valentines day

{sent kids to school with classmate and teacher Valentines/candy, did BINGO station at A's classroom V-Day party, made handmade chocolate-covered strawberries, received a dozen long-stemmed roses, Godiva dark chocolate, candy for the kids, viewed school friends' valentines in hand-decorated bags, fixed steak, baked potato, petite green beans dinner, sent Jess to V-Day party at Fusion, kids' movies, homework, set up Jess's FB page}

cousin sleepover during christmas break

     During Christmas break, we switched kids with my brother & SIL, Scott & Charlene, for a sleepover--Jess went to Morgan's, and Grant and Reese came to our house to spend the night with Andrew and Catherine. They had a lot of fun. Our kids match up well. Morgan 13, Jess 12, Grant & Andrew both 10, Catherine 6 & Reese 3. These kids have grown up together and are really close, which is so neat. 

     This was Reese's first sleepover at our house. She was really excited to be here. Here the kids are in a couple photos I took when they were still and eating ice cream! Catherine made Reese the necklace she is wearing. The girls played dolls, colored pictures, and 'pretended' the whole time. The boys played indoor basketball, DS games, and watched movies. 

     I heard Jess & Morgan had a good time to themselves without the younger sibs around. They played with Morgan's new 3-week old goat kids, did some Wii dancing, and downloaded apps for Jess's new ipod touch. We got Jess back the next night when S&C brought her home and came up here for dinner with us. I made soup with leftover Christmas turkey, rolls, salad, and appetizers also left from Christmas. 

christmas elves decorate

Here's my little Christmas elf who follows me around and helps me with my holiday tasks. She is so excited for Christmas. These pics were taken Tuesday night after Mom was up helping decorate. Catherine helped Grandma put together another wreath outside {for our barn}and decorate the deck. Mom had the barn wreath idea, so I will have to get a pic of that in the daylight. She also did all the deck decorating.

With all the effort, I'd say I still only have the house and tree half decorated, as with the cleaning, gift shopping, menu planning. I have 2 more days until the kids are out of school for Christmas, and Saturday is looking like 6 basketball games. I think we may have a free Sunday, though. These next photos are glimpses of the decorating we got started on, but there are still a few more details I want to finish before photographing the wide angle reveal.

In the windows hang two fresh cedar wreaths Mom made for my front windows. She did these for me last year, as well. They smell so good and are really pretty in the daylight. To hang the wreaths, I popped out the removable, sliding window panel and inserted the ribbon ends into the window track. Did you know your these panels can be removed for deep cleaning? {learned that from my mom, too}

I couldn't wait to take a few shots of the tree. Our tree is always rustic, country with natural, homespun garland and ornaments for the most part. We have ornaments made with materials such as wood, twigs, burlap, jute twine, leather, felt and quilting textiles.  Next, I need to stabilize the tree top by wiring in a wooden dowel to support the weight of the rustic, bronze angel that goes at the top. I also have more garland to wrap around. I started with the 4-inch wide burlap ribbon here, but Catherine began hanging ornaments before I got to finishing the garland. One of my faves that I created and have had on the tree for years, is the garland made of 2-inch mini twig wreaths tied together with 2 1/2 foot strips of torn calico fabric.

This is one of my favorite ornaments because it has a hole in the bottom for inserting a light. It really brightens up the tree and I love how the light shines out of the church windows and steeple.

Here is one of Mom's handmade ornaments she gave us this year.

This is another ornament she made using chalkboard paint and red duct tape.

Mom taught a wreath making class at Willamette Valley Fruit Co. and has been selling her 'Creation Inspirations' handmade decorations and ornaments at their store this season. I tore an old, red tablecloth into strips to use for a bow with the burlap piece.

Mom makes and sells these reindeer also. We got this one from her last year. She filled my wire basket with pine cones, fir, cedar, and juniper {from Bend} boughs. I need to paint the rocking chair.

Mom made the chicken wire frame with rustic, gray-weathered wood, and she made the manger ornament. I am painting a 'Merry Christmas' and 'Welcome' sign to hang here.

Here is the fir and cedar garland Mom made and wrapped around two posts at our front entry. The large wreath on the bench is the one for the front of the barn. Jim did a nice job of refinishing our decks this fall. They are normally rich with a shine to them, but our dog tracks dirt and leaves paw prints all over the deck. The only way to keep her off the decks is to keep her penned up all the time. One of these days, maybe we'll do some invisible fencing to keep her in the back. None of our current fencing keeps her in the back because she can dig under with our wet soil--it's a complicated and annoying problem, and just one reason why I like having cows much better than a dog. She also digs holes here in front of the deck trying to find the cat who hides underneath, which is where the dirt is being tracked from. She has also started stealing our shoes and burying them in the flower beds because she is bored with no kids outside to play with, and she chewed holes in my Muck boots. This dog will not be getting any of those ridiculous doggie gifts for Christmas {major pet peeve}, although the neighbor girl brought homemade dog treat cookies over for Kendal the other day.

reindeer deco

My mom came up today to help me do some holiday decorating. She makes wreaths, decor and crafts for the home and is always sharing them with us. She made us four fresh wreaths and about 25 feet of fresh garland. This year, she made the rounds to the three homes of her grandchildren and made this reindeer craft with them. I see my nephews have their reindeer in their room. My kids painted the nose, eyes, ears, hot glued the wreath, tied the collar and bells on, etc., and then, he found his final home in our stairwell where we moved a painting to fit him in for the holiday season.

 

 

Over the river and through the woods...

