Merry Christmas 2008

What a crazy last week it was. It feels like we have been gone forever, but it went by in a flash! We ended up getting to take off to Klamath Falls last Saturday instead of Tuesday like we had originally planned. We are so glad we got to spend a few extra days with all of my family. 

We spent a lot of time prepping for the big days: Christmas and Alli's wedding. The girls seemed to have errands to run every day from doing the meal shopping, getting our nails done, to filling the missionaries' stockings. The kids were all content to have a big house to run around in and having grandparents and aunts and uncles to dote on them... the parents weren't complaining either. 

The boys spent a lot of time shoveling, snow blowing, and plowing with the four wheeler. It snowed a ton every day that we were in Klamath. 

All of my siblings and their spouses were there, plus my grandparents. It was the biggest Christmas in the Stewart household to date! We spent a lot of time playing board games (Apples to Apples), eating,  talking, cooking, and playing the Wii.

Christmas eve was a riot. It began with two sets of missionaries coming over to join us. We had our big feast with all the fixings. Then we were blessed to see my Grandpa Jensen do his rendition of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." This has been a long standing tradition that my grandpa  does every Christmas eve, we just have never been with him on a Christmas eve, so after 26 years of waiting, we were able to witness the Grinch in action. It was hilarious.

After the Grinch, we have a tradition that all of the kids put on the nativity. We used to act it out, but it has been reduced to a readers theater until the grandkids are old enough to take over. We basically read the Christmas story from the scriptures with hymns added in. It's one of my favorite parts of Christmas. After the nativity we had chocolate pie and mint chocolate cheesecake (way to go Sumo & Josh)... both delicious!

This is what happens when you "help" grandma make the chocolate pies:

After dessert was the present opening. We let the missionaries open theirs and then be on their merry way. The kids went next so we could put them to bed. The kids opened their adorable Christmas pj's and then the cousin exchange. They could sense the excitement in the air and were just bouncing off the wall... it got way worse the next morning when they saw all the presents!

Me and my man Christmas Eve:

All of us adults still get Christmas pj's, but this year the girls got robes and slippers. I love them! Sorry, no pictures of the boys in their candycane pajama pants and slippers. They got off the hook this year! Then we did our gift exchange and sat around and talked and enjoyed the evening.

Christmas morning was CRAZY!!! Gray and Carter are kind of at the first year when they got what was going on and could not wait til it was their turn to open their next present. We open them one at a time (yes, all 19 of us). Some might say that it's painstakingly slow, others might say that it just draws out the enjoyment of gift giving and receiving. I love it and it took us a number of hours to get through all of us. After the stockings and two rounds of presents we took a breakfast break: bran muffins, peppered bacon, and oranges. That might just be my favorite part of Christmas. My mom's bran muffins (which I just found out she got from my grandma, who got them from my great grandma) are to die for!! My grandma informed us that they are also known as "Mormon muffins", and if anybody has had Mormon cheesy potatoes, you know that the word "Mormon" before a food item means buttery, fatty, yummy, goodness. Enough said.

We were spoiled rotten for Christmas. Here are a few of our favorite things:

Jefferson: Quantum of Solace and Tiger Woods for the Wii, SIGG water bottle, Sanuk shoes, Season 4 of the Office, steamer (yes, he asked for it and was super excited that he got it!), money.

Dani: Cuttlebug, brown shoes, black pea coat, jeans (with 37 inch inseam!), food dehydrator, jewelry.

Carter: Woody and Buzz Light year, sticker book, train set, cars from the movie Cars, Lightening McQueen slippers, Cars punching bag, Mr.Potato Head, dump truck.

Andi: Haley her new baby doll, doll stroller, car seat, and bassinet, princess jewelry, purse, and leotard, cash register, stuffed monkeys, fold out animal board book, dog and carrier, tea set.

Thanks "Santa"! (and Mom and Dad) We spent the day enjoying our new toys, but the next day it was on to WEDDING!!! We emptied out my parents living room and transformed it into a beautiful reception hall. It was gorgeous. My sister's wedding colors were black, white, and silver. We got all the food prep and decorating done on Friday and headed up to Medford that evening. We went to Nic and Alli's dinner and then stayed the night in a hotel. The kids loved it. They thought they were pretty special. The adults stayed up way too late playing board games again.

