline for the dress-ups.

 

My Favorite Christmas Tradition

Note: This post is about the Christmas tree two Christmases ago. We're talkin' 2013, folks. Yes, I'm that far behind on this blog.

I love buying and decorating the family Christmas tree. I have fond memories of scouring Christmas tree lots with my brothers looking for just the right tree--one that had well-spaced branches for hanging ornaments and plenty of room for "loot" underneath. As an adult, it's remained a favorite. During our years in White Salmon, we visited a charming U-cut Christmas tree farm that was such a perfect Norman Rockwell experience.

Now, we live in Silicon Valley. Capitol of the tech industry. 300 days of sunshine. No Christmas tree farms---at least none with campfires, log cabins, and $20 trees. We have driven by some farms south of San Jose and have heard you can get a permit to trudge into the mountains to cut down your own, but we haven't quite been able to figure that out and make that commitment yet. Nope. We went to OSH:

This is the hardware store just about a mile away, in a shopping center with a grocery store, two Indian restaurants, and a Starbucks. While not quite as quaint, the family council over the right tree is still just as important and yields the same result: the biggest Christmas decoration in the house--and one in which the whole family is invested. I love it.

I don't just love picking the tree. I love decorating it. That's because every ornament on our tree comes with a story. After several years of beating back the kids and trying to divvy out the ornaments into their person-specific piles while sequestering the kids in another room, we finally figured out a way to organize the ornaments pre-hanging. 

Everyone gathers round me on the floor near the tree. I carefully unpack each ornament and say whose it is and where we got it. Then that person gets to put the ornament in their own small area, be it a couch cushion or the lid to a box. Some of the ornaments are family ornaments and once all the others are distributed, we take turns choosing one ornament at a time to go in our pile. When all the ornaments are assigned, then we go for it: everyone just starts hanging them up.

Here Maggie hangs up a fairy ornament that was given to her at birth by, Vaishali, one of Damon's classmates at Cranfield University in England. Our ostrich Beanie Baby is to remind us of our time in Chandler, AZ, which celebrates its history as a center of ostrich ranching by holding an Ostrich Festival every year (or at least it did when we lived there). The stocking on the right is one of 6 (or more?) that hung on my family's tree every year growing up. They all had different designs, and when my brothers and I moved out of the house, my mom gave one to each of us.

It's been 2 months since we decorated our last Christmas tree and 14 months since these photos were taken, but I still feel all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about the happy feelings I have when choosing and decorating the tree with my family and all the fond memories of people, vacations, and Christmases past that are represented by our ornaments. The Christmas tree really is my favorite Christmas tradition.

Just Makin' It

In early December 2013 there was a Book Fair at the kids' elementary school. There was also a craft fair attached to the event, and I had the crazy idea to sell my wares at it. I wasn't quite sure what my wares were....but I got sewing and crafting and had an eclectic grouping of handmade goods to sell come time.

Because I had a mix of items, I wasn't sure what to call my new little "business." I had the thought that if things sold well, I would consider doing more craft fairs throughout the year and might even open an etsy shop. I wanted to start off with a clever name and finally came up with "Just Makin' It." The tag line: "Crafts Made During Those Rare Quiet Mom Moments." It was supposed to be a sort of play on words for the handmade nature of the goods and the feeling that many a harried mother has of "just makin' it" through the day. It also gave me the freedom to have a variety of crafty things to sell. I don't know if people got it--or even paid much attention to it at the fair--but I was pleased with it.

I worked hard during spare moments for several weeks, cutting, sewing, stuffing, gluing, and more. I was so anxious on the day of that I had trouble sleeping and got up early to attach my price tags. Damon found me in my bathrobe at the kitchen table with a hole punch and some string.

My products included hair clips, kids' aprons, stuffed animals, headband hangers, and a significant stock of leftovers from Damon's mother's dancewear business that she gave me to sell.

The stuffed animals, which my kids had dubbed "Fleecy Friends," were definitely the best sellers. I had bluebirds, elephants, penguins, whales, and frogs. I'm not sure which one was my favorite. I designed all of them (with some template-searching help on Google) and am proud of how they turned out.

