Christmas in Oregon 2008

This Christmas was a very fun, sad, strange and exCiting time for our family. It even started off kind of weird. We were planning to leave for Oregon the Saturday before Christmas. We were, however very worried about the weather and we were trying to watch it to make sure we would not get caught in a storm on the way through the Siskiyou(si, ski you! as we call it) mountains near Ashland. It had also been snowing a lot in Portland so that made it hard to figure out too. There is nothing that I dislike more than snow driving. We had a bad rollover accident when Dallin was a baby so I get very stressed out about it. Especially if Peter is driving because then I drive him crazy with my constant panic attacks and back seat driving. So after looking into it we decided to stick to our plan of driving on Saturday. The next morning my oldest sister called at 6:30am. I was still sleeping and tried to ignore it. Finally after calling 3 times by 7:00 I finally answered and she said there was a big storm coming into Portland and everything would be snowed in until Christmas so we better get going. I had not even started packing and Peter was already at work. Peter's brother Larry also suggested the same. So we moved quickly and as I frantically packed, Peter talked to his boss and came home.

We were on the road at 10:30am. There was a lot to do, but we were racing the clock. We drove for long stretches of time only stopping 2 times the whole day which got us there in 9 1/2 hours instead of 10. There was mostly just rain and slushy snow and we got through the mountains by 3:30, just barely squeezing through before the temps dropped. Then we were still racing to get to Portland. By 7:30 we rolled in just as the snow was starting to stick to the roads. After that we really were snowed in for days. Phew! It was snowing the whole week before we got there too. I heard that nothing like this had happened in 40 years! It was fun because we didn't tell Peter's parents that we were coming a day early and showed up as carolers at their door. They were very exCited. It was so fun to hang out with Larry, Lori, Mark, Luke, Andy, Lucy, Larry D's family and John's family for the week! There was tons of visiting, pool, Warcraft, Bean Game, Soduko tournament, and Rock Band(more on that later). Then there was the food, I stuffed myself the whole week and it was worth having to hit the gym even harder now, Yum!

Because of the snow many family activities were cancelled, but we still got to do a lot. On the 22nd we had the Dickinson relative party, which was great as usual with a talent show and lots of yummy Honey Baked Ham. During the party I got a phone call that my grandpa (Mom's dad) had passed away. I had braced myself for the news for a couple of weeks so when Peter handed me the phone, I knew right away what it was and didn't want to answer it. For the next couple of days I really struggled to keep myself together and enjoy the family time, but found myself choking up every time I thought about it. I couldn't seem to make any decisions or think clearly, but Peter and Lori were very compassionate with me and gave me the support that I needed. The hardest part was coming to terms with the fact that we would not be able to drive to Idaho Falls because of the weather for the funeral. I84 was almost constantly closed because of ice and snow.

On Tuesday, a bunch of the boys decided to brave the snow and drive to the mountain to take advantage of the great ski weather. I had been planning to ski, but I was way too faint hearted to make the drive so Peter and Dallin left me behind. Dallin improved his skiing a ton and had a blast. He never complained about being cold or skiing being difficult, he just enjoyed every moment to the fullest degree possible(video coming). Apparently by 6pm everyone was ready to head for home, but Dallin was the only one who wanted to keep going. So much like his dad.


That day there was an opening through I84 so my mom and dad decided to take their chance to get to Idaho. They stopped by for a quick hello and goodbye for about 10 minutes and that is all I saw of them the whole time.


On Christmas Eve the snow was melting a little bit so we drove to Salem for my family's get together. We missed my parents but had a great time visiting and having our gift exchange. Eden even got to make cookies for Santa with her cousin Shelby and aunt Laurel. Our kids totally enjoyed being around cousins and playing the whole time.


