Christmas memories

Christmas this year was fairly low-key at our house. No visitors. Just us. An an agenda to rip open all the presents we could and eat all the cookies and candy in the kitchen!

After what seemed like hours and hours of getting chores done (can you hear the whiny pre-teen?), throwing the turkey in the oven, attending a quick church service and getting some breakfast, the kids finally got to attack their presents. Rikard wanted to take a few minutes and organize all the gifts into piles for each receiver so it was quicker handing them out later. It was quite comical to watch him compare the sizes and sounds all the boxes made.

Keeli, in true 7-year-old fashion, didn't need much more than the first gift she opened. She has been "arting" (as she calls what she does with an art set) up a storm ever since. We didn't see or hear much from Tatum all day as she found an e-reader under the tree and is now absorbed in an endless supply of books.

Before the morning was over, the kids pitched in and cleaned up the mess. I don't decorate much and the trees will remain up during Rick and the kids' break from school.

Christmas Cookies

The kids were invited last weekend to a cookie decorating party at Legacy Farms (the Christmas tree farm that neighbors our property). They grabbed their aprons and raced over!

 More than 300 shaped sugar cookies were waiting for the army of kids that arrived on their doorstep. Rikard and Tatum were among the "older" kids who took part, that's why he looks so tall next to the others. If you look closely, each of Rikard's cookies is covered with jelly beans. Sprinkles just weren't enough for him.

Keeli was very methodical. She chose three of each shape, decorated the trees green, the Santas red, the chickens yellow, the stars white, etc. And, showing her frugal side, she made sure she didn't open a full bottle of sprinkles until checking to see if there was a partially used one already on the table somewhere.

There were also craft projects for the kids to create ornaments, picture frames and other holiday decorations. It is amazing how some paper, foam sheets, cut outs, scissors and glue can transform a room filled with crazy kids into a room filled with quiet, busy kids.

In all, 20 kids participated and took home containers filled to the brim with beautiful cookies they took pride in creating.

When we were all done, the all the kids posed outside with Annabelle (the vintage Chevy) and Miss Lisa (in the red apron). Tatum is standing next to Lisa (yes, in shorts), Keeli is in the center front on the truck bed in the purple jacket and Rikard is in the top row on the truck bed straight above Tatum in a black/white sweatshirt.

Santa Claus

Santa paid a visit to Greenbluff so the kids lined up to tell him their wants/needs/desires and get their photo taken. We had a great time at the Greenbluff Grange's Christmas party! They even got to bring home to giant jingle bell necklaces - how lucky was that?!

Back to School

Today, everyone returned to school for the 2011-2012 year. It was Tatum's first day of middle school - such a "precious" time. She was completely unhappy that I was snapping pictures as she is too old for this. Can you tell?

 Next, it was a race to the bus. You can just see Rikard reaching the bus door and Keeli scrambling to catch up. Not only was it Keeli's first day of 1st grade, but it was her 7th birthday! Happy Birthday to Keeli! The shopping bag is filled with her favorite snacks, cheese and Ritz crackers for everyone.

Rick is teaching 8th grade science this year, specifically physics and earth science. He had to move his classroom down the hall and around the corner at the end of last school year, but on the up-side he now has a window to the outside. A little sunshine never hurt anyone's perspective.

Happy 2011!

We started our New Year's Eve celebration off at the top of the world - or as close as we could get staying near home. We went sledding near the top of Mt. Spokane and had a great time. It was very, very cold, but there was enough sunshine to keep everyone's spirits up and smiles wide.

This was an enormous hill with a healthy drop at the top to get our speed up and a long run at the bottom to keep the thrill going! The entire run was 200+ yards long. Yes, our crazy dog, Stubby, chased every sled down the hill at breakneck speed and happily romped up the hill with the kids. The fun really started once the kids realized Stubby would chase an empty sled down the hill.

This is the fabulous view afforded us from near the peak of Mt. Spokane. This is looking southwest at about 3:30 p.m.

The temperatures dropped to 2-degrees F by dinner time. We stayed home, near the fireplace with a big simmering pot of chili, some cornbread and sparkling apple cider to ring in 2011. Watch out Jan. 1, 2011 - we're headed to a New Year's Day auction at State Line.

