Spring Break 2011

Our Spring Break wasn't warm or tropical or very "springy" but it was a getaway to our favorite place with some of our favorite people. We went to grammy and papa's house at Black Butte in Central, OR with our friends who have 3 boys of their own. What could be more fun than 8 little boys and a week with no real plans? (Just go with it, *wink *wink) The kids and I spent 10 days. Bart came and went for work throughout the week but that didn't keep us from all our playing, relaxing and enjoying the snow. We woke up to beautiful snow at the ranch most mornings, swam at the indoor pool, played a TON of board games (rummikub and banagrams were worn out by the end of the week), ate yummy food, hot tubbed, read, relaxed and of course watched a lot of March Madness basketball.

We even headed up to Hoodoo for an afternoon with our oldest 3 for skiing. I was amazed at how fast the kids picked it up. It was our 5 yr old's first time and he was hopping on the chair lift and whizzing down the bunny hill by the end of the afternoon. My sister, who now lives in Central OR was a doll and watched our littles for the day so both the hubby and I could be in on the fun!

The parents were tuckered out from a day on the slopes, but leave it to little boys to have boundless energy and enough grit to decide to climb the huge snow bank out at the parking lot.

This one must have climbed and slipped a dozen times before he made it to the top! But he kept smiling and trying. It proved to me how much growing-up he has been doing...he's now one of the big boys!

The all finally made it!

Crazy group up top.

Daddy got pulled into hottubbing with this motley crew...lucky for him since he had some sore skiing muscles that needed attention.

Another highlight of the week was taking the sleds to the snowpark. It was fast and furious down the hill ones the pathways were blazed. Only minor casualties were had. I still think there were more smiles than tears. It was so fun that it deserved a return trip before the week's end.

By our second trip up, the snow was REALLY deep! Here's our oldest waist deep taking a break to eat some snow.

Me with my neice (just in case you wondered how a girl got in our family photos - my sister and her kids joined us the last part of the week. Fun, fun and more fun!)

Bart and I made a pact that we would do no more boring, wet, spring breaks at home. For me, it means a week to spend with the kids and to just get away somewhere. This beautiful place ALWAYS does the trick. Thanks Black Butte for the break!

Livin' off ALOHA!

The hubby and I are only getting through the past 2 weeks of cold, wet weather, sick kids, and a disastrously (is that a word?) busy schedule because we are still living off the memory of our recent trip to paradise. We pulled off the near-impossible! We actually cleared 10 days from our calendar, convinced my mom to stay with our 5 crazies, dug out some shorts and swim-suits from the drawers and hopped on a plane to Hawaii. We literally felt guilty traveling - just the two of us. We kept feeling like we were "sneaking away" and going to get caught at any minute and returned to reality. But we escaped successfully and arrived in the warm, sweet smelling Big Island and enjoyed 9 kid-free days - pure heaven!

My parents have an amazing condo on the Kohala Coast - it's pretty hard not to enjoy yourself. Our first day there included a long walk around A-bay - it was beautiful and private, except for a lot of sea turtles on the shore along the way.

I'm not sure what this pose is, but is was amazing standing on the rocks while the waves crashed in. We even thought of our boys at home (just for a minute) and sent them a little picture message...

Our hike ended at a lone palm tree out in the middle of a bed of lava - literally nothing but lava rock as far as the eye can see. And not a sole in sight. At the base of the lone palm tree was this treasure! A natural fresh water pool. Yep, fresh, cool, crystal clear spring water coming up out of the middle of a lava field! Hawaii amazes me. We might have swam in it.

We enjoyed an afternoon whale watching cruise. We were just lying in the beach, and looked up as they were boarding for the cruise and said to each other, "Hey - that sounds fun! Let's go grab tickets and get on!" One of the millions of things that are possible when you're not toting little ones along.

Humpback whales galore - no zoom!

We rented long boards one afternoon and gave ourselves lessons. Just a note - its harder than it looks. We like to say that the bay was especially choppy that day :) And I like to remind Bart that I did better than he did staying upright!

Our good friends from home joined us on day 4 and together, we booked an afternoon helicopter ride around the island. Definitely the BEST and ONLY way to see everything. It was beyond incredible. We flew from the dry side of the island to the rainforest, around the rim of the volcano, and through the Kohala Coast valleys and waterfalls. Breathtaking!

A still shot of the fire red lava literally flowing from a vent.

I didn't get many other pictures with my camera, because I was busy getting sick - yeah, embarassing, I know. Especially since I was in the cockpit next to the pilot. Next time I'll remember the dramamine . It was still worth every minute!

My favorite though - had to be the Zip Line tour. We took a military 6 wheeler through the wilderness, which was probably the scariest part of the tour, stopping a time or two to let wild cattle move out of our way. Then, 8 zip lines through the rainforest canopy - past waterfalls, and over valleys with ocean views. It was beyond cool!