Christmas day the kids woke up to finally get all the gifts they have been thinking about for the last month. Dallin and Eden would open a present get exCited for a moment and then look for another gift. Tanner on the other hand would open a gift and want to play with it. He would get mad if we tried to encourage him to move on so by the time the other kids were done, Tanner still had a big pile of unopened goodies. Carter enjoyed trying to eat all of the wrapping paper on the floor. Peter and I had already gotten our gifts from each other so I wasn't expecting anything else, but I was surprised to get a really nice hair straightener from him. I guess I have been talking about getting one for over a year so he took some initiative, what a sweetie. He does not often surprise me so it was extra special. Dallin and Tanner enjoyed lots of new cars and trains, and Eden a doll house and princess barbies.

The day after Christmas I met up with my best friend Angeliou for lunch, it was great to catch up and our Benihana dates are becoming a tradition, how fun. Peter took the kids to Larry D's house and the kids had a total blast playing with cousins some more. I met up with them there and then Peter and I headed over to a nice restaurant for the annual Hedman dinner and white elephant exchange. By this time the roads were beginning to clear up so that was nice. The Dickinson family got Guitar Hero for Christmas so we stayed up late a couple of nights rocking out. It was so fun. Of course I loved singing but I also discovered that I love to beat on the drums, probably for the same reason I love to kick box! I kinda want to learn how to play real drums now. We played so long that my eyes were doing funny things afterward from the scrolling music notes. It made it super fun because almost everyone got into it.

On Saturday morning we got up early and dressed for the funeral. We met with my siblings at Laurel's house and it was such a blessing to be able to watch my Grandpa's funeral over the Internet. It was a beautiful service, but I did miss being able to be there to hug everyone and say goodbye. We made a nice lunch afterward and enjoyed some more time together.

Sunday we drove back, sad that our trip seemed so short. Tragically, I realized that I had forgotten my battery charger for my camera, so I was without the whole time. I was so sad. I copied some from Larry's camera though so here are a few that I did manage to get:



Peter's Grandpa Hedman and Carter. This is the Grandpa that sent us the funny letter.

This is Eden and Miranda singing Jingle Bells for the talent show. They did great and at the end they shouted "Hey" and nodded their heads so that their headbands fell off. It was cute. Eden really looks up to Miranda, Lucy, and Shelby.

Zora and Eden ready to play in the snow

Peter's Grandpa Dickinson with Carter. He cherishes every Grandchild and Great-grandchild.

Christmas Dinner with the Dickinsons.

Christmas morning trains and race car tracks.

Look at all those presents! Santa visited 3 families so the tree was overflowing.

Eden loved the jingle bell pony tails that Aunt Lucy gave her.

Train tracks at Uncle Larry's

Happy cousins Tanner and Lindsay.

Eden and Miranda had a lot of fun making this mosaic.

Silly girls!

Traditional Christmas morning on the stairs picture.

That pretty much sums up our very different Christmas.

Funny Songs

I have been overhearing Dallin singing to himself while he plays lately. Among the songs, the ones I hear the most are, "Follow the Prophet", "Who let the Dogs Out", "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirates Life for Me!", "The Loin Sleeps Tonight" and any Christmas song that he can think of. The last week or so he sings a lot more than ever before so it is really fun to listen to it.

Be Careful What You Name Your Pictures!!!

We arrived back at our home in California today after a wonderful week visiting family. There were ups and downs, but I will write all about the trip when I get all unpacked. The trip back was thankfully uneventful as far as weather goes, but we did get a flat tire. Thanks to our great teamwork though, we were back on the road in 15 minutes (even with having to unload all of the stuff, which was a lot, we had crammed in our van and thanks to having a full sized spare).

Anyway, when we got home we were so excited to come back to a huge stack of christmas cards to open (we LOVE getting those). We sat for about a half hour reading all of the letters and then I opened this letter from Peter's Grandpa Hedman who is 93 only to discover that it was not a card but a response to our card we sent to him! I was so confused until I read on and then began to laugh uncontrollably while Peter wondered what in the world was so funny. So please enlarge this letter to read what he wrote and then I will explain myself! (You also may want to refer to the card I sent to you just out of curiosity!)

