Christmas Eve

My kids are fascinated with this German Nativity and beg me all month to light the candles on it so they could watch it spin. Today, I lit it up! The kids are so mystified by it! I love the look in their eyes as they light up at the little beauties of Christmas.

We spent the day with some friends roasting hot dogs in the snow. Tonight we will go to a musical fireside as well as the regular Christmas Eve festivities. My favorite day of the year!

Winter Wonderland

Yes, the Mid-Atlantic snow storm hit us yesterday and today! It was amazing how fast the storm came and started to pile up. It took me 40 minutes to pick up Bryce from school less than a mile away yesterday after the storm had only been going on 20 minutes! It was so beautiful to watch the snow fall. The kids were dying to get out there and play in it, but we were trying to convince them that playing in a snow storm would be miserable. We finally did let Caleb go out just at dusk because he was dying to shovel the side walk.
Here he is with the shovel BEFORE he left it outside and allowed a foot of snow to hide it very securely on the ground! (I miraculously dug it out this afternoon!)
We found sitting around the house playing and singing Christmas songs and eating treats and hot cocoa was better than being out in the storm.
Today we played in it like CrAzY! Pictures to come . . .

"Ummm, Mommy?"

I was in the midst of making some good-news phone calls last night when Lucy came running upstairs. "Umm, Mommy? James is REALLY hurt. Me and Caleb and James were fighting and Caleb jumped on Jamsies' back and now he's really crying. And I didn't even do anything!"

I admit I did not rush to the scene immediately, as this is a typical occurrence in our home (wrestling, crying, etc.). When the crying didn't cease, I decided to check it out. James was lying on his back grabbing his shoulder screaming out in pain. "Everyone to their rooms - early to bed tonight!" I ever so gently commanded. After talking to Lucy and Caleb individually to get what REALLY happened, James had already cried himself to sleep. I thought he would get over it, but when he woke up screaming in pain again in his shoulder at 9pm, I decided I better whip out the ol' sports medicine evaluation of his shoulder (which pretty much I've forgotten everything - so I was it was down to mother's intuition) and decided there was a pretty good chance he had broken his collar bone.

Luckily, Bryce was home by then, so I was able to take James to the ER. We were only there an hour and a half and it was determined from the X-Ray that he did indeed break his clavicle.

James was very brave through it all and he even got to see the picture thy took of his bones! And he got to sit up in the hospital bed watching Jay Leno (until I figured out how to change the channel)! They sent him home in a sling and doctors orders of "no rough play" for 2 weeks (easier said than done).

Christmas Newsletter

Don't forget to check out our updated Christmas Letter blog!

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful few days in Pennsylvania with the Parkinsons for Thanksgiving. Caleb was home "sick" from school today, and when he got bored, I told him to write about his Thanksgiving trip on the computer. Four hours later, he was done! You'd think that he'd practically have a thesis done in that time, but he rarely types on the computer and I think he typed most of it with one finger! Anyway, I thought it was a great summary of our little vacation, so here it is . . .

Caleb’s vacation
By Caleb Jorgensen

One grate day I was going on vacation to my friends in Pennsylvania. The oldest was Ashley. The second oldest was Melissa then Rachel and the littlest was Sara. [Rachel is about Lucy’s age.] We were just about to leave our house. But we were late. My mom wanted too be on our way. So we packed up the very last thing and zoomed off to our friends house. We kept asking when we were going to get there. Mom thought it was inoing (annoying). She told me to put a movie on. Lucy picked "The parent trap." [We always watch that movie.] But we only got to watch half of it because we finely got there. Right when I got inside the house it turned quiet to relly loud. I new that some things had been moved around. My friends showed me ware every thing was. I said “It looks good in here.” They showed me ware there new bedrooms were. [They were all down stare’s.] Then me and Melissa played a computer game. It is when you have this type of car and you can’t touch the monster’s. Me and Ashley could not pass level 30. I passed level 27 but Ashley and Melissa could not. [The only people that were older then me were Ashley and Melissa.] Then it was time to go to bed. The next day was the most best day because it was Thanksgiving. So we all got up from bed. Today we only watched a little T.V. then we went up stairs and played with Webkin’s. My favorite was bowling. I said “This is fun.” For breakfast I ate Captain crunch. After that I played PlayStation 2 wile the adults were playing a card game. At the end of the card game me and my dad played Happy feet on PlayStation 2. Then it was time for dinner. There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus, bacon, cranberry sauce, corn, pumpkin pie, turtle pie, banana pie, apple pie, blueberry pie, and I think that was it. I tried to eat everything but I could not. It was so good. My favorite was the turkey. Then it was time for us to go home. Before we left my mom took a picture of us. Then we said good bye. When we got home the Raymonds just got here.


THE END


girls cooking (well, Heidi cooking)

men doing dishes

computer was a hit

waiting for dinner


everyone squished on the couch before saying goodbye

Lucy's Gymnastics

Lucy LoVeS gymnastics! She is actually really good at it too! I finally was able to catch a few shots of her last week. She is a monkey and has tons of energy, so this is a perfect way for her to put some of that to good use. Her coaches told us that she is ready to move up to the next level with the older age group! I'm so proud of her!