We spent a TON of time getting R&R at the beach or by the pool. We enjoyed a couples oceanside massage, daily morning smoothies, yummy restaraunts in the evenings, and warm nights playing bananagrams with our friends on the lanai. I read 2 1/2 books. Exercising even felt relaxing.

My mom did AMAZING with my kids (I had no doubts - just worries that she would make me looks bad!) and we found all well when we returned home. A testament to the whole idea of couples needing to just get away once and a while. Reality hits like a cold bucket of water - I think we were home all of 20 minutes before Coley threw up all over the bathroom floor and someone's homework got spilled on. But it all felt fun again in some un-normal way - it's what a good vacation does to you.

So until next time, this image will be engraved in my memory. The tan is already fading away - but the experiences and memories won't if I can help it. I'll stay livin' off ALOHA as long as possible.

Loving Love Day

Sometimes I love the simple holidays like Valentines Day best, because you can do some fun things without all the pressure and stress that Christmas can bring. My creativity for this year was more like copying...but when you have creative friends, why not? My friend, who by the way has an amazing blog you can check out here (who you may already know, becuase she is getting quite famous in the crafty-blog world) sometimes posts about her homemade lollipops. I gave them a try last year and they were pretty "fool-proof" so this year was round two.
I love this kid. While craftiness is usually lost on boys, this kid is always up for helping me with my newest project. The older boys wouldn't hear of having any other valentines treats besides store-bought NBA cards with store-bought sour licorice sticks attached. But this boy is always ready to humor me and go along with my ideas. So while the little two nap - he's my helper and we have a blast.

We wrapped them up in small plastic treat bags and tied 'em up with a ribbon.

Then for the cards...I remembered a different friend doing a cute thing last year. So, since I'm a creative copier, I started pulling all the ideas together...and...

He was even willing to go along with this next part, which involved a silly photo shoot holding out his fist in front of him.

Then using photoshop to crop and add the lettering, and $.13 cent 4x6 prints at Costco - we added the homemade lollipops and had our preschool Valentine's Day cards.

He was pretty happy with them - can't you tell by the half-smile he had while holding it up? Thanks Bode for always wanting to hang with mom and your help making Love Day lovely!

Laughter for 4 please.

A couple of years ago, some friends of our introduced us to a man, who has changed our family forever. Maybe you've heard of Brian Regan- a clean, family-friendly comedian who is simply hilarious. Since our first introduction two summers ago - everything that may be funny has to be scored against the Brian Regan scale. We don't quote movie lines at our house, but no family dinner-table discussion goes without dropping a Regan line. No family vacation or car ride can carry on without a Regan joke. Even our 3 year old knows lines, even though he doesn't know their meaning. Brian has infiltrated our home and his funnies just never get old to us. So our older boys were thrilled when "Santa" brought us 4 tickets to his January 28th show in Portland. Me and the boys met Bart downtown for a yummy dinner and then headed over to the "Schnitz" for a night of laughter.

His material was all new. And while good, we still think his "I Walked on the Moon" show takes the blue ribbon. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing continuously for 2 hours. It was too much fun and a great memory maker with our big kids. And the night ended perfectly when Brian encored with his "little league" segment. But instead of snow cones, we then headed to our favorite yogurt shop, Peachwave for some delicious dessert. Grape, no cherry. Grape or cherry. Both favorites!

New Years with Family

We stayed home for most of the Holiday vacation and soaked in some down-time following Christmas. But we decided to finish off by throwing in a little road trip to Tacoma, WA to visit some of Bart's family and ring in the New Year with the Dickson gang.

Our first stop was to Bart's grandparents house. They were happy to see us and always welcome our brood. (The fact that they have a game room with ping-pong and pool in the basement helps to make it a successful visit with kids). Grandma suffers from Alzheimers, but we were happy she seemed to recognize us. We hope our boys get more chances to visit with Grandma while she is still happy and feeling good. But for now we got good quality time and photos with lots of smiles!
Bart with his grandparents - we can see clearly where Bart gets his bald head...errr...good looks!

One of the reasons we made the trip had to do with the coaxing Bart recieved from his cousins to come and help add depth to the Dickson flag football team in the Dickson vs Dyer (long-time family friends) first annual New Years Day bowl. So New Years day started with a frosty field and a football game...

The Dickson team started strong, but lost momentum and gave up the first year's win to the Dyers. I say it's because the Dyer team snagged my 10-yr old to play with them - he made ALL the difference! Like any friendly sports competition - everyone shook hands and even snuggled in for a group shot at the game's end. Considering no one got hurt and the new year was kicked off with a little excercise and a lot of fresh air - it was a WIN for everyone.

We are looking forward to a happy, health and robust New Year. Can't wait to see what adventures 2011 has in store.