Okay, so for Grandpa and anyone else, here is my explanation/excuse: I prepared a lovely Christmas card a couple of months ago minus the pictures and then a few days prior to sending cards, I snapped the photos and put it all together. To my dismay, the program I had used was not good for printing and after several attempts I began to design the lovely picture that you all received(See above). Designing a whole new card was a little frustrating since I had to start over and I went through about 10 drafts between the 2 designs. I kept naming the file things like, Christmas card1, Christmas card final, Christmas card last, and so on always thinking it was the last draft, then only to discover a small technical difficulty and a need to re save. FINALLY, after a couple of hours that I had not planned on, I had my finished product(see above). Out of sheer frustration and just being glad to be done triumphant, I quickly saved it as "this is the last freakin card!" Go ahead and judge my potty mouth, but I promise it was meant for my eyes only, not even Peter had seen it. So, now as we have all learned if you didn't already know, when you send your pictures to Costco for development, the name of the picture file WILL be printed on the back of the picture. I do recall seeing the writing on the back of the 100 photos that I sent out, but of course did not read it. I don't know that I would have taken the time to have them reprinted anyway, or maybe I would have. So there you go Grandpa, thanks for the laugh! Oh, and since you don't send cards, thanks for the (freakin) letter :)

Peace, be still...

The other day, Dallin was playing in the bath. Peter and I noticed that he was splashing around and then standing up and raising his arms and saying "Peace, be still." It was so sweet. He looked at Peter and told him "I'm pretending to be Jesus." This is the first seedling of a little testimony.

Merry Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDBMzGq1vhs&feature=related

If you haven't gotten into the christmas season yet, watch this. You can't go wrong with John Denver and the Muppets. Its cute.

ER

We have had a couple of minor medical "emergencies" this month that have kept us on our toes. The first was a couple of weeks ago. Eden wasn't quite acting right so I should have used my mother's intuition, but I didn't act soon enough. First she was not staying dry at night at all and she seemed to be waking up in pain sometimes. Then we went to Walmart to do some Christmas shopping she had to use the potty twice in a row. I saw the red flags for sure. Then she was even holding her tummy in pain. Poor little thing. I kept telling Peter that I thought it was a bladder infection. Sure enough, on about the third day she woke up with a fever and was totally lethargic. I just put a diaper on her because she was having a really hard time. I rushed her over to the doctor and she was a really good girl. Sure enough she had a pretty severe infection. I was so mad at myself for not plugging her full of cranberry juice and water when I first suspected. She was miserable all that day and the next. She would just lay on the couch and watch Dora or whatever all day. Then the antibiotics finally kicked in and she was very suddenly all better. Gotta love those things.

Then this week most of the kids got colds with a lot of coughing. Tanner and Carter got it the worst and coughed all day the other day. But then in the night at about 11pm, Tanner woke up making the weirdest high pitched coughing and breathing sounds I have ever heard! I recognized it as croup from when Dallin had it as a baby and knew that it was usually not a serious thing. Peter was so good with him, he just took a shower and held him for a while to try to get him some moisture. Then we put him in between us and of course couldn't go to sleep because he was coughing so much and I was scared to death of how much he was struggling to breathe. He couldn't even talk and wouldn't drink because it was hard enough to breathe. Finally, Peter gave him a blessing and he immediately fell asleep, totally calm and breathing easier. We were so relieved, but because of the words of the blessing I kind of knew it wasn't over. Then at 2 am it started up again. I thought that maybe we should take him outside to let the cold air open his airways a little. But it was so bad and we had been watching him struggle long enough that Peter just decided to take him to the ER so he could get some breathing treatments. After a couple of hours with the treatment he was doing a lot better. They gave him an oral steroid too, but he threw it up. When they got back home we put him in his bed because he sleeps better in his crib and he went right to sleep and after checking on him a few times, we all tried to get some sleep. The next day he was doing much better. I am still scared that Carter will have this happen, but he isn't coughing anymore, just really congested so I am crossing my fingers.

