Our Family Christmas

With having to split our time between both of our families during the Christmas holidays, life can get a little hectic! We find it extremely important to 'share' our children with both sides, so every other year we are with my family on Christmas Day, and then the next year with Brook's family. This has worked out great, but does make it very interesting to try to fit everything/everyone in. We want our children to grow up enjoying everything about the season, but also don't want our times as a little family to get lost in the shuffle. After having exhausted, grumpy, and un-thankful children last year, we were determined to do it different. Brook and I discussed it at great lengths, realized that it really wasn't the kids fault, but rather the fact that we have run them ragged in the past and expected them to still be their happy go-lucky selves, and this was not fair to them or to us! Our solution was to spread Christmas out and not pack it into 3 or 4 days. This way they could and would enjoy each and every gift, party, family gathering, etc. This was our year to be at my parents so we decided that on the Tuesday , one week before Christmas Day, we would have our own little family's Christmas. This allowed there to be several days to be in between the next 'Christmas' and they were able to enjoy the new things that we had gotten them before being giving several others. It was wonderful!!

It has always been a tradition with my own family that before opening gifts we celebrate the REAL reason for Christmas! We have a birthday cake for Jesus, sing Happy Birthday and then quote from memory the Christmas Story from Luke 2. We have carried this tradition over to our own little family. We all love this part and always look forward to the quoting of Luke 2. Brooklyn knows almost all of it by memory and Brittan, well he always joins in on,"there was no room for them in the inn." After talking about the First Christmas we start opening presents. We always start with the youngest, that being Brittan, and then take turns going around, allowing us to be able to watch as each person opens their gifts. If the kids want, we stop for a while and let them play with whatever toy it is that they have just opened and then resume when they realize that there is more. We are in no way in a hurry, we take our time and it is so enjoyable. Then after we are finished, we always put on our new Christmas pj's, clean up everything and then resume playing with everything for a while and then it is off to bed. Ususally the next morning we wake up to open our stockings, but this year with Brooklyn having to go to school the next day we put that off. We are planning on doing that tomorrow morning. Until my next post...

Santa Came

For those of you that don't pretend with your children, this was too fun not to share, so please indulge me this once. All my younger years, my parents let us believe in Santa. When we were older we soon figured out that it was them and not a him. Well, I have a little girl with an ENORMOUS imagination and she is a "believer!" Ever since she watched 'Miracle On 34th St." she has been intrigued with Santa. So, this year for the first time ever she wanted to go see him at the Mall and to tell him that she wanted an American Doll for Christmas. We went, she got up on his lap and told him what she wanted, and then with a skeptical look on her face she said, "I thought that you should know, I don't have a chimney and I don't think that you will be able to get into my house." Without skipping a beat, he answered, "Oh, I run into that all the time, but I have a special way of creating a magical chimney through which I enter." That was all it took, she walked away from there with a huge grin on her face and a sparkle in her eye, and she has believed in him ever since. I am sure that this phase will end very soon, she is not easily spoofed. But while she does wonder about it all and thinks that she believes in him, the drama that she puts into it, is what I find so adorable!

Last weekend when we were in Spokane, there was a Santa there and Brook talked about her going up to tell him what she wanted, knowing full well that he and I had alreay taken her. She looked at him with utter disgust and said, "Dad, I am not going to tell 2 Santa's what I want. I don't need 2 American Dolls and they would just get mixed up. I already told Nana's Santa and I know that he is going to get it for me, but if he doesn't I am going to be thankful for whatever he brings me." We went about our shopping and when we came upon another Santa booth at a different Mall she said, "Man, there sure are alot of Santa's aren't there?" We just smiled and went on.