Halloween Fun

We had a houseful of company for the weekend, so everything seemed rushed, but we tried to pack all the holiday fun in we could.

Rikard has been dreaming, planning and designing his costume for months. Here he is in all his zombie mummy glory! It was impossible to get him to hold still so every photo has a different part of him in focus. UGH! Boys!

 The girls were a bit easier. Keeli wanted to be a stick of pink cotton candy. She looks really good in person when her tulle is fluffed and pulled away from her body. Tatum is the Queen of Hearts, complete with pre-teen cranky attitude.

 Saturday evening we took Papa Charlie and Uncle Joe to a local Halloween festival, complete with haunted house and games. Tatum spent most of her tickets at this crazy bowling game. Apparently this game had the best candy prizes.

 At the end of the evening the kids talked Papa Charlie into the cake walk. There were three cakes left and when the first number was drawn it was the person next to Rikard. The second number drawn was someone else. Rick and I were excited that we didn't have to take a cake home. Then, Papa Charlie hit his lucky streak and won a candy corn cake!

Apple Pie

Our wonderful children suprised us recently with their first ever team-effort apple pie. It definitely had the appearance of being constructed by enthusiastic youngesters in the kitchen. 

After dinner, it was served up with big scoops of vanilla ice cream. It was *delicious.* When we cut it open we found a treasure trove of stories to share for years and years and years. The top crust was nearly 3/4" thick where the larger stars were located, and while golden brown on top it was barely cooked in the middle. Most of the apple slices still had their peel in tact. They forgot to add sugar.

Despite all these crazy things, it was a wonderful dessert shared with our children.

Holiday musicals

The kids had some great muscial performances to share with us this year. We had to attend three evening concerts before Christmas. The first was Tatum's orchestra concert, followed by two evenings of their individual classes performing Christmas songs.

Tatum's choral concert was fairly traditional. Her class sang Beboppin' Santa Claus, Follow the Star and Winter Magic.

Rikard was a total ham in the front row (green shirt). He can't hold still so thankfully there was some dancing. During the sing-along, he started yawning as soon as the lights dimmed so the audience could follow the lyrics on the overhead. Do you wanna rock?

Before all the cute stuff began this was the scene from seats:

I just don't get some parents. No "excuse me." No attempt to kneel down. This mother wasn't the only one! Only a few of them displayed manners or any kind. It was a parade of parents with cameras and most of them were directing their children to stop singing and hold still for the photos or to wave or..... It completely disrupted the concert for a lot of other parents - not to mention those 3rd graders who already have a naturally short attention span. Thankfully it only took up the first song or two and then the parents settled down.

Mobius fun

The kids' favorite weekend stop of late is the local children's museum, Mobius. They spend hours running around, experiencing all the interactive displays, painting, getting wet up to their armpits, playing in the sand/mud. Who would guess they were learning something?

The new displays are all sports related. Last week Tatum had tryouts for little league fast-pitch softball, so the "how fast is your pitch" display really caught her attention.

Most of her throws were over 30 mph. Rikard tried really hard, but couldn't get above 28 mph. Dad threw this fastball, the kids were amazed. There wasn't much room for an adult to throw the ball, Rick thinks he could have done a little better.

This machine allowed you to control the direction of the tennis racquet and then fire a tennis ball at it. There are old-fashioned silver desk bells on the plexiglass in front of their faces. The goals was to hit one of these. Rikard did pretty well.

This activity was supposed to teach you all about angles. The marks on the floor help you bounce the ball at certain angles to try and hit the target. Keeli didn't like the bouncing part, but liked the ball to go in the taget and down the return chute.

There are two standard displays the kids enjoy. This one teaches them about currents, water flow, waves and dams. The girls are at the top end of this "river" and use the blue and yellow cards to redirect the current. The kids have boats and other floating items to test their dams and the currents. They would stay at this station all day. That water is cold!
After our museum experience Rick let us ride the escalators all the way to the top of the mall for an ice cream treat at Ben and Jerry's.

Some winter memories

The days are suddenly getting longer and the snow is melting - it is melting somewhere just not in our yard. We have a huge snow/ice berm in our front yard that is still higher than the top of my car and extends the entire length of the yard. It is frozen solid and will be with us a while.