Thankfully Peter and I have managed to stay healthy so far. I have been taking Vitamin C like crazy because it has been shown to boost your immune system and help you to fight things off. I have also been exercising a lot and a study shows that that also helps you to not get sick as much. Another amazing benefit of exercise! Peter is usually pretty healthy anyway. I am crossing my fingers that everyone will be doing much better before we leave for our trip and that Peter and I can keep on resisting the plague.

Spelling

Don't you hate it when you find out you have been spelling a word wrong forever and never realized it? I have been blogging for I think close to 2 and a half years now and I hate to think of how many times I have spelled exiting instead of EXCITING! Thanks to my big sis for pointing that out to me (not embarrassing at all Laurel!) So anyway, I do consider myself a pretty decent speller even though I often catch my typos, but that isn't quite the same. So anyway when I am excited, I will now be expressing that in the correct spelling instead of exiting a building! I feel very lame.

Sweet Kids

Since being a mom is a tireless job, I have to write down a couple of sweet things that my kids said today that make all the hard work worth it. This morning I got Tanner out of bed and as I was holding him he looked at my bridal photo hanging on the wall and said "Mommy is a princess!" and then he looked at me and said "Your a princess Mommy."

Last weekend I was asked to sing a solo at our Ward Christmas party so I sang "O, Come all ye Faithful". Peter said the kids were really attentive while I sang so I thought that was cute. Then this afternoon as I was cleaning I put the first presidency Christmas devotional on the computer to listen to. The music playing started out with "O, Come all ye Faithful" and Eden looked at me after a minute and said "Mommy, its just like your song." How cute that she paid that much attention. I love being a mom.

Exiting Things

Last week I registered for some more classes, but I didn't want to get too exited until I was sure that I had all the babysitting arrangements made. Today I found out that we have a very good babysitter from church who will come one afternoon a week so that I can go to school! I am so exited I can hardly contain myself. I am going to take Intermediate Photography and Beginning Digital Imaging(photoshop). I can't wait to keep learning and I am definitely going to go for a photography certificate now that I have started, and feel such a passion for it. Peter is giving me the new Photoshop CS4 program for Christmas so I am all set....Yay!



In other news, last night Peter and I went to a Christmas party for his work. It was quite and experience. It was very fancy, but the open bar made it pretty crazy. The evening started off normal but by the end of the night, almost everyone was so drunk that they were acting silly to put it mildly. I guess I have had a sheltered life because I haven't really seen a lot of drunk people at a party before. Yep, I am very grateful for our clean lifestyle! And the soda was great!



Carter started sitting up by himself recently as well. He has been crawling for a while and gets better at that all the time. Then yesterday he pulled himself to standing. He will be seven months this week and is definitely ready to be one of the big kids. He especially loves Tanner, I have the feeling they will be great buddies.



Some people in our ward have been very good to us. A couple of families offered to give us toys that they no longer needed. I am definitely not one to turn down hand me downs. We have been blessed with a ton of very nice toys that our kids will love for Christmas. Then at our ward party the other night I was thanking one of the ladies and here's the big one...she offered to give our family her whole set of Living Scripture videos!!! She gave us BOM, New Testament and Old Testament and even all the color books. Wow, I was so overwhelmed with the generosity and our family will cherish these teaching tools for years. I have a strong desire in my heart to be a good mother and teach my family to follow the Lord and this will be a very fun thing for us. I never cease to be amazed at the blessings that we have received in the last year and a half.



Other than this, I have been getting cards out, finishing my holiday shopping and preparing for our trip home. Only 6 more days until we go to Oregon!

