November and December Highlights!

WOW! November and December are busy times of the year at our house. To start off, both Porter and I had our birthdays at the beginning of November. Porter turned 8 and I turned 38. Porter had a friend party this year which went very well and the kids all had a lot of fun. It was a creepy zombie party. Later in the Month, we had the whole week of Thanksgiving off of school so we decided to head to my sister, Melanie's for the whole week. We were able to hear my nephew, Matthew, give his farewell talk in church before he left for his 2 year mission in Las Vegas. It was nice to hang out with them and relax for a week. On our way home from Washington, we went and cut down our Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm by Portland. Sterling's parents flew in that day and met us at the farm. It was fun to have them with us for this adventure. We got a 8 ft tree for our living room and a 5 ft little tree for our family room. One of the blessings of living in Oregon.

Sterling's Parents and my dad along with Sterling's brother Patrick visited with us in December. The main reason they visited was because of Porter's baptism on December 7th. The baptism went well and we are so proud of Porter for making this decision. He is a great young man. It was nice to have family around to share this experience with us.

It snowed a lot (ok a lot for Western Oregon - 4 to 5 inches) on Friday, Dec. 6th. School was canceled that day. We still had our ward Christmas party that night. The days following the snow storm were super chilly - low teens and lower; therefore, the snow didn't melt and the roads were a mess so school was canceled on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the following week. It started to warm up and rain by Thursday afternoon and the snow magically melted away. Sterling's parents joked that they wanted to spend time with the kids but didn't want them to miss school because of it. It was a nice surprise to be home with grandma and grandpa.

Lauren, Porter and Caelyn all had School Christmas concerts. It was a fun way to celebrate the season. Lauren sang a solo for the Liberty Singer's concert. She did an awesome job! Porter did great on his speaking part and Caelyn was as cute as ever. Lauren and I went to the Nutcracker which is always delightful. We had to run to make curtain call but we made it even if we were a bit sweaty. Christmas was great. On Christmas Eve, we had the missionaries over and ate cheese fondue. We gave the kids fluffy blankets and P.J.'s and then we watch Mr. Kueger's Christmas and some other Church movies. On Christmas morning, Lauren kept coming into our room starting at 5:00 and we would tell her to go back to bed. Finally, we all (except Mara) got up and started opening presents. It is amazing how Santa know what our kids want. :) The rest of the day, we just hung out and relaxed in our P.J.'s. Since the kids have been out of school we have been just enjoying being home together (Sterling is taking time off of work) and relaxing. MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY 2014!

Halloween 2013

I swear my kids start thinking about their costumes the day after Halloween for the next Halloween. This year Lauren decided to be Miri from the book "Princess Academy" by Shannon Hale. I follow Shannon Hale on Facebook so I tagged her in a picture of Lauren in her costume. Lauren and I were both thrilled that Shannon Hale commented on the picture! Caelyn decided to be Silly Sally from her favorite book "Silly Sally" by Audry Wood. I was Snow from the T.V. show "Once Upon a Time" and Mara was Little Red Riding Hood to go along with me. Porter though stole the show with his costume. Back in the summer when we shaved his hair off for the hot weather, we made him look like an old man. We joked that he should be an old man for Halloween and shave the top of his head so he looked balded. Well he did and it was a hit! He even used a cane and walked like an old man. It was great. Sterling dressed up like an AARP rep.

Mary and the Baby Jesus

On December 4th, 2 years ago, I gave birth to my beautiful baby daughter, Mara. December is a crazy time of year to give birth to a baby. She was born on Sunday. The following Tuesday Lauren had a school performance and then the rest of the week she was in the Church's play "Savior of the World" not to mention all the other Christmas performances and activities. However, having a baby this time of year was also an eye opening and inspiring event. As I sat with my 5 day old infant in my arms and watched Lauren perform in "Savior of the World", my eyes and heart were opened towards Mary, the mother of Jesus. I can't even begin to imagine giving birth in basically a barn and having to have place my baby in a trough (granted I bet she held him most of the time.) Plus I can't imagine how scared, humbled, overwhelmed, tired, honored, etc. she must have felt to help bring the Son of God into the world. What an amazing but overwhelming responsibility God had given her? Here is a beautiful song about Mary and the Baby Jesus. It was a crazy busy December two years ago, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

The 10th Birthday to Remember!

