A Scrap of Life

We've had this Santa sign forever... and I mean forever. We had one before Carissa was born and replaced it with this sign in 2001 after she was born. Each year the kids put it up just outside our door before Christmas so Santa knows exactly where they live. I have pictures of them putting it up from when they were really little... when Carissa was so tiny she fit UNDER the sign itself. While I don't have those scanned into my computer, I do have this comparison picture from just 2 years ago. Look how much they've grown and change in just those two years... *sigh*

As a child we never celebrated much on Christmas Eve, but we always got one present. It's a something that my parents did when I was a child and that I've carried over with my children. Every Christmas Eve we got to open new pajamas, which we wore that night. This year I found the MOST ADORABLE Grinch shirts (and coordinating pajama pants) for the boys to wear and a cute Christmas nightgown for Carissa (who is all about the nightgowns right now!). Don't they all look so happy and excited for Christmas?!? Well, they are. This second picture captures it a little better though. My friend Catherine ( http://www.callen86.typepad.com/ ) is the mother of 5 and her kids like to make funny faces and motions in their photos. I always thought those photos showed a little more the true side of her kids and I've been trying to be more free with that when the kids want to mess around. Well, they were in entirely the right mood for that this night. I guess Christmas Eve brings out the...

To help get in the Christmas spirit we let the kids open their presents to one another on the days leading up to Christmas. On the 22nd they open on gift, (Chase got a hatchet from Tristan, Carissa got a Webkinz horse from Tristan and Tristan got a dragon Megabloks from Chase) on the 23rd they open another. (Chase got a vibrating back massager from Carissa, Tristan got a fedora from Carissa and Carissa got Little Pet Shop puzzle and figure from Chase.) They open their pajamas on the 24th (watch for that post next!) and then we do the big day on the 25th (where I take almost no pictures and just enjoy the day).

Well... maybe this should be titled "reindeerstache", but I love the moosetache book so that's the title I went with. Anyways, on with the story. For Christmas we always do a little gift exchange and party amongst the teachers at the preschool. The craftiest and most creative lady is Teacher Tamera, who always puts so much thought into her gifts. This year her theme was Santa and his reindeer. There was a Santa bag in the package with some yummy goodies in it and a Santa sack that was a wrapped gift. Santa's reindeer, however, were made of root beer bottles. In our house only two people like root beer... Brian and Tristan. And Tristan LOVED that his root beer had reindeer antlers. He started using the antlers as a moustache, then Dad started doing it too. In the end we ended up with these two adorable moustached men cheesing it up for the camera. :)

Now that the kids are getting older and needing fewer things for Christmas, we've decided that our big family gift each Christmas will be time away together. Last year we had the ultimate time away - Christmas in Disneyworld! This year we had to go a lot smaller so in early November the family went to Great Wolf Lodge. This was our first trip to the lodge and we had a great time. The room was great and had enough room for our family, which is a struggle sometimes with a family of 5. As soon as we arrived we checked in then went to play in the water! First up were the water slides! We went on the two big ones first - Howlin' Tornado and River Canyon Run. These were both multi-rider slides, so 2 or 3 of us sat together on a raft for the ride. Both were fun, but the Howlin' Tornado was pretty awesome, swirling you around a huge funnel for a while. We rode each big slide about 6 or 7 times during our stay. We tried the medium water slides next. None of us were too impressed and...

My newest venture... photography. Click on the link below to see the newest blog posting on my photography blog. :) Photography by Annette: Christmas photos : "This month I took photos for local preschoolers to give their parents as Christmas gifts. I went with red accent pieces to leave in color an..."

I finally finished up the little crafts that I'm giving to my co-workers at the preschool. They were easy and pretty fun to make. Made me realize that I need WAYYYYYY more glitter than I currently have. LOL But I made do with what I have and my house has a nice coating of glitter too. ;) The "Noel" template came from the Elle's Studio's blog. The snowflakes are old IKEA ornaments that we've had for many years, which happened to be hanging on my tree this year.

... but they were all good sports when it came to seeing Santa. Carissa and Tristan were excited, Chase not so much. But he stuck it out so I could get a photo for my "photos with Santa" pictures that I display every Christmas.

I love Christmastime and the symbol of Christmas, for me, is the Christmas tree. Every year our family goes out to one of the local Christmas tree farms to pick and cut down a tree. This year we visited a new place right in town that had noble firs for a fabulous price. Many of the trees were huge and the rest were pretty small. We opted on the big size (I always do! LOL) and walked away with this huge tree. Now, given that Brian is 6'4", I've got to estimate that the tree is about 10' high. But it was big and beautiful and that's all that mattered. Brian and the boys carried the tree to the van, where we tied it on top and brought it home. When we got it home we realized that it was, as you might have guessed, too big. We have vaulted ceilings so we could have put it in the middle of the room and been fine, but I wanted it in this corner where the ceilings are the lowest. So out came the trusty handsaw. We chopped off several feet at the top, where it was tall and...

This Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to have most of our family join us. My Mom, Dad, Grandma, brother, sister-in-law and nephews all came to visit and we hosted them all for dinner. We narrowly averted disaster when my oven quit working with the turkey inside. Thank goodness for neighbors who let me use their oven to cook the huge turkey. But in the end we were able to enjoy a tasty meal. My brother is in the Navy and is leaving this week for Florida, where he'll be stationed for 4 months of training before heading to his new base in Whidbey Island, Washington. He'll only be in Whidbey for a few weeks before he's deployed, so Thanksgiving is likely the last time we'll see him for the next year or so. :( We made the most of the visit though and celebrated Christmas along with Thanksgiving. The kids all exchanged presents and played with their new goodies while we at nanimo bars and spritzer cookies. It was a great day and a reminder of why I will miss my brother and h...

November 7 was the big day - Chase's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. This is a day that he's been anticipating for years, ever since he was a little 7 year old Cub Scout. And now the day was finally here. Chase worked really hard on the program he chose for his Court of Honor. It began, as do all Court of Honors, with the lighting on the candles that signify the points in the Boy Scout Oath and Law. Then came the lighting of the trail to eagle, signified by the "Eagle Mountain" display. Chase chose one boy at each rank from his troop and asked them to signify that rank by lighting the candle and reciting a blurb. As you can see, his brother was asked to be here as were Ty and Cameron, the two boys to Chase's left who were in my original Cub Scout den when they all first started and who have been on this road with Chase for the entire journey. Chase lit the Eagle candle and did his blurb. As you can see, we forgot a candle holder so we improvised - play dough works jus...

This year I decided to make another advent calendar. What I learned from last years advent calendar craft was that using a plastic background sure doesn't hold up over time. The paper doesn't like to stick to the plastic base, depsite the prep work I did on it. This years calendar is MDF and is made to last! I glued each and every piece solidly and coated it all in modge podge. Here's a peek at our new advent, which the kids are already happily opening every day this month. :) Oh, and this year I added a little surprise - every few days there will be a tag in the box that gives them a task for the day. These are things like "make Christmas cookies" and "watch a Christmas movie". Today's task was all for me - taking Christmas photos! They weren't too excited by that one but the pics came out great. Look for them on your Christmas card this year. :)