Yesterday, I told Brooklyn that we would be opening our presents tonight and that she would need to go right to bed to get a good nights rest so that she wouldn't be tired for our Christmas. Without skipping a beat, and not even giving any thought to the fact that it is not Christmas Eve, she emphatically declared that, "I need to leave milk, cookies, and a note for Santa." I let her get out a little plate, put cookies on it and told her that I would take care of the milk because I didn't want Brittan to spill it. To bed she went. Brittan ate the cookies, I left her a note thanking her for being so good and I gave it no more thought. This morning as I was going around opening the shades I heard a sniffling sound, I went to see what the problem could be and found Brooklyn with tears streaming down her face saying, "he didn't come." I asked her why she would say that and she responded with, "look at our stockings, they are empty." Opps, I thought that we had covered the fact that we would be opening presents tonight and stockings when we come back from Christmas with my side of the family. As I hugged her, I asked if she had looked to see if there were any new presents under the tree, and if the cookies were still there, away she ran wiping away the tears as fast as she could. The next few minutes were ones that I will never forget, she grabbed the note, looked under it to see if there were cookies and she smiled her huge dimpled smile and said, "he came!" I had used an old Christmas card front and written on the back and she let me know that she "didn't know where he had gotten such beautiful paper and how he had written in red and green." "I thought that I heard bells in the night and that must have been him, I know it was him." I told her that I hadn't heard a thing and she said, "well, that's because you shut your ears off while you slept." She then ran over to the packages letting me know that there were some there that she hadn't seen before, she was so excited! Then the make believe and drama kicked in! She looked out the window and told me that,"she saw a mitten print on the sidewalk," "she just knew that Santa had shared a cookie with Rudolph" and that "a little elf had been in our house with Santa, because he would have needed the help and that same elf would be back to fill our stockings when we decided to open them." It was one very excited and happy little girl that left for school this morning and I am sure that there will be several different stories told to her teacher today. I look forward to having my children open their gifts 'from Santa' tonight, and the smile that is on my face right now is sure to last all day!

A Weekend Away!

For those of you who don't know, Lewiston is not known for its shopping. We have a very limited selection!! I won't list them, but if you were to take inventory, you would chuckle to yourself. Most of the year I make do, but when it comes to Christmas shopping, I am a need of a Mall and a good one at that! So, with Spokane only a little under 2 hours away and some of the best shopping available there, well, why wait?!

We left Friday afternoon and made a little 'weekender' out of our shopping excursion. We were more than successful with our shopping, had a fun time just being together as a little family, the kids LOVED the pool and hot tub, the Play Land was a big hit, and I had the weekend off from cooking, it was great! My children are amazing shoppers. I think that we were at the malls a total of over 8 hours and they never one time complained. They love to be out and about, and with a couple of stops at Play Land in the mall, and several snacks along the way, they were little angels. In fact, as we were leaving town Brooklyn asked, "can we stay for lots of more days and keep shopping and living at the hotel?" There you have it, a little girl after her Mommy's own heart!!! Now it's back to my typical Monday routine, cleaning house, laundry, and fixing dinner. I love it!

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Christmas at Bethlehem Gulch

Well they did it! Cornerstone put on a darling program last evening and I have to say, I was very proud. They took a regular program that would be written for church and tweaked it here and there, adapting it to fit our school's needs. In "Christmas At Bethlehem Gulch," the 6th, 7th and 8th graders did most of the acting and then each class, K-6th, were given one of the songs and the teacher was responsible for their choreography, costumes, etc. So in essence, each class got their 3 minutes of stage time, but were back in for the opening and the grand finale. I liked this setup. It only lasted a little over an hour, each class was involved, there wasn't 10 different themes going on, everyone got a part, they all worked together as a team, and in this case, you wanted to see what each class had done with their song.

They started the program with the older kids playing the hand bells, which I love, while people were coming in and trying to find a seat. Next, a ballet team of all ages performed and then the whole school came in and sang the "Welcome" song and we were off and rolling. The Kindergarten class sang, "Gentle Shepherd/Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us." It was precious! Brooklyn sang a verse with a little trio and then closed the song with her own solo. I was so shocked that she did it and even more shocked when her teacher told me that Brooklyn had come to her and told her that she would be more than happy to sing a solo. Where has my shy little girl gone??

We were blessed to have Brook's parents, his brother Chad and girlfriend Rhonda, and Brook's business partner, Verl come and share in the evening. I was going to try to get a photo of all of us together, but by the time you say hello to everyone, they had all slipped out.Thank you to all of you who came, it meant the world to Brooklyn and to her parents! This evening was a wonderful start to the Christmas season.

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Let It Snow!!

Today, we woke to a white blanket of snow, softly covering the ground. What a welcomed sight! My little girl that has been praying for snow for weeks, and she now has a praise to share at school. Let me say, it wasn't hard to get Brooklyn or Brittan out of bed. They were so excited and couldn't wait to get out in it. So, after school, and a hurried lunch of grilled cheese sandwiched and soup, we bundled up and went out to take a tumble in the snow. This is the first time that Brittan has ever played in the snow, that he can remember and it was a fun, new discovery! A snowman was the first thing on Brooklyn's list of requests, followed by snow angels and then a game of follow the leader. What a fun time! We played until we were frozen and then came in for warm baths and hot chocolate. I wouldn't trade snow days for anything!