We had to be at the temple at 8:15 am (that's in the morning!) on Saturday. The ceremony was beautiful. Alli was the last of the Stewart siblings to be sealed in the temple and it was absolutely amazing having my whole family in the temple together for the first time. My grandpa has also sealed all of us so it was wonderful to have him there to seal Alli and Nic.

After the ceremony and a few pictures we drove back to Klamath to make sure that everything was ready for the reception. The reception was beautiful, and despite a huge snowstorm that had been going all week, quite a few people braved my parents mountain and attended the reception. So we had a great turn out, the food was delicious, and now it's all over. Done and done.

This is how we all felt after this week:

We are glad to be back home in our own things and our kids actually slept in until 9 this morning!! They had been waking up at about 6:45-7:15 at my parent's house. Jefferson and I are glad to have our own room back and are ready for a whole nother week of playing before he has to go back to school.

I love my family so much. We have such a great time together and we all get along great. We just laugh all the time when we are together. I am so blessed. Love you fam!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and safe travels. I can't wait to see everybody's updates on their own blogs. Have a Happy New Year!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Andi!

My little baby turned 1 1/2 on Christmas. I can't believe she is so grown up. This little girl is such a joy to have in our family. Andi is so content and happy all the time. When she's not, you know something is really wrong. Here's what she is up to at 18 months old:

-Loves nursery

-Finally has three molars coming in

-Can wear her hair in pigtails, and almost a pony tail

-Chatters all the time, though nobody knows what in the world she is saying

-Loves babies and strollers, purses and pearls, and basically all things girly

-LOVES to eat, eat, eat!

-Can point out most of her body parts

-If someone coughs around her she'll imitate them almost every time

-Likes blowing her nose

-Loves to climb on things

-She is a mama's girl

-Still loves her Nuk, though we try to restrict it to only naptime and bedtime

-Has two bedtime buddies: Betty Ballerina and Mooers the cow

-Loves books and "reading" 

-Has started to fake laugh, and it is highly amusing

-Is fearless of anybody or anything; she'll approach almost anybody and any animal in sight

-She quarter pounds it

Carter crackin' me up:

Carter saw an ad for ET and said, "Look, it's a turtle!" I guess he kind of does look like a turtle, come to think of it.

Andi has a beanie that has a two little points and every time she wears it Carter says she looks like Batman. Mind you, Carter has never seen a batman movie/cartoon.

When Carter started recognizing Big Bird from his diapers and a few Sesame Street books that we had, he would call him "Big Duck." Close enough.

Carter dressed his bear up in a snowsuit and said that he was going to go on a spaceship. I thought that was pretty spot on, those snowsuits do look an awful lot like an astronaut's spacesuit. 

I love Portland because:

This caused church to be cancelled:

I took that picture right when I heard the news, because I did not believe it! We live a block away from our church, so it was no worse at the church. I guess it would have been hard for the elderly to make it. It just cracks me up. It's not like snow is new to our city. We have had snow three out of three winters that we have been here, and a lot worse than this. Where I'm from we had to have at least two feet of snow to get a snow day, literally! Jefferson's school was cancelled the next day. Luckily he didn't have any finals that day so it won't affect him. 

We enjoyed our day burrowed into our apartment. We ate snickerdoodles, drank hot chocolate and sparkling cider, and watched Christmas movies. It was rather enjoyable. 

Because we knew it was going to be a winter freeze over the weekend we had to put in little insulation covers over all the foundation vents in our building, about 50 of them. (we get paid extra and when I saw "we" I mean Jefferson) Anyways, of course our building is old and doesn't have standard vents that they make precut covers for, so we had to buy these huge sheets of insulation and individually cut each cover. And not all of our vents are the same size, they are all about 1 or 2 inches different in both height and width. It was quite the process, but Carter and Andi enjoyed our "snow" covered living room:

K-Town

First off, I have to tell my little sister Alli how proud I am of her for living worthy and having the desire to receive her endowments. Now all five of us Stewart children are endowed. It truly is a tribute to what amazing parents we have. 