(Sorry but blogger made this one long paragraph. Oh by the way, there are graphic pictures at the bottom of the blog post.) Once again Scout Camp was scheduled over Lauren's birthday, August 1st. This year our ward did their own camp and rented a scout-owned campground not far from our house. The good news was they had rented it for an extra night (August 1st) that the scouts weren't going to use so we (our family) decided to meet Sterling up at camp and spend the night with him as a family after the scouts went home to celebrate Lauren's birthday. The scouts and other leaders left around 1:00 P.M. and the kids and I were going to be there between 3:00 and 4:00. I told Sterling that he should take a nap but he decided to shoot a Gatorade bottle with arrows instead. He was using a light weight bow (15 lb)and wooden arrows. As he shot one of the arrows, it shattered sending a 3 inch piece of the wood shaft into his left hand. It entered the back of his hand and was protruding out his pointer finger. At this point, he was alone and had no idea when I would be showing up (it was about 3:30). He had a our only cell phone; therefore, he wasn't able to call me to find out where I was. He decided that he better call 911 because it was a serious injury and he didn't want to risk going into shock without help. Meanwhile, the kids and I were driving to the campground and an ambulance passed us. I thought that was strange because it is a very out-of-the-way forest road. For a few seconds, I was concerned it may have something to do with Sterling but then the worry passed. We arrived at the campground and finally found Sterling's truck and camping gear which included smoking embers in the fire pit, but no Sterling. We drove around looking for him. I even checked the bathroom. He was nowhere! Now I started to panic. I looked around for signs of blood and trauma but didn't see anything. (Unfortunately, I didn't see the note he left on the table. He wanted to leave the bloody toilet paper he used for his hand but the EMT's said that that would scare me so he shouldn't leave it. The ironic thing is that would have caught my attention and I would have seen his note.) There have been very few times in my life that I have been terrified. This was one of those times. I tried hard not to let it show and to be calm for my kids. By this time, I figured he was in the ambulance and that everything is probably fine because the ambulance didn't have it's lights or sirens on and was going slowly. Just before getting to the campground, I had passed some people cutting down trees. I decided to go back and see if they could help me and if they had a phone. I went back and they had a phone I could use. I called the cell phone and Sterling answered the phone. He was in the local "small" hospital with an arrow in his hand. PHEW!! We went back to the camping spot and put out the fire then we headed to the hospital. Once we got to the hospital, I was told that he had to go to OHSU in Portland because they wanted a specialist to take care of his hand. At this point, I looked over at Lauren and she was bawling. Not only was it her birthday, but it was such a scary experience to not know where your dad is and then to see him in pain and in the hospital. I needed to figure out who should watch the kids while we went to Portland. Fortunately, we have friends who live close to that hospital and they were able to take the kids for us. I told them to take Lauren wherever she wanted to go for her birthday dinner. They ended up at Chuck E. Cheese and had a great time. Sterling and I headed to OHSU. Fortunately, he was a "hospital transfer" so we got right into the ER, but still had to wait at various times during the evening. Every medical person we saw would look at his hand and we could tell they thought it was “cool” but didn't want to say anything so we gave them permission to say that it was cool. After that they all said it was so cool. We finally saw a hand surgeon. She tried to pulled it out of his finger but it didn't work. Finally, Sterling mentioned he could feel it in his palm so she decided to cut a small incision in his palm after she deadened his hand. The splinter still wouldn't move. At this point, she figured we would need to go to the OR. Ugh!!! $$$$$$ All we were thinking about was the cost of that! Got to love high deductible insurance! Fortunately, her supervisor said she could just remove it in the ER since Sterling had movement and feeling in his finger before they deadened it. So she cut a larger incision in his palm and finger and was able to wiggle the splinter out of his finger. She cleaned it really well. I did fine watching the whole process until the cleaning part. She put saline in a syringe and squirted it in the hole on the back of his hand and it squirted out the incision in his hand. Ugh! That just isn't right! She put stitches in his hand and finger. Actually, she didn't put very many stitches because that helps with the drainage. His hand was wrapped well and we were on our way at 1:00 A.M. We went back to our friends' house and crashed on their couch. A month later, his hand is healing nicely with a couple of cool scars. We joke with Lauren that she won't forget her 10th Birthday! On a side note, I'm so happy to be Lauren's mom. She is a fabulous girl with such a bright future ahead of her! Happy 10th Birthday, Lauren! WARNING somewhat graphic pictures!

WorldMark

Ten years ago in March, Sterling and I purchased a timeshare with WorldMark. It took the sales person and Sterling several hours to convince me to buy into this plan. I wasn't so sure it was the best way to spend our money. At least we didn't go into debt for it (Sterling and I would NEVER have done that!!!) Over the years, I have questioned this decision, but then we go on a fabulous vacation and I'm grateful for it. We could probably vacation for cheaper (maybe - we do save a lot of money by using the condo's kitchen, having multiple rooms, etc., etc.); however, the question is would we have gone on those trips if we didn't have a timeshare that we needed to use? I'm glad we have been "forced" to take vacations. We have enjoyed all the placed we have stayed . . . Wolf Creek (our favorite), Discovery Bay, Newport, Seaside, Running Y (just went there in November and had a 3 bedroom condo with a full sized hot tub on the deck), Anaheim (we stayed in the more expensive one which was ton of points. . . not sure if we will do that again), Estes Park, Orlando, and ST. George. We will never know if it was worth the money, but we will never forget the memories we have made along the way. Here are some pictures from our last trip to the Running Y:

Growing Up . . . Too Fast!

Two weeks ago Lauren started Fourth Grade (yes I said 4th grade!!!) and Porter started First Grade. They love their teachers. Lauren has a lot more homework this year on top of practicing piano, which makes for busy after school hours. Porter has Mrs. Perry again this year and has really taken off with his reading. He is now reading chapter books.

Caelyn has had several "playdates" with friends to help with not having Lauren and Porter home. She amazes me everyday with how much she is growing and learning. Mara is doing great and growing like a weed. She is cruising all over the furniture. Whenever, someone says hi to her she waves at them. She is saying MaMaMa.... We just got a new piano, which we love. Thank you Craiglist! A great deal! I think Mara is the most excited to have the piano. She LOVES to play it.

You know you are the youngest of 4 . . .

You know you are the youngest of 4 children when: 1. You can sleep through just about everything. 2. You don't cry once when you have 20+ cups of water dumped on your head while you are taking a bath. 3. Your mom has to schedule your first time eating cereal around your sibling schedule so they can be there to help. 4. Your mom can never find a pacifier because your siblings love to hold them and walk off with them. (I'm still trying to figure out why!) 5. At least one of your naps during the day is in the carseat. 6. You get pizza for lunch at only 5 months old. (Thanks Caelyn!) . . . and the list goes on and on.