The hair clips had pretty stiff competition and I only sold a couple of those, and the headband hangers were a complete bust. I'm not sure people understood and caught the vision of their purpose, even though I had a display. (Personally, I think they're brilliant and ours has totally saved us from a mess of headbands in a drawer or on the floor in our bathroom.)

I sold a few aprons, a couple of the Watercolour skirts, and many of the Watercolour scarves/ties. What I didn't sell became a great stash for birthday gifts throughout the last year as my kiddos got invited to parties, so none of my work was for naught.

It was a fun experience and I'm glad I did it. My enthusiasm and motivation did wane after the event. Truthfully, it was difficult to find other venues for selling; I did dedicate some time after the holidays to searching for other craft fairs. I wasn't really ready to launch an etsy shop. From here, if I press on with any of this, it will probably be in the Fleecy Friends department. They were fun to design and popular with the customers (and the birthday gift recipients). Hmmm...just writing this post is giving me a little itch to get out the fleece....

SLO Children's Museum

On November 30, 2013, two days after Thanksgiving, we visited the Children's Museum in San Luis Obispo with Uncle Jotham, Aunt Dana, cousins Cassie, Braden, and Kara, and Grandma and Grandpa. We were quite a crew, and gratefully the small museum wasn't too crowded. We had great fun exploring the many hands-on exhibits.

We tried to build earthquake-proof structures . . .

and played with magnets . . .

and "spinny discs."

Grandpa was served lunch at the Cosmic Cafe by chefs Gunnar and Holly.

There were firefighters...

Cassie, Gunnar, Braden, and Holly

...and crime fighters.

In all, it was lots of fun for all the kids--big and small.

Back in the Saddle

I've had a few encounters recently that have encouraged me to return to blogging. I was moving along pretty consistently in the spring and then got derailed by some Picasa/Blogger photo uploading issues. It just got harder to blog. (Why do they have to change things that are working?) Then life kept humming right along while blogs--mine and my friends--continued to fall by the wayside. Who's blogging anymore?

Turns out, a few people are. And I enjoy reading their blogs. Julia, Liz, Maren, Marisa: Way to keep at it!

Who was reading my blog? I wasn't sure. But then a chance mis-text reconnected me with a friend to whom I hadn't talked in years! She said that she liked to follow my blog. Really? A reader? I thought maybe I should get back at it, even if it was just for an audience of one. (Thank you, Heather.)

Finally, during a schoolyard chat with yet another friend, I was reminded of one of the real reasons I ever started blogging in the first place: it's a record of my family's life. Simple as that. Whether anyone else is doing theirs or reading mine, this blog is where--for now--I've chosen to record what happens. It's my history. It's my family's history. That's worth the effort.

So, now that the Thanksgiving holiday is only a few days away, I've got some serious history to catch up on. The last post I published was from Thanksgiving 2013. I've got a whole year to record, and I'm going to do it. It'll take awhile, but I can do it.

Time at the Beach

Have I mentioned that Damon's parents built a house by the beach? It's a pretty great spot, and after eating our Thanksgiving dinner, most of us took a walk down the street to see the sunset over (or into?) the ocean.

This photo gives a good representation of how far down the street you have to go to get to the beach--not far. When I took it I was probably just one house past Craig's and Joanna's. There's the ocean. That's a cliff there, so you have to go down one of a couple sets of stairs to actually get to the beach, which at high tide is completely covered.

Cousins at sunset:

Turn around! You're missing it! (They didn't miss it.)

On Sunday afternoon we all wandered down to the beach again. Joanna was a few minutes behind us and I caught her looking out to sea on the cliff before she joined us down at the tide pools.

It was such a gorgeous day. It was actually December 1st! Can you believe it? It was nearly 80 degrees. I regretted only packing jeans because I was hot just strolling to and from the ocean. We loved the chance to soak up some sun and seek out anemones, hermit crabs, sea urchins, and the occasional starfish.