Happy New Year

Cam's new Camelbak Backpack.

First-- Christmas was so fun! We spent the week before just being mellow and enjoying having the kids being home from school and actually sleeping in every day (Well, I enjoyed it. Jonah swears he LOVES getting up to get the kids on the bus by 7:15 am). We spent an evening in Port Townsend, which is a Victoria waterfront town near us that is just oozing with charm. It was freezing, but luckily we found a vintage hotel lobby with an electric train set and free apple cider.

Besides the gifts from my dad overtaking our entire living room, we had a nice, easygoing Christmas. This is the first year Santa brought brand new gifts for the kids... not hand me downs. I think that is just because we live too far from a Deseret Industries for Santa to do his shopping there. Plus, the kids were completely spoiled by their grandparents which makes Santa's job so much easier.

MY GIFTS were over the top. I get completely spoiled.... and I am SO bad with giving gifts. This year, Jonah got me the sharpest kitchen knives known to man which also have excellent balance and look good too. If you visit, I will let you cut the tomatoes to show you. He and Santa also bought me a totally awesome Canon T1I camera. It has a billion megapixels and also takes HD video with my Canon lenses... It is also a gift to you, because finally the photos on here will be somewhat nice to look at. HOORAY! Taking photos is fun again.


Ana's new Tony Lamas.

There is just nothing like a two-year-old at Christmas, though the other kids were a blast too. Man, I love these kids.

We had continuously clear (and cold) weather for all of Christmas vacation. On Christmas afternoon, we hiked for a few hours on the spit near our house. The spit leads out to the lighthouse, but it is a five mile hike each way, so we just took photos instead. That's the San Juan Islands (Blakely Is., etc.) and Mount Baker in the background.

My kids haven't spent much time on the beach when it is so cold, so they were a little confused about what to do (like, you don't want to be chasing waves or burying yourself in the sand)... but Ana still made a few sand creations.

I don't know why Elsie is smiling-- she was so cold she spent the last 1/2 mile of the hike screaming. She's probably smiling because she has a new Princess jacket and pink Camelbak. Or... because I told her we'd start hiking back if she would just sit still for a few photos.

Cam never gets cold because he ALWAYS wears the wool coat we got for him during our last trip to London... its from a thrift store in Camdentown of all places. He says, "I know what it feels like to be a sheep because I have this coat!"



We got a couple pigs a few weeks before Christmas and you may think they are cute, but that's because smellavision isn't yet compatible with blogger. The boy is named HOGZILLA and the girl is LUAU and they will be hundreds of pounds huge this summer and will have lived a fun and fulfilling life by that time.

I can't believe the pigs were this small only two weeks ago. They are at least twice this big now.

Elsie has gracefully moved into our family's traditional "TERRIBLE THREES". She has been the easiest, kindest, no fuss, sleep all night long, yes please, no thank you, I love you baby in the whole world... but sadly, she feels the "boundary testing" part of her early childhood development has been neglected and so is working on it full time. Luckily, though, she'll still let me take pictures of her so at night I can scan through my camera and remember why I'm putting up with all this.


Running home through our field after we walked to see the swans that are wintering across the street. She wasn't as interested in the swans as I was, but she did like running... until she face planted into the dry grass. Why does it always end that way?

The kids' most favorite gift was the one that Santa dropped off on Christmas night-- my mom! Santa flew her all the way here from Orange County. The kids backflipped. It was a total surprise. Their favorite night of the whole Christmas break was when Jonah and I went on a date and they got to stay home with just "Luvy". They had an impromptu dance party as we were leaving just to show us how much they would miss us.


On our date, we went to dinner and then I went to see NEW MOON at the actual theater where Bella sees all of her movies.. in Port Angeles. It was pretty awesome. Jonah didn't end up coming with me because he made some lame excuse about needing to go get some oil for the car, but he was nice enough to come back and pick me up when the movie was over. I think he was just scared I might start making out with him in the theater with all the high-tension romance of the movie. Luckily he avoided such a scenario.