All I want for Christmas is...

my boys - with smiles on their faces. I think I got my wish! We had a great Christmas morning - just us. The boys came creeping into our room right at 7am (as they were told no earlier than that) and the stocking-sifting and paper-shredding madness began. Grammy and Papa do their rounds to all the houses to see what happiness has been opened. This year Santa brought an Oregon Ducks hoodie for Cade, a Jaquiz Rogers (OSU) jersey for Ty, knights and a frisbee for Bo, knights for Cole (since he still says whatever his older brother does), and a ball for Luke (like we don't have enough of those!).
Mom and dad scored big smiles for getting the boys a Wii. They were not expecting it at all (since we swore we were going to be a no video-game house) I guess we got soft.

It earned us huge hugs too!

This one was still trying to wake up, but he's holding all he wanted.

This one was in knight heaven. His new love. Papo knight company was loving our house this year.

For a little boy, Christmas morning is simply magical. While we try to make sure our kids remember the real meaning of Christmas - I remind myself to just enjoy this morning and all of the surprise and elation.

We spend a lot of time making sure the Christmas season focused on Christ and giving. We have family nights reviewing the symbols of Christmas and their true meaning. We pick a family and do the 12-days of Christmas where we leave a surprise gift of the doorstep every night leading up to Christmas. We deliver lots of goody trays to friends and neighbors. We read scriptures and stories - I buy a new Christmas book each year. This year I found a favorite in "I Believe in Santa Claus" by Diane G Adamson - A childs Christmas story teaching of Santa and Christ.

We did a couple of new things this year that really added to our Christmas fun - We used the money from the advent calendar (quarters that Grammy puts in each drawer to go along with a candy for each day) and the boys picked out gifts for each other at the dollar store. (An idea I got from a friend's blog) It was a great outing to help fill one of their Holiday vacation afternoons. But it was also really fun to see how much thought and care they each took trying to find the perfect present for each other. They went up and down isles stewing and thinking - it was cute to see what they finally decided on - and cuter to see them try to keep their baskets secret from each other and hurry home to wrap each item themselves. Since it was so inexpensive, I was able to totally refrain from my controlling nature and let them do it. They made sure I knew that they want to do this every year. A lot was added to Christmas morning when each boy got to feel more personally the joy that comes from giving. I also borrowed a "tradition idea" a friend once shared with me - each boy got a box of their favorite breakfast cereal (the ones I will never buy during the year except for camping of Black Butte trips). They were so excited to eat breakfast, we had to remind them there were still presents to unwrap. It was just another simple way to make Christmas memorable.

We spent the rest of the morning skype-ing out-of-town family. Then we headed up for Grammy and Papa's for a huge brunch and huge round 2 of presents. The day was filled with cousins playing, parents visiting and napping. Then we finished off with eating all the yummy left-overs from Christmas Eve dinner. After we were stuffed full and tired, we traveled home happy and filled with the Spirit of Christmas. It truly is the best time of the year.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eves have settled in the nice same scene year after year for us. That is part of what makes Christmas so great - the Traditions - the same wonderful events, constant warmth, consistent love and enjoyment that never grows old. I am lucky to have all my siblings and their families close by - so on Christmas Eve afternoon, we all head up to Grammy and Papa's. You can feel and smell "Christmas" from the driveway. The kitchen is all a bustle as the women pull together the finishing touches for the feast. Kids run and play with utter excitement to all corners of the house. This one was caught LOTS of times, doing this...
We gather together and Papa, in his choked-up voice does the same welcome/gratitude speach we all love. Then we "try" to enjoy a beautiful, peaceful dinner. With so many little ones it's usually more like mahem - spilled drinks, laughter and usually some tears - but beauty and peace can come in lots of packages.

After dinner, the kids get costumed and perform the Nativity as Papa reads from the scriptures.

Each year there are new cast members to add to the performance. Cole-the shepard guards the manger until everyone is ready to roll.

Some of the new cast members aren't as eager to participate...

The older kids still love it as much as the little ones

By the end of the Nativity play, it usually looks like this...but it is a work in progress.

The kids all help carry up the presents from downstairs to arrange under the tree (or more like around the room) - Our grammy has perfected the art of gift-giving. Then everyone opens one gift, which is always Christmas pajamas. Even the parents and guests get a new set of pj's - but we don't make them pose for a picture.Then for the evening wind-down, someone plays the piano and we all sing our favorite Christmas Carols. As you can see, the winding-down part wasn't successful - it turned into more of a dog-pile/wrestling match. Poor Aunt Haley on the bottom.

Then the parents have the job of getting their kids home, to bed, and eventually asleep - So Santa can come!

Every year, as the kids get a little older, the feelings of Christmas seem to change. The traditions are the same, and the scene looks identicle. But there seems to be more excitement, more anticipation, more gratitude, more LOVE. I remember it being great when I was a kid. The best part is that is seems to keep getting better!