But, we had some great times with that snow! Keeli had her first snowball fight this year. She would pick up tiny little bits of snow...and throw them at her unsuspecting dad. She would laugh and he would play along like the snowball knocked him over.The kids built a really nice snowman. Tatum was reading The Tale of Desperaux and the snowman was built to look like him, big ears, pointy nose, whiskers and of course a sword. Some neighborhood hoodlums knocked him over.

So, the following weekend the built another. Keeli and Rikard rolled a big ball of snow until it was too large for them to move any farther.Then, they rolled another. Tatum was in charge of smoothing the sides and making sure the middle one was smaller than the bottom one (Rikard was all about the bigger the better, must be a boy thing). Rick helped them get creative with the second snowman. He couldn't just be a plain old snowman, he needed some character.

So, this guy was a *dude.* He had spiked hair and whiskers. This wasn't your average, boring, everyday snowman.

He lasted a couple of weeks until the kids discovered the snow pile from the roof made a great short speed sledding course and the snowman was in the way. Oh, more snowy memories...

Fore! and other fun

We hit the road over the weekend for our annual family trek. This year's destination: Yellowstone National Park.

Our first stop on the road trip was a quick visit with Auntie Kelly in C'dA to drop off a baby crib and give a nice big birthday hug to the ol' girl. Next stop was lunch at the $50,000 Silver Dollar Bar. We didn't let the kids go into the bar, but they came out of the place acting crazy anyway. Our destination for the first night was Anaconda, Mont. You may be asking yourself, what the heck is in Anaconda, Mont.? It is an old copper mining town, but had enough activities to keep us all entertained for the day.

Our primary reason for staying the night was to let Rick golf at Old Works, a Jack Nicklaus signature course. They utilized the former copper smeltering site and tons of slag for the construction of the course, they even incorporated old equipment into the site.While Rick was golfing the kids and I explored Anaconda. We found this great display of the Anaconda Copper Mine rail cars downtown.
We found this huge pot from the smelter at the Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park. The 585' 1.5" stack is on the hillside behind the pot, but it's just a big chimney, not very photogenic.

After the sightseeing, we went to the skate park where the locals took it upon themselves to teach Rikard the basics of boarding. He got a skateboard for his birthday two weeks ago and has yet to brave letting it move while he is standing on it.

A couple streets over we found a little park that features a 40-foot slide. The first 10-feet is nearly a straight drop. The kids had a ball! After watching the big kids for a couple of trips down and up, Keeli finally got brave enough to go down. She looked so tiny on that slide and the first time down you could tell she was holding her breath. After that there was no stopping her.

On to Yellowstone.

It's all downhill

Keeli was a daredevil on the sledding hill. She went down the hill with mom about a dozen times and was constantly yelling, "FASTER! FASTER!" We finally let her go down the bottom half of the hill alone on her sled at the end of the day.

Tatum and Rikard braved all the jumps, dips and ruts in the sledding hill and had a great time. Tatum was the first to try the jump the bigger kids made from compacted snow.
Not to be outdone by his sister, Rikard went straight for the jump.

Apparently it was a good ride!

Speed wasn't always their friend. Both of the kids had their share of tumbles off their sleds or collisions with other sledders.
The trick is getting right back up and going for it again.
The fun wasn't only for the kids. We had our fair share of speedy trips down the hill.

Christmas in review

Christmas Eve was an eventful time at our house. Santa Claus knocked on the door just as we were preparing to have sugar plum dreams... He left candy canes with the kids and told them he would be back later that night. We had to get to bed quickly as Tatum was monitoring the NORAD Santa Tracker all night and had only about 30 minutes before Santa came to our general location.

We barely got the tree decorated by Christmas Eve, and then we had to wrap a few gifts.
We spent the weekend at my parents and had a mini-Christmas there. Tatum, Rikard, Keeli and their cousin Bailey had a great time together. The boys got Nerf guns and were blasting things all around Nana and Papa's house.
At home, the best gift by far was the Speed Stacks. Tatum and Rikard have spent hours upon hours playing with these. These are a lot more educational and developmental than I had thought.