Carter, Andi, and I made the trek down to Klamath this past weekend so that we could be there when Alli went through the temple for the first time. The session was first thing on Saturday morning. Our family friend Tabatha came over just so she could watch our kids while we went through the temple. The session was amazing. Going through with someone for the first time really made me listen to all the blessings that we are promised a little more closely. As I looked around at family members in the temple there together I had this amazing feeling that allowed me a small glimpse of what the eternities will be like with my family. It was a very spiritual experience (minus the giggling right before the session started). I love going to the temple.

After the session we all went out to lunch at the Olive Garden. It was delicious, of course. The rest of the afternoon we just bummed around and let the cousins play together. Towards the evening they all began to stink. Just toddler, stinky, sweaty, smells. So we plopped all the kids in Grandma and Grandpa's big bathtub. They loved splashing around together. 

We went to sacrament meeting at my parents ward and my kids were angels! They knew that since their dad wasn't there that if they were naughty they would receive a beating. Of course not really, but they were amazingly well behaved. One of the counselors in the bishopric even came up to me afterwards and commented on how quiet and reverant my children were. My kids?! They were fooling everyone. 

That afternoon Ben and Sharon weren't feeling so hot, so they stayed home with the sleeping kiddies while I went to my mom's Esquire Jazz Concert with my dad and Alli. It was so good! I just love that big band, jazz music. I could have sat there all afternoon. My mom sang exceptionally well. She just has the right voice for that kind of music. She's amazing. Check out the clip below. 

Then I went back to my parents' home, packed up the car, and braved the five hour drive home. We hit some white out snows at the top of the Willamette Pass and then super dense fog from Eugene to Portland. We are lucky we made it home alive between the nasty weather and me trying to feed my kids one handed and changing DVDs all while watching the road and steering. I promise I was safe. 

Congratulations to Alli for joining the "G-club." We are so happy for the decisions that you are making and look forward to having Nic join our family in just a few short weeks!

Thanks everyone for a fun filled weekend and for the laughs! "Speaking of pie holes!"

Gift giving

I made these for all of our residents and am planning on doing a few more for some friends. (sorry if you see this and then get one). Anyways, they are super simple, really inexpensive, and totally cute! Just take a festive piece of 12x12 paper, fold it in half, cut strips about 1/2 inch apart, 3-4 inches long (you don't have to be exact), and then wrap it around your bottle of SPARKLING CIDER using double stick tape. I made these little tags on top that open up to write a little message on top, but most of you probably don't have the 1 3/8 inch hole punch, so you can just use a gift tag you have and attach it with ribbon around the neck of the bottle.  I have to admit that this is not an original idea, I stole it from a magazine, but super cute, right?!

I hate goodbyes!

It's the end of 12th quarter for a few of my favorite chiropractic friends. We have been having a few little going away parties and it is so sad. We have shared a lot of good memories and have all been through a lot. These girls are going to be missed, but we are so excited that they are moving on to bigger and better things. Best of luck to all of you whose husbands are graduating! We love you!

Here we are at Applebee's for Maylin:

And here we are at Maylin's for Christy: 

Thornton's Treeland

We went up to Thornton's Treeland in Vancouver today with our friends Hayley and Logan and some girls from her ward. It was the cutest little Christmas wonderland. There were of course acres of trees that my kids loved tromping through. 

Inside their barn was free hot cocoa, a Christmas gift shop and a huge nativity. (Sidenote: whenever Carter says Jesus, he says "Jesus Christ." It sounds horrible when he says it. I think he says it because at the end of prayers we say "in the name of Jesus Christ." So there was a "baby Jesus Christ" in the nativity, and last week when my parents were here Carter wanted to make a castle for "Jesus Christ" out of legos. We need to cut it down to just "Jesus.") 

Anyways... there was also a hayride that took you through their lot of trees and a petting zoo. There were sheep, goats, llamas, mini horses, bunnies, chicken, geese (who thought those were a good idea in a petting zoo? they bite!!!) and a J-donk or as Carter would say, JC-donk (aka donkey).  

We had such a good time. The weather was perfect. It was clear skies, sunny, and no wind! What a lovely day.