For New Year's Eve, we went to my aunt and uncle's house in Redmond to have a good time with my cousins who were home for the holidays. It was such a blast! Three of my aunt's four kids were there (Jake couldn't come because his wife was 9 months along)... including Lyndsi who just graduated from college, and they are so fun and gorgeous and hilarious. Ana was thrilled to have her cousin Nicco to play with too... they are thick as thieves.


Somehow, half way through the night, Brynda got us to help her with her Christmas puzzle and pretty soon we had eight adults and two kids trying desperately to finish the thing before 2010. I never knew puzzles could be so contentious!

Finally done!
We had a countdown and Martinelli's and everything else and it was a great ring in to 2010. Jonah and I were extra happy because it is our 10 year engagement anniversary, and we were in the same state as when we got engaged... it is auspicious, I just know it.

Sadly, we had to take my mom to the airport on New Year's day and get back to "real life", but that's the way it goes.

Oh wait! I forgot that on New Year's Day our church had the most surprisingly fun activity... a "Cruise into the New Year" themed party with dancing, movies, games... for the whole family. Elsie and Ana thought it was the best fun they had had all year. Ana keeps asking when we can go to another "dance"... I'm so glad she doesn't know about disco clubs yet. Cam, of course, avoided the dance floor and just stuck to watching the big screen movies in the other room. But, at least he dressed up.
The funniest this was that it actually wasn't a costume party... Ana just told Cam and Elsie that and then they got to the party and were extra confused.

After school started, so did basketball for both Ana and Cam. We are all lucky because Jonah offered to be the coach (I LOVE watching him coach... I think I'm driving him crazy with my "Backseat coaching", but hopefully he'll look past that at my utter delight at what he's doing). He coaches Ana's all-girl team and assistant coaches Cam's coed team. The kids love it so much. I'm not exaggerating... they dream about it every night. They also dribble the basketballs five hours a day in the living room. I never knew they had such an affection for the game.

This photo is just here to show you how small Cam is compared to everyone...In the world. He's a great first-class dribbler, but other than that, he's just a man on the court trying to not get hit in the head. I hope he doesn't get discouraged... its our own fault if he does because we begged the league to let him in even though the youngest teams they have are 1st/2nd grader teams. At least he's having a good time and he sure has a lot of enthusiasm.

Ana on the other hand is the most fierce, clever little player... she's not too strong on the dribbling or shooting yet, but she is a great defensive player. And,her team is just awesome: All the six girls are the exact same height, same goofiness, and same bony arms and legs. It's really made me happy to see that Ana fits in and gets along well with other kids her age. Plus, if Ana has hard exercise for a few hours, she's exuberantly happy for like three days. I don't think she's even tantrum-stomped more than once since the game yesterday. Awessssome.

Okay. Finally. The part you've all been waiting for: chicken update.
Look at these beauties! They are only two months old and look how gorgeous they are already. Wow. The one in front above is a buff-laced polish, and the brown ones behind are golden-laced polish. We have 22 chicks (about 6 different breeds) and the hens should start laying around April.

With every mail-order chick shipment, you get one "mystery" chicken. Ana claimed the mystery chick as her own and named her Swan and I think she might be a blue andalusian, but whatever she turns out to be, I just LOVE that blue color.

Ana is trying to get Swan as tame as possible by always holding, juggling, torturing, chasing and squeezing the chicken. I hope it works.

These are white crested black polish. We had a couple of these guys back in New Zealand and they are the smartest of the flock. Their top hat is also the most bouffant. Eventually, this chicken's hat will be completely white. Great little breed. Always lovely.

And these chickens are turning out to be our favorite. We only have two of these silver-laced polish and we wished we had more. Seriously... this just brings joy to my heart to see this chicken. I am so weird. But, look how AWESOME it is. Wow.

And with that, Happy New Year!