Christmas Activities

I have been a little grinchy this year about decorating and getting into the real fun of the Christmas Holiday. Then I found this fun filled activity countdown to christmas at http://www.familyfun.com/ . There are more than enough ideas to keep the kids busy and exited for the next couple of weeks! Now the kids can have something to look forward to every day.

Click here for the activity ideas.
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/printablenewsletter/1106d_adventactivities.pdf

Toy Room Organization

I finally have my toy room organized perfectly, just in time for Christmas. I guess I will have to totally rework it in a few days, but here is what I have been doing with it the last few weeks. I ditched the mini table and chairs and put up our long table. It is adjustable so I put it as low as it goes and we use our big folding chairs so they are right up there in their work spaces. This works well with multiple projects and children at the same time!

Next, I tackled the toy closet. After getting rid of things we just don't use and finding a place for everything and everything in its place, I labeled everything. I used to use a label maker, but I got this idea of taking pictures from a TV show(John and Kate Plus 8). Now the kids know how to put things away which is a huge help. They finally actually like to clean because it is like a matching game.

Another example.

Here is the finished project! I know it isn't exactly pretty, but I wanted to use what we had so I didn't spend any money on fancy containers. The table and chairs were just hanging out in the garage so that was easy too. Total cost 0$ ! The picture labels make it sooooo nice and neat. Having a toy room is worth the sacrifice of a bedroom. We have our 3 oldest kids sleeping in one room as an exchange, but this works well for us. The girl toys are in their bedroom closet in bins, so that is why there aren't any in this space. So now I just need to make the rest of the house this organized :)

Environmental Self Portrait

My last assignment for my class was to do an environmental self portrait. The only requirement was that we had to take it ourselves and it was supposed to represent your environment. I couldn't think of anything but kids in my environment so this is what I came up with. I was thinking about that church painting with the woman holding a baby in her night gown. I do really like it, but I don't love it. I am too busy to take the time to do another shoot so it will do. I accidentally had my ISO way too high so there is noise. Other than that I thought it turned out pretty good. My favorite is the way his cute little feet are showing. Oh, and I am actually in a picture, that is rare proof that I exist.

Dentist

The kids did great at the dentist yesterday, but Tanner is definately a 2 year old. I knew that Tanner would be the most difficult so I let him go last so he could see everyone else go before him. When it was his turn the dentist told him to climb up onto the chair. He did, but when she told him to lay back, he calmly said, "No, I scared." I assured him it would be okay so he finally laid back. Then he did not want to open his mouth for her and kept saying, "no, I can't." He was still very calm and matter of fact about everything. Finally when she was trying to clean his teeth with every open mouth opportunity he clammed up again when she turned the brush thingy on and said "no, its too loud." I was cracking up because he was so calm and just said what he was thinking I guess. We just called it good after that. Tanner is such a character.

Dear Santa...

Aren't they just so CUTE!

Disney Video

The Happiest Place on Earth (part1)

We are officially crazy. We decided that this year we would use Thanksgiving break to take our first family vacation with just our own little family to Disneyland...for 3 days...with 4 small children! We had such a blast, but I was not prepared for how physically exausting it would be. I am pretty sure if we can do that, we can do anything now. The kids were so exited about it for the last couple of weeks and after much debate on how wise it would be to go without extra helping hands we booked everything and just decided to go for it. We drove down on Wednesday afternoon and checked into a hotel 3 blocks from the park. The kids thought it was just so cool to stay in a hotel room. The next morning we quickly got ready and headed out for our first day. I had planned out our destinations for each day so we knew exactly what we were going to do the whole time. That turned out to be a good thing because we never had mix ups, got lost from one another, or disagreed about what we were doing. Our first order of business was to got the fantasy land and meet the Disney Princesses. Eden was looking forward to that more than anything. This is the princess coronation ceremony that was very interactive and fun.

The princesses teaching the little girls how to dance.

