Merry Christmas 2011

I would like to go on record and say this was one of the best Christmas's yet. So relaxing, so simple, so low key, no muss and fuss.

We'll maybe just a little....
After rescheduling three dates, we finally made it as a family to "A Christmas Carol."

The Ghost of Christmas Future is so much more intimidating on stage. He's just a softy in real life!
The first two dates didn't work because Marshall was travelling for his new job, a two week training!

It turned out great cause our first reschedule allowed us to attend Santa on the Square in E.T. and get together with our friends afterward.

At the school Christmas Play Trent had a starring role. "Claw" Bear. In Bailey and the Bees. A heart warming story about giving and taking care of each-other.

There never was a cuter bee, buzzing on her kazoo.

They did a great final number with the whole school. Catchy tune...."Glor-i-ous! Absolutely Marvel-ous! Fabulous! Won, won, wonderful. Beau, beau, beautiful. Love, love, lovely lets celebrate!"

Decorating Cookies at Grandma's.

Minus the snow! We'll have to get some sledding pictures another day, if it ever does snow this winter!!

It's a toss up whether there was more sprinkles on Callie's cookies or in her mouth!

Being veteran Caroling Party Hosts, we had that one in the bag. Marshall even made figgy pudding. You know its a party when someone lights a dessert on fire! Sing it...."Now bring us some Figgy Pudding, now bring us some Figgy Pudding....!" Marshall fulfilled his dream of green pants with Red Plaid Ribbon Trim. Callie and I splurged at the dollar store and bought the musical tie. What will he come up with to add to the outfit next year???

Awwww! Picture doesn't do it justice. (Don't ever let anyone tell you the new I-Phone camera takes great pictures!)

Christmas Eve at my Mom's, complete with a fabulous Pork Tenderloin and Domino Potatoes compliments of my Uncle Butch who is a fabulous chef. Great to have him back in the kitchen.
After the majority of the clan left we had our family gifts and snuggle/smokes time with Auntie Kate's belly and the boys stinking up the place with their Christmas Cigars!

Though I don't love the lung pollution, isn't my Dad Bad A**!

Santa was remarkably good to Callie this year. All along, the thing she wanted most was a Nintendo DS. I kept telling her NO. That's all we need is more electronic distractions! "Well I'll just ask Santa for it then," was her response with hands-on-hips in the sassy-est, most defiant voice her 6 yr old self could muster. And me with hands-on-hips saying, "Well I'LL just call SANTA and tell him, I say NO!" Guess what Callie found under the tree.

That Santa and me are gonna have some words. It's becoming clear to me, the control I thought I had over this household is a bit fuzzy.

We minimized a bit this year. I missed our traditional Christmas morning breakfast with the rest of the family, but, I didn't miss the rush of it.

Marshall the kids and I had a nice morning with perfect sticky buns and p.j.'s til we dressed to go to Marshall's Parents.

And speaking of minimizing, I love the fact that the kids gifts are getting smaller. This year, all traces of Christmas gifts have already found a place, where as years past, they sat out for waaaay to long cause there was just soooo much bulk to them I didn't know where they should go.

This Christmas came and went really fast. I am already missing it and relishing in the memories. I think what makes this Christmas so great was the fact that we kept with the tradition without the stress of going over the top. Sometimes its the simplest things that make the most difference.

Merry Christmas 2011. Sending Love.

Happy ThanksChristmasYear

It's a new holiday! You can also call it the EndlessFamilyGettogether!
Let's count.

My side:
Three gatherings for Thanksgiving.
Two for Christmas
None for New Years.
TOTAL = 5

Marshall's side:
None for Thanksgiving
Three for Christmas, 4 if you count cookie baking.
One for New Years.
TOTAL = 5

GRAND TOTAL = 10 + all the other random get-togethers in between = Lots of time to ourselves in January!

For Thanksgiving week, we celebrated the November Birthdays including my Dad's and also had a Wild Game feast with all the things the boys have "harvested" this past year.

For our pre-Christmas activities:
First big snow fall - Dec 4th A Christmas Carol for the 4th year in a row.
St. Nick filled our stockings.The kids did great at their Christmas Concerts. Both with speaking parts. (Bragging Rights!) We really noticed how, compared to most of the other kids in 3rd grade and up, Trent spoke so clearly and with good volume.

