With Great Anticipation

We've decked the halls and enjoyed the view


We've thought about the meaning of this wonderful season


And now we wait with great anticipation...

Hope you have a:

2010 Christmas Card And Letter

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

May Yours Be Merry and Bright!

Season's Greetings!

and...

Holiday Crafts

I already posted about Avery's Holiday Workshop, but since then I've taken pictures of the other crafts Avery made at the workshop as well as his school projects and have decided to post a few of them too. Since we can't possibly keep every school project, I try to take a picture of each one.

Remember the gingerbread cookie Avery made? A few pirates looted it.


I know I already showed the dove in the Holiday Workshop post, but here's a closer look.


Here's the cone I tried to explain. The ribbon was painstakingly threaded through tiny hole punches so that no knots were necessary. The bell was also small enough that it could be threaded on the ribbon and stay put without any knots. The cone was prepared for us ahead of time.


This is made of gold and silver bells threaded on a silver pipe cleaner.


The rest of these are projects they did in school.
This was one of three ornaments they each made and had hanging on their tree in school. It's my favorite of the three.


This was another of the three and I can see that this could be a fun one for kids with endless possibilities.


And this is the third they had hanging on their tree.


This was one that Avery brought home as a gift to me earlier in December.


Here's one more of Avery's projects. I know there's no way to tell in this picture, but the other Mom's at the workshop wanted to compare their hands to Avery's when they saw how big these "antlers" were! Seriously, the kid has big hands.


Here is another of my favorite Christmas projects to come home, but this one is Carson's. That's his palm and two middle fingers.


I love all these holiday crafts! They're so much fun and I love that the kids come home with some really quality ones from this school.

Roofing

Saturday was a particularly insane day with a bridal shower and a photo shoot for me, two back-to-back 6 year old birthday parties (the second was a sleepover! What a brave mom!) for Avery and Travis spent the day fixing his sister Angela's roof which was damaged in the tornado.
When I finished my photo shoot I had to switch cars with Travis so I could go pick up Carson and Emmett from Grandma and I stopped a minute to get the handy-man's picture.

Ward Christmas Party And Santa

Last night was our ward Christmas party. After dinner there was a show and the primary kids did the nativity. After they sang to us. Carson will be in Primary come the New Year, but he followed Avery and got to be a star too. He was a great star. Avery was... present.


Look Mom, I'm a STAR!


Hi!


Finally it was time for Santa to come. Avery managed to be first in line and apparently Santa thought he should hurry through the kids, so he didn't start out with putting him on his lap. So much for the photo-op. Also, Santa was Great Grandma Hunsaker's husband Don. Avery totally knew.


Again, no photo-op, although at least they finally figured out they shouldn't let all the kids crowd up behind whoever's turn it is.


Oh, and Carson knew who it was too. But he got candy, what does he care if it was Don here to help Santa out?


Emmett didn't care about Santa until a while later when we were trying to leave and then he threw a fit wanting to see him. So after some waiting in line, and we're all antsy to go, and then getting bumped up the line (consisting of all the older kids at that point) when they realized we were one little kid's turn short of being able to leave (thank you for noticing us!) Emmett finally got to see Santa. He took one glance at Santa and then had eyes only for the candy. And I got pictures of just one of my kids in Santa's lap. And the dial on my camera had been bumped and I was too hasty and ready to leave and didn't notice so the originals where practically black. Salvaged black pictures don't come out great. So much for any decent Santa pictures this year.


So I enjoyed the rare socializing I got to have at the party, but we were definitely tired of managing kids by the time we got home. Especially poor Travis who spent the night manhandling and/or chasing Emmett so that I could have some socializing time.

Holiday Workshop

Today was Avery's last day of Kindergarten before winter break. His school makes it a special day, calling it a Holiday Workshop, where one special guest is required per child (a parent or someone else special if a parent can't come) and you and your child get to go around together enjoying six different craft tables, caroling, and more food than twice the amount of people there could eat. I signed up for a dessert, but it's a full on meal opportunity there with lots of main dishes and the works. We did do all six crafts, but I only have pictures of three and apparently I'm going to go ahead and post this without bothering to take pictures of the others.
Gingerbread man decorating


Ah, I think that's just about got it...




A Rudolf door hanger


He likes to look at the camera. I did get one with him looking, but the hanger was sideways.


Stuff the dove and a teacher will sew it shut for you and add a hanger. But if you find the pin cushion, you may loose all interest in your new dove.


We also made a holiday potpourri bag, a jingle bell wreath and an upside down cone of card stock pasted with torn sheet music, stuffed with a variety of fresh greens and a candy cane, and hung with ribbon and a jingle bell.

After the Holiday workshop, Avery and I delivered some Christmas cookies to some neighbors and then he was off to have a sleepover at his Aunt Megan's. What a fun-filled day for Avery!

The Only Way To Reach

What do you do when Papa flicks something of yours up on the high window sill at his house?

Make him help you get it.

Tornado!

Today a rare thing happened here in Oregon. A tornado hit Aumsville, the small town just southeast of Salem where our second dental office is! Apparently this is the 99th tornado to hit the state of Oregon since 1950. It was an EF2 at about 11:40am and it traveled about 11 blocks. There were only a few minor injuries but there are 10 displaced families tonight. Of the 50 damaged homes courtesy of the Aumsville tornado, Travis' sister, Angela, was one of the unlucky ones, but nothing too serious to the home itself, nothing structural. At the end of the post is a link to some aerial footage including Angela's house.

I found this shot on a site that said courtesy of kgw.com but I couldn't actually find it on KGW.


Travis arrived fairly early on to check on the Aumsville dental office which isn't open on Tuesday's. The office was fine but he walked around and took some picture with his iPhone.


















I read someone quoted as saying they saw a trampoline fly over a church. I wonder if this was that trampoline?




I drove out with the boys to take some pictures too.








It took a while, but I finally got through the barricades to Angela's house.


Wind patterns in the grass




















Across the creek in her backyard is a mobile home park that took some pretty good damage to the roofs.


Looking across her neighbor's backyard


The field in front of her house was littered with debris.


Her next door neighbor's camper was shoved right through his fence.


Two more shots from amongst the four other houses on her street to get damage:




Another roof in the mobile home park.


By that time it had settled down some and I went a back way to get around to the dental office. From there I was able to get up Main street some which was blocked off.




Nichol's plumbing and the barber shop next door were the ones to really get hit hard. Someone was even getting a haircut when the roof was torn off and cinder blocks started falling on them!






And driving through a tornado debris path left me with a big old roofing nail stuck in my front driver's side wheel. We needed new tires anyway they're so bald, but this has pushed that up because apparently they are so bald that no one will patch the tire according to Travis. I will take the tires over the headaches and nightmares the citizens of Aumsville are going to be dealing with now. Plus, I willingly drove in there. I wonder how many will pick up an added annoyance like that?

There is some great raw aerial footage of the damage at this link:
http://www.kptv.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4458454
The screen it starts on before you press play is actually of Angela's neighbor's house and the guy next to him. In the very upper right hand corner you can see us standing looking through the broken fence. The panning shot of this starts at about 15 seconds and again, you can see Angela's house at the top briefly and us in the yard.