James' 4th Bday

James turned 4 last Saturday! He has been talking about his birthday for months now! I'm so glad it finally came! James wanted to have a dinosaur party - so the week before the big day we made dinosaur invitations together and delivered them to a few friends.

When the day arrived I told James that he was the "King for the Day" which meant that he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to (including his Saturday job)! Lucy and Caleb even carried him around the house in a chariot for a while!

For the party, we played "Find the Dinosaur Egg" with paint-splattered, over-sized egg gumballs. Then whacked at a Transformers pinata (no dino pinatas for us) until all the kids had too much candy in their party bags! Then back inside for dinosaur cake and a rousing game of "Pin the Spike on the Dinosaur." It was great fun.





James felt special all day. He was just smiling and so happy to be in charge and to get to pick everything. Wish he knew he was that special to us everyday!

Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween! We had a great Ward Trunk-or-Treat on Wednesday and two class Halloween parties on Friday. Then we did the Downtown Blacksburg trick-or-treating Saturday afternoon as a warm-up for the evening neighborhood Trick-or-treat. Bryce joined us for that one and we went around with the new Parkinsons. The kids had so much fun.






Annabelle was so excited with the concept of taking whatever candy she wanted out of open offering bowls. She was a little confused, however, and tried taking candy out of any unsuspecting bag of candy. She knew what she was doing, I'm sure!

Our Halloween weather was perfect (65 degrees) and we got a lot of treating done in daylight because of the late clock-change. We even had time to watch Halloween movie together including popcorn and all (we were really needing something salty with all that candy we were eating)! It was especially nice to be with the WHOLE family! I love Halloween!

Autumn Pictures

We had such a fun day together today! Bryce has been gone a ton lately, but today for most of the day he was home with us! The kids had a primary program practice this morning, and Caleb had a soccer game. After that we took a pretty drive in our own backyard to a little family-owned pumpkin patch. Now, in years past we usually go to this amazing farm where they grow tons and tons of pumpkins all around you and its just amazing - but we tried something different this year and it really didn't compare. However, the views were breathtaking! The leaves are the perfect shades of reds, oranges, yellows, with a hint of green still hanging on. We took a hayride and took pictures with the pumpkins (that were picked somewhere and placed by hand in the "pumpkin patch") and had fun holding and petting some farm animals. Then we found a gorgeous driveway with yellow trees overhanging all the way down. We played in leaves and found caterpillars and mooed at some cows. It was so fun! Then we went to a friend's garden and picked out way cooler pumpkins for free! We came home and ate yummy pumpkin pie and just enjoyed being lazy together before Bryce went in to school. The kids just keep saying, "what a good day it was today!" and I would have to agree!

Butter, Snakes, Cheese, Ants, and Ghost Cookies

Despite the current stress that Bryce (and I) have undertaken the last couple of weeks as, we have still managed to recognize some happy goodness that has come of late!

James and I have been having a good time exploring a 3-year-old world while the other kids are at school. Last week, James and I were talking about COWS and we talked about what products come from cows, and it came up that butter comes from cows. We watched a video of a guy making butter in a glass jar and decided to try it out ourselves! It was really fun!
It tasted really really fresh and creamy and, well, buttery. We sampled it on some bread. Annabelle even liked it!



I think we've seen one snake by our house in the last 5 years that we've lived here. Our friends that just moved in were complaining about finding like 3 in the first month that they moved in! I guess we were making too much fun of them, because last week we found this snake right by our front steps! Bryce grabbed it with some tongs and put it in a jar so the kids could all see it after school. It was pretty creepy!




James loves cheese! I got him some cheese for lunch. He couldn't get it into his mouth fast enough! I looked over to see him bending down at table level shoveling the shredded-goodness into his salivating mouth! It didn't occur to him that he might be doing something "unmannerly." Good thing we weren't having company!



Caleb found an ant farm at a yard sale. I think it was free. First clue. It sat in his room for weeks and finally the day arrived that Mom or Mad were able to help him put it together. As it turns out, Mom went shopping, so Dad got to be the helper! To collect ants, they used cheese-its and peanut butter as bait. Within minutes, ants were chowing away at the salty snack. I have no idea how they got the ants in the ant farm because they were working on that task as I was heading out. Actually, I'm not even sure that the ants IN the farm ever really took place because when I got home all i could see were about 7 ants crawling around the OUTSIDE of the ant farm. On my kitchen counter. Maybe they'll try again . . .





On Sunday, we attempted to make a ghostly treat. Here is what they were supposed to look like:


Here is what ours looked like:




Here is the fun we had making them:

U2 Concert!

Bryce took me to a U2 concert last night to celebrate my birthday. We bought tickets from someone on Craigslist the day before - they were WAY up in the nosebleeds, but we were just excited to go! Then, last minute, a friend of Bryce's asked if we were interested in switching him tickets. They had tickets right down on the floor and didn't want to stand the whole time. Well, it was a no-brainer for us! We were right down close and it was so cool to see the band so close! Bono is such a performer and the 360 degree stage was AmAzIng! I've never seen anything like it.

This video is taken from Bryce's camera phone, so its not the greatest, but it shows a little of the craziness we enjoyed!