The line to meet the characters was an hour long and I wasn't sure how Tanner would do, but then he ran into this little girl exactly his age and size and they were instantly bffs. I seriously started to wonder if they were going to run off and elope. Well, the did run off holding hands a few times anyway.

Eden was so enchanted with Belle! She was the first princess she met and so she was completely star struck. I loved how Belle came down to Eden's level and had a whole conversation with her. It was so sweet.

Girl talk. I didn't hear the conversation, but it went on for at least a minute.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. Tanner was totally smitten with all the characters.

This is Dallin showing Pocahontas his intended roller coaster destinations on the disney map.

Jasmine

After we were done with Princesses we combed fantasy land through and through. We did get a guest assistance pass so we didn't have to wait long for rides. Anything that had a boat, car, or train was very cool for the boys. That is the whale from Pinnochio about to swallow us up.

Peter was a very good disney daddy. Between Tanner and Carter we were holding children most of the time unless we were walking with the stroller. Carter was a trooper even though he was pretty sick the first 2 days. Half of his bottles were not very warm, but other than that, he was happy most of the time.

The kids are so great with Carter, they all love him. Eden is totally precious with him. Famous tea cups. I remember riding the pink one the first time I went to disneyland, I was with Peter and we were engaged. During this crazy vacation, I reflected on that first trip almost 8 years ago. I don't think I ever would have imagined the future of tromping around with 4 kids 5 and under in our future. I think at that time I was just content to be holding Peter's hand and being oblivious to the world.

I loved capturing the magic in the kids faces more than anything else.

Dumbo.

This is on our way into Alice in Wonderland. Eden really liked this one because she had just seen the movie a couple days before (part of my planning, I researched the theme rides and made sure they saw any that they didn't know about before)

I just liked this one of Cart Cart. I just want to pinch those cheeks. btw, he is high on the charts for weight so he is doing a good job at my favorite thing, being a chubby baby. Gotta love the chub.

The dumbo train. Very fitting that we were in the monkey cage.

The Carousel. We also did lots of other rides like Pinnochio, Snow white, Peter pan(a favorite) and the Matterhorn. That was the only real rollercoaster that Eden could do. Once was enough for her though, but Dallin did it a couple of times.

After rides we went off to the new Pixie Hollow. It is basically just a character greeting in a forest of tall grass and flowers.

watching ducks while waiting to meed the pixies.

Tinkerbell! Definately worth waiting in a long line for. She also met the blue fairy, can't remember her name.

Then we took a break to watch the christmas parade. It was neat with lots of dancing and the characters in their christmas gear. The whole park was so decked out with Christmas decor. That is one thing about Disney that I can never get over, everything is done with amazing detail and so ellaborately. I guess that is what gives it it's magic.

We had lunch in a cute cafe in fantasyland then we headed up to toon town. It was pretty fun to tour all the houses of mickey and his gang. You even get to meet Mickey at his house. We also saw Minnie and Donald.

Toon Town really makes you feel like you are in a cartoon.

I think this pumkin was in Goofy's yard. After toon town we finished off our day at tommorowland. The buzz light year ride was a highlight and then it was finally Dallin's turn to do some big rides. He did star tours which was great and then SPACE MOUNTAIN! Peter and I would each take a turn to go with Dallin while the other would stay with the little ones and keep them occupied with popcorn or ice cream so he got to do the big boy rides twice, Lucky! I was on the second shift for space mountain and Dallin was so exited to take me on it that he could not stop talking the whole wait through the fast pass line. That was the bummer about the rides with fast passes, they actually took longer than other rides for us. Anyway, that ride was Dallin's highlight of the day. Then Dallin and Peter went on autotopia and Dallin got his driver's license. The other kids fell asleep from exaustion in the stroller. That was too bad because just then it was time to watch the fireworks over Cinderella's castle. Eden woke up for a minute, but pretty much missed it. We didn't get a good view anyway.