We baked cookies and went sledding at Grandma's.
New this year: Marshall borrowed my Uncle's smoker and we brought smoked salmon, pheasant, oysters and scallops to all of our gatherings.
Thinking about A Christmas Carol and remembering how my family and parents friends used to hop on a hay wagon and go carolling, Marshall decided we should do it ourselves this year. We hosted a neighborhood Christmas Caroling party. It was great fun. You should have seen the smiles on the faces of the people we sang for! If you're in the area, you gotta come next year. Everyone really enjoyed it.
Other than the frequency of family commitments, Christmas was relatively free of chaos. The kids were so excited for their gifts! I noticed Santa hid the best ones toward the back of the pile. Those little stinkers dug them out first! Of course - at Grandma's request after opening the robes she made out of these super soft comforters she found. Callie's was a "real" guitar. Trent's - Rogue Shadow lego ship. Callie already has the rock star attitude even if she can only play the first 6 notes of the Iron Maiden song Marshall's cousin Polly who was visiting from Australia taught her. (Some day we will go there to visit her!) As I write she is strumming and singing.
We spent New Years Eve at Marshall's parents for game night. Everyone brought at least 4 games along! We only got to one from each family. Marshall and I were the champions of Luke & Amy's game, Pass the Popcorn. It's a movie trivia game. A given for Marshall, but I was surprised at the number of questions I was able to answer. Time went by fast, I didn't feel a bit tired when I realized it was 11pm! I couldn't believe it, I was actually gonna make it this year! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011! It's been great having Winter Break. Today is a pajama day, and later, skating on the lake. We went from 50 degrees to less than 20 in one night. The rain melted all the snow and the lake was smooth as glass. I've been working a little over this break but the kids love to hang out with the Grandma's so it's a nice blend. Tonight, hockey and my bowling league. New tennis racket and bowling shoes for me this Christmas.

Marshall got us an after Christmas present: NetFlix. I know how we'll be spending our no family boycott!

Oh Christmas Tree.

The tree went up this weekend. We actually put up just about all the ornaments and decorations. Decorated inside and out! Christmas can come now, were ready.

Christmas 2009

Here are some of the things I learned this Christmas:
1. When you lose a loved one during the holidays, it makes you realize how truly special your relationship with the rest of your family is.

The hugs were a little tighter and lingered a little longer this year. My Grandma passed away early Thursday morning. She had been pretty much as healthy as a 96 year old woman could be until last week. She got a stomach bug, went on hospice care and passed away pretty much over night. Most of us got to see her just 8 hours before she died peacefully in her sleep. Just the way things should be.
On a lighter note. Callie came with me for our last visit. My Grandma didn't have her teeth in. This made Callie a little squeemish, (me too, but thems' the facts of life!) Callie needed a bit of an explanation for the lack of teeth. Simply put, sometimes when you get older you lose all your teeth and have to have fake teeth instead. From that point on Callie kept asking to "please see Great Grandma's "pretend" teeth." Kids are such good buffers sometimes!

2. My belief about Trent having my pain tolerance is still solid.

In the middle of our party all 5 boys came into the kitchen saying, "Aunt Jenny, Trent hit his head and he's bleeding." Trent's face was red, but he wasn't crying. He had his hand on the back of his head, but there wasn't really any blood. As soon as I took his hand away the blood started streaming. A deep gash right smack in the center of the back of his head. A clean cut from the corner of a file cabinet. I am sooooooooo glad it stopped bleeding quickly and we did not have to go to the ER on Christmas Eve!

3. If you get to church at just the right time, you can get a seat and if you bring a coloring book, you can keep a 3 yr old and your 4 yr old entertained for the entire 1.5 hours.

Last year we did Christmas at the Barn. A live nativity scene. I thought it was great. Apparently I was the only one since it was completely vetoed this year. So church it was. We left the house later than we planned and I thought for sure we'd be standing. Everyone got to sit, shoulder to shoulder, but we had a pew! I brought a coloring book and some crayons, Kim brought a coloring book and crayons. The girls made it pretty far into the service until Callie had enough of trading coloring books. Molly didn't like this one bit. Here-in lies the difference between 3 yr olds and 4 yr olds. At least Callie had some wisdom to "share"....

4. "Christmas is about giving."
With Molly pouting on the pew, Callie reminds her of the meaning of Christmas. This is interesting advice coming from a girl who didn't want to share.

The sadness of my grandma's death was a small part of this holiday and my family choose to celebrate as we always have. We remembered the special person she was and the place she held in our hearts. It still really was one of my best Christmas's. And I know my Grandma is now an angel watching over all of us.

2009 Christmas Letter

Our 2009 Christmas Letter. A small sampling in the life of Chasing Callie and Trent time, plus a little of Marshall and I. Click on the picture to see it larger for reading purposes.