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New Friends

I am not going to be able to take a big long time to write about my lunches this week, but it would be suffice to say that it was lovely to have some girl friends over. I was not able to get pictures of Sharlee and her girls, but here is one of me and my new friend Heidi. We go to the same church and we have children that are around the same age. I LOVE to entertain, so hopefully over the holiday season I will be able to post pictures of the different ones that come and go from our home.

Today We Celebrate 10 Years Together!

It hardly seems possible that 10 years ago today, I married my very best friend. Time has flown by and I am happier now then ever before. Oh, I was very happy then, but as time has gone by, our love has grown and matured, and through all the adjustments of life, it has deepened into something that is in-describeable! Thank you, Brook, for the happiest years of my life! I love you more than words can say and thank God daily that you were the one that He had for me. All My Love, Valerie

Happy Birthday Brook!

Yesterday was the birthday of my very dear husband and I wanted to take this opportunity to wish him a very Happy Birthday! To those of you who don't know him, I married the greatest guy ever. He is very laid back, almost shy, but once you get to know him he will talk your leg off. Everyone who knows him will tell you that he was blessed with one of the greatest minds, that God didn't just pass out those brains to just everyone. He can do anything and it is done to absolute perfection!!! There is no bluff when it comes to Brook, if he knows, he really knows. There is not hardly one thing that he can't figure out and do. From desiging top to bottom and building from top to bottom his fathers tow trucks, to installing sprinklers, to building a house, to major excavation, to electrical installation, plumbing, to anything electronic, anything mechanical, mathematics, science, flying, computers, and the list goes on. His mind is NEVER at rest. He is ALWAYS thinking and planning. If he gets that far away look I will ask what he is thinking and his reply will invariably be, "Oh, I was just re-designing that in my mind, trying to make it better." There are to many things that he has thought of, never pattened, and 2-3 years later they will be out on the market. I tease him and say often that if he would get that on paper and pattened, we'd be able to have a house in every country! Truly the only things that he can't do is cook without making a MAJOR mess and play basketball. He is a great reader of persons, with in five minutes of meeting a person he will have them all figured out and see right through them if they posess no substance. But the greatest thing of all is that he is kind! If I had to describle him in one word it would have to be kind!!! There is no other word that fits him better than that one small little four lettered word. Brook is a 'mans man,' but there is nothing about him that is rough and tough. You would never know that he used to be one avid hunter and sportsmen. Now, he can't bring himself to shoot anything, not because he is weak, but rather because he is to kind. He no longer sees the fun of hunting down something in order to shoot it, he'd rather it would be free. He would rather set a spider, that has unknowingly found its way into the house, back outside than to kill it. I laugh, and try to tell him that the spider has no feelings, but he always responds with, "he didn't do anything to hurt anyone and he's not ready for his life to be over." Kindness, that is all I can say. My husband is the one who will, if no wife and kids are with him, stop alongside the road and offer someone a ride to the next town, is someone who always puts money into the Salvation kettle even though he gave when he went into the store, someone who will drive for 5 hours all night because his wife or kids want to see their Nana & Poppy and turn around the next day and drive home, get up in the middle of the night to go and sleep with Brooklyn in her twin bed because she is scared, if he knows that my mom, or anyone for that matter, is having trouble with anything at her house he will use his time off to fix it, he will spend countless hours at the mall shopping with me because he knows that I love to shop and doesn't want me to have to be alone, he will mix up & bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies at 11:30 at night because one of the kids said that they would like a cookie, he always fills my car with gas, will even stop whatever he is doing to meet me at the gas station if he knows that I am going there so that I don't have to pump it myself...I could keep on going, but you get the general idea. To top it off he is the greatest Dad in the world to our children and they both think that there is no one like Daddy. Although discipling does not come easy for him, he is learning that that is part of parenting as well and is endevoring to show the kids that he can be serious when he needs to be. It is not hard for me to love him as you can see, but love him I do! He was custom made for me and I am so glad that he is mine. If you haven't had the chance to meet him, he bares aquaintance and I am sure he will easily work his way into your heart just as he did mine!! Happy Birthday, Sweetie - I love you!