...to Grandfather's Christmas tree farm we went to get our tree. This is our family's tradition every year, and has been for 14 years! I just discovered that Jim's dad has been raising Christmas trees ever since before he was born! I didn't realize he had been doing it that long. We drive just over an hour {50 miles} to get a tree during a very busy time of year, but the trip is about much more than a free tree. I know that Jim enjoys going home and any time he can spend with his dad out in the tree patch. I know that holds a lot of meaning for him. Since we had to make the trip when we could have at least 2-3 hours of daylight to drive down and pick out the tree in the light, we weren't able to find time until this weekend this year. We have been at basketball tourneys the past couple weekends, which makes finding free weekend afternoon hours tough. Andrew finished his tourney game at 12:45 in Vancouver, we went home to get the truck, change, and made it down to Dallas by 3:15.

I learned early on that picking out a tree with Jim was not a quick or easy task. There are always many great trees to choose from, but Jim tends to like to look at the whole patch and find the perfect one. We always have a great tree, but we ought to when it always takes two days to get it, set it up, string lights and decorate it. Just as most everything done by my husband, extra time and care is put into the tree. It must be shaken with the shaker at the farm to get out all the dead needles and debris, sometimes baled, trunk re-cut at home with the chain saw, and then the specialty stand is nailed to the trunk of the tree in two places, the placement being carefully calculated so that no branches are nicked or cracked by the stand or hammer during the process. The tree stand goes on top of a large piece of plywood on top of a foam, rug liner protecting the hardwood floor. The tree must be watered immediately and checked the next morning as it 'drinks' half the bucket the first night. The tree lights are carefully woven in and out of the branches so it is lit from the inside out and with very little wire showing. He used to put over 1000 lights on 9-10 foot trees, but in this house we don't have high ceilings in the living room and can only get a 7 foot tree. This year our tree only has 400 lights.

Picking out the tree this year was no exception, and went something like this: We drove up to Grandpa's house to look at his tree patches there first. As we got out, Grandpa greeted the kids with hugs. The kids ran and said 'Hi' to the golden retriever, Rusty, in his kennel and looked for Grandma, but she was gone to town. Catherine got special attention because Grandpa saw her in her new glasses for the first time and I snapped the photo of him telling her how much he liked them. Love the smiles on Jim and the kids faces as that scene unfolded, and Catherine's embarrassed smile. Grandpa handed out candy canes, and we walked up into the tree patches. Grandpa's newly acquired cat, Jasper, found us and Catherine had to hold him for a picture. We looked through 4 or maybe 5 patches before Jim and his dad found any serious contenders. I just hang back and wait because I know you might go back to the first good one you saw, but they have to look through the whole property first anyway. There is no rushing this event; its about the experience. The kids and I took some pics and wove our way through the trees after the men. The kids started a game of hide and seek. We all got our jeans soaked through from brushing against the wet branches. This year we didn't get our faces tangled in spider webs as we usually do. The weather must have washed the webs away, but the day was dry and cold.

After finding the tree in the farthest patch, Grandpa walked back to the shop to get his chainsaw. The guys cut down our tree and Grandpa & Grandma's tree, and carried them out through the cow pasture. We washed our muddy boots with the hose, piled in the truck and drove over to Grandpa's tree farm shop on another piece of property where there are other patches of trees and equipment for shaking and baling trees. The kids love to go here because in the shop there is always a fire going in a pot belly stove to dry off by and hot chocolate waiting. There the men used the shaker on the two trees and loaded them in the two trucks. After drying by the fire, sipping the cocoa, and chatting for awhile we headed home at about 5:45. It was a fun outing, but we still had to go home for dinner and putting the tree up.

At home, we warmed up last night's leftover 'cattlemen's pie' {aka, shepherd's pie} for dinner and ate together before diving into the task of taking ornaments, lights, tree stand and board, and all the other Christmas decor out of the attic. We put on Christmas music and the kids ran off to find a Christmas movie on television. Meanwhile, Jim and I went outside to unload the tree and get it in the stand.

I'd hate to sound bitter, but working with Jim on certain projects is about my least favorite thing because he doesn't talk {at all} and he is 'all up inside his head' as I like to put it--totally focused and determined to get the job done right. And if I dare to say it, he even acts as if I should obviously know exactly what to do to assist him without him even telling me! The worst usually comes when I have the audacity to begin to think to myself what a fine wife I am being to help him so diligently, calmly, quietly, without complaining, with speed and efficiency, even thinking ahead without being asked, and then...come to realize he doesn't even notice my helpfulness, or worse yet, he responds with agitation. Usually this puts me in a mood, because such an effort to be that kind of wife surely deserves a look, a word, even a slight nod of affirmation in my general direction. NAY. Nothing. This time, the nod came from within as I was pleased with myself for my unusual amount of patience over the course of the whole day, really. Something I should definitely try to go for in other such situations. It's a good thing I am not 'needy' for emotional connection with my husband as I believe I once was early on. It is sad to say, but we are in a season where it is hard to connect with each other as he is gone early, home late, coaching every spare minute, but that is just the way it is and we make it work. I am joyful to say that we love each other through it all, and my job is to love and honor him no matter if he notices how 'good' I am being or not. I think having my new camera to play with today gave me something to do, so I was more patient this year with how long these projects take with my type A husband. I am kept busy noticing the beauty, light, and angles with a new-found artist's eye, so that's kind of fun.

 

We got the tree in the house, and I snapped photos while Catie happily helped her Daddy with the lights. She couldn't wait to decorate with the ornaments, but it was so late by the time the lights were done, that we told her she'd have to wait until after school tomorrow. I love her enthusiasm. We had to drag the two big kids away from the tv to come in when the lights were going on. They had a long day of basketball, too, though.