New Life- Week 87 (Thanksgiving and Then Some)

This week was the official start to the holiday season.  On Monday, Jensen came to town for a short visit.  We did a lot of hanging out and a little sight seeing (Oregon City elevator and toy store and the dragon house).  He was here until Wednesday and then went to Arizona for Thanksgiving.

For our Thanksgiving, we went to Emily and Tala's where, not only did we have a turkey and the traditional sides, but Tala also slow roasted an entire pig in their backyard.  It was Nana and Papa, Brendon, Julien, and Maude (plus her boyfriend), the Ioapo's, Uso, and our family.  We were so busy eating that I didn't take many pictures, except of the food.  I made a new candy cane pie this year in addition to Swedish Apple and it was a big hit.  Maybe the biggest hit of all though were my (Carolyn's) rolls.  They literally almost caused a fight between Tala and Uso and even though I had made 4 dozen, they were gone and I had to make another two dozen the next day.

Friday, the Christmas season was in full swing.  After a little Black Friday shopping, we put up our outside lights and went and got a Christmas tree.  Many farms are closed this year because of recession related supply issues, for once it isn't Covid's fault, but we were able to find a place that had some great Nobles and found a tree that fits well in our space.

Saturday, the Christmas festivities continued with getting up the rest of our holiday decor and decorating the tree.  The kids were a big help with this.  We also discovered that Elsie is apparently not as afraid of heights as some of us because I kept finding her climbing the ladder to put an ornament up high.

Oh! Also, unrelated to Christmas, Carrigan got to ride a horse yesterday!  Our new dog trainer has horses and she invited us to her barn to go for a ride.  She was a little nervous at first but quickly decided it was fun!

Tomorrow it's back to the routine, work, carpool and 5 practices and 4 games a week.  BUT we only have three weeks of that until Christmas break.  Let the countdown begin!

New Life- Week 86 (Jeremy's Birthday)

 This week was a mixed bag for sure. Let's start with the good. As the title says, this week was Jeremy's birthday.  We had a fun day on Tuesday celebrating him.  We had special meals and presents and celebrated him as much as we could on a day with school and work and practice.  My favorite were the gifts the kids gave him.  Merrick gave him all the Reese's he could find in his Halloween bag.  Carrigan gave a picture she drew of him.  Elsie gave him two gifts.  One was a picture she had colored in preschool.  The other was a bunch of twisty ties she found in the gift wrap box.  She seems to have a gift for present giving.

The rest of the week had many bumps in the road.  On Wednesday I had a big activity I was in charge of.  Right as I prepared to walk out the the door, Jeremy came in and said that the water heater was leaking and there was water all over the garage.  The rest of the week has been a mess of dealing with water, dealing with repair men and with the home warranty company.  Not only that but it has made a week full with boiling water for baths and to wash dishes and going to Nana and Papa's for showers.  In a world where our schedule is always tight, I feel like it has made us always behind schedule and late for bed.  Thankfully we don't have school next week because we have almost a week and a half left until our hot water heater actually gets replaced.  It's going to be a long week and a half.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving this week.  Lets just hope I can get everything I need to made and cleaned up without hot water.  I promise when this is done I will never take hot water for granted again!

Oh! I also forgot, Carrigan got her first Covid vaccine yesterday.  We are half way to having all the kids fully vaccinated!

New Life- Week 85 (No School November)

This week was the start of what is being called "No School November".  Thursday was a legitimate holiday, Veteran's Day.  On top of this, the middle and high schoolers (including Merrick) had Monday off for a grading day.  Then, last week, the school district announced that due to a labor shortage caused by covid they would not have enough staff to have school on Friday so it would be a holiday as well.  In the end Merrick and Elsie ended up going to school for 2 days and Carrigan went for 3.  That meant that we had a lot more hours than usual to fill and many of them were very rainy.

Honestly, I am not really sure what we did with most of our extra time.  It's funny how that can happen.  I do know that we spent some time at the church so Merrick could practice basketball and the girls could scooter, both Jeremy and I each took the kids this week.

We also spent lots of time doing playdates and sleepovers with cousins.  I gained about four hours each day not carpooling the kids back and forth from school and activities, but probably spent about that much time shuttling the cousins back and forth between all of our houses.

I also took advantage of the extra time for some rare self pampering.  My hair has been SO long for so long so I went for a big chop and darkened it up for the winter.  It feels good to have a change. 

Next week we have a full school week, at least at this point.  I'll keep you posted.

 

New Life- Week 84 (Halloween)

Once again, I am a week behind on the blog.  Last Sunday was Halloween and it was a day filled with family Halloween fun, leaving no time for blogging.

Since Halloween was on Sunday this year, we had some mixed feelings in the family about trick or treating.  We decided to have a cousin gathering earlier in the day and leave the trick of treating decision to each individual family.  We met in the park, divided into two groups, and made Halloween movie trailers.  Afterwards we went to the Brown's for a viewing party.

After our viewing party, the families all went their own ways.  Merrick went to baseball tryouts (he made the select team-yahoo!) and the rest of us went to visit some old neighbors. Later, we met up for dinner with the Ioapos and went trick or treating with them.

I mostly neglected to take pictures, but I did take a few of Elsie and I earlier in the week at our preschool party and Emily took one of all my kids before we headed out.  This year, Merrick was an identity thief, Carrigan was an angel, and Elsie was a Carebear.  We did our usual tick or treating route and while the crowds were lighters than usual, the candy was plentiful.

Since I am behind a week, just one thing from this week.  Jeremy won tickets to the Blazers game at work this week.  There was some debate about who would be his plus one, but in the end I decided to let Merrick go.  They had great seats and a great time, even though some of the big stars were out.  While they were gone, the girls and I got messy with a "rainbow snow" kit.  It was a lot of fun but super messy AND since the kit makes 2 gallons of snow, we have just scratched the surface.  I will have to come up with a plan to reign in some of the mess next time.