Can't catch ME....!

I don't bake for Christmas. Sometimes I make Chocolate covered pretzel rods to give as little gifts, but that's about it and Marshall ALWAYS makes Chocolate Chip cookies for Santa (and himself!)

Our baking tradition happens at Grandma's House. Decorating gingerbread men. Let the sprinkle-ing begin!
New this year, and as it turns out popular with lots of family's. The gingerbread house. Grandma and Grandpa made their's from scratch, butI guess Grandpa's architech skills don't transfer to houses made of dough. Slight structural failure! Leave it up to Marshall to make the most of it!

Do you hear what I HEAR?

It's official. I know they've been playing it, but now Marshall has tuned in here at home!

A Very Merry Christmas

This is my first Christmas post. Not quite sure how I want to handle this one. I like Christmas, but it's not my favorite holiday. (4th of July) We celebrate and enjoy ourselves, the kids love going to the get-together's at Gran's for Christmas Eve and Grandma's for Christmas Day. It's all pretty traditional. I think I would like to take this time to talk about what we did differently this year.
The biggest difference comes in the form of our celebration of Jesus' Birthday. The tradition would be to go to church 45 minutes early and fight for a spot with the "Christers" (Pronounced Kree-sters, Christmas and Easter church go-ers, I guess nowadays that describes me.) This year I suggested we go to a live nativity scene. After speaking with the Pastor and actually driving to the location to confirm it's existence, my Mom agreed to try it. I thought it was so perfect. A heated barn, hay bale seats, live animals and the story of Jesus's birth, complete with a real live baby. Callie made sure she got up close and personal. Prior to church we sang Christmas Carole's to the residents at Great Grandma's Nursery Rhyme(Nursing Home). I thought it would be cheesy, but it was actually really nice.
Usually Chrstmas Morning we go to my Mom's for breakfast. I decided it would be less rushing for my family if we had the breakfast here. I hope to continue this as a tradition. It worked out perfectly. And my sticky-buns turned out fabulous! It's a big responsibility to make those sticky-buns, high expectations from the crowd! Carol would be proud!
As far as Christmas' go, I would say I enjoyed this one the most out of recent Christmas's.
The rest of this week has been particularly relaxing. Not much of anything on the calendar, very little driving. Staying up late, sleeping in. Trent and Marshall have been busy building lego Star Wars ships. Trent got about 2000+ pieces for Christmas. I told him I had built my last lego ship. If he wanted all those lego toys, he was on his own. No problem. He and daddy have it under control. Two more ships to go and the floor will be free of pieces....for now! Callie has been enjoying her Dora Pegasus. The gift she totally wanted and I totally did not want to get for her. (They don't make toys like they used to.) She got a baby that responds to her holding it, or feeding it. That thing hasen't been far from her arms since the moment she opened it.
Thank you to everyone for all the gifts, meals and wonderful celebrations. My favorite thing about Christmas is enjoying time spent together. Whether we are honoring old traditions or starting new ones.

Santa's Here!

Marshall is focusing on getting some holiday traditions going for our family. We have a lot of things going on with the extended family's but nothing that feels like ours
Last year we took Trent to see "A Christmas Carol". This year Callie came too. It's a start for us. We warned Callie ahead of time about the Ghost of Christmas Future. It turned out to be both their favorite ghost. Go figure!
After the show the cast are in the lobby to collect donations for charity. Last year Trent gave his money to the Ghost of Christmas Future. It really is a great, intense costume. He remembered that and asked for money ahead of time. This year we met with one of the regular cast, but it was much more interesting to Trent to play with the mans wig! Marshall had to work a conference the rest of the weekend, but the kids and I renewed one of my old holiday tradtions. We went to welcome Santa to town. Since the reindeer need to rest for their big night Santa comes in on the Trolley. When I was a girl we would catch him on the tracks right down the way from my parents. My Aunt would always dress-up as one of the elves and they would stop especially for us. I am glad the tradition continues.
We were late to hit the stop by my parents house so we drove up the tracks a bit. We parked on a side street, I turned on my hazards and we said "Hi" to Santa. When I went back to start the car it was dead. The kids leave the lights on all the time and it has been a problem. I wasen't surprised. I asked the car behind me if he had jumper cables, since I had reminded myself to no avail that I need to put them in my car for just this occasion. He did, got the car started and we headed off to see the tree lighting on the Square. I love our ex-little town. We bumped into some friends and they invited us over for some hot chocolate and Grog. It turned into a really nice evening.