Picture Organization

I've started organizing pictures. This may sound mundane and not that impressive but if you really understand everything that this entails you may be impressed. For awhile now we've just been loading pictures onto our computer with no rhyme or reason and thus had a picture folder that was filled with random pictures...this is not conducive to scrapbooking or "shutterfly"ing. So the other night I sat down and started organizing. So far I have most all the pictures stuck in appropriate "year" folders. Pictures from Erik's dad were nice because they all had the correct date on them, many others did not and I had to guess by the picture and relative age of the child in it (most of our pictures are of kiddos). There was actually one or two pictures that I zoomed in on to check out my luckily visible left hand to see if it was before or after Erik and I were married.
My goal is to be able to sit down and "scrapbook" a few pages every once in awhile and make a book on shutterfly for every year since 2003. We'll see how this goes, I'm hoping that this will eventually be easier than actually scrapbooking with stickers and paper. Right now I'm not so sure, and I still have to check my craft closet for loose pictures lurking in dark corners that have not been loaded on our computer yet.

It's a long one!

Merry Christmas to all! I must say that this Christmas I've not felt as jolly as usual. I think it might be the pregnancy hormones or nothing going the way I want it to but my mood and circumstances have improved in the last few days, making it a very Merry Christmas indeed.
I'm finally really thankful that I didn't fly to my sister's graduation, I wouldn't have made it home until Christmas day! Getting stuck in LA, even with my dad and mom and sisters didn't sound like much fun. Christmas Eve we set out cookies for Santa. The kiddos helped make them and were very excited to go to bed on Christmas Eve night. Erik gave me my Christmas gift after the kids went to bed and even installed it, I got a chandelier for our bedroom. Only after he installed it did we discover that we only had two light bulbs to put in it (that is without stealing from other light fixtures in the house) but it looks really cool. I thought that he was planning on getting this for me but I had no idea when he was going to get it because I've been at Home Depot with him everytime we've been up there, apparently one time when I took Hannah to the bathroom he rushed through, bought it and hid it in the suburban all before we got back!
Ivan was very excited to get a big boy bike for Christmas along with a "mater" helmet. And Clayton was excited to get two little board books and his little wooden chair we made him and Hannah was thrilled to get a violin. It will be hard to only allow her to play it when we can help her, but she loves it!
My parents' flight to Seattle from LA was cancelled on Monday and they couldn't get a flight till Christmas so I tried to convince them that they could just drive up to our house and spend Christmas with us but they prefered to wait and not make the long drive. Bummer, someday maybe I'll get to spend Christmas morning with my family again.
Erik's parents lost power at their house on Monday morning and they didn't want to leave and come to the warmth of our house either. Then they weren't sure that they wanted us to come and share in the cold on Christmas day either, but we decided that we were coming anyway and we got here about 3:30pm and the power came on at 6pm. We were very glad for that and decided to stay all weekend instead of just the night. I was starting to think that we were "abandoned" by family at Christmas because no one wanted to spend it with us! It just doesn't feel like Christmas without a bunch of family around.
I think this Christmas with our kiddos has turned out to be the best yet because the kid's actually looked forward to it with anticipation and giving them gifts that they wanted and were excited about was really fun. Makes me think of that verse in the New Testement that says something about if you know how to give good gifts to your children how much more does God know how (and want!) to give gifts to you! I know that's not word for word but I don't have a Bible near me at this moment.
Merry, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, almost!

I have so much to blog about. Erik had a birthday, Ivan had a birthday, we've had snow, Erik didn't work all last week so projects are getting done at our house and Hannah and Ivan participated in the children's Christmas program today at church. So just to tide you over until I feel up to catching up on everything I'm posting my favorite picture of today. We got a picture of the kiddos this morning before church in their fancy clothes for Christmas. Ivan looks so much older with his hair spiked, he looks like a little rock star and the pose is priceless. Hannah's dress is the Christmas dress I made her this year, next year I'm going to try taffeta, maybe I can get the "poof" without the netting. Clayton is wearing the adorable sweater that Rolana knitted.

Disappointment

So I've pretty much decided that I'm not attending my sister's college graduation in Southern California. I am very disappointed. The weather being what it is and is suppose to be I just don't think I can handle the stress of not knowing whether I can make it to the airport or not. Then my sisters and I were suppose to drive back up but my mom didn't want to handle the stress of us driving in questionable weather so my parents decided to fly us all home, the only problem here being that I have no way home from the airport. I'm suppose to fly out Thursday morning and then my return flight would bring me back on Saturday night, that's a lot of flying in just a few short days and though it may seem like I have more energy than normal for a pregnant lady, I just don't think I could deal with this. I still have a day or two to maybe change my mind, I'm having a hard time dealing with the disappointment (after all, I've been looking forward to this for a year!) but as of now I'm staying home.

The Awkward Hug

Ever have one of these? You go to hug a friend/acquaintance, you are going for the side hug with one hand in the pocket of your coat when you realize they've got their other arm extended also, so you struggle to free your hand from said pocket and raise it above their oncoming arm so that you are not encircling them below both arms by this time you are too close to notice the tilt of their head which results in a slightly uncomfortable moment in which you stall with your foreheads almost meeting and if you're lucky, you choose opposite ways to continue your head tilt and the hug is accomplished. If it is a truly awkward hug though, you both end up going the same way and one of you usually ends up turning their head so that your cheeks are touching and you are both looking the same way, which makes the hug look awkward to anyone who might be watching. As you finally disentangle yourselves you are both mentally noting to be prepared the next time you meet to go for just the side hug, unless you notice they've got two arms extended.

I'm Exhausted

Erik didn't go to work today either, they found mold in the house they are remodeling so his boss is figuring out if it would be more cost effective to just bulldoze the entire house or try and remodel all the mold out and until this is figured out the job is at a stand still but Erik did work hard today, we all did (after we played at MOB). Erik re-fenced the backyard last night and today he built two gates so now my backyard is enclosed. I took down the remainder of the chicken fence and stacked fire-wood. I also found the perfect place for next year's garden. Our backyard looks huge now and the entire thing isn't even fenced, we still have about 25-30 feet of backyard past the back of the fence. I miss looking out and seeing my stupid chickens running around but I really like the space more. Again I have no pictures, but maybe soon.

It has come to pass.

We no longer have chickens, well we have them but they are in the freezer awaiting their time to be eaten. Erik butchered them tonight. Hannah and Ivan once again thought it was fascinating to watch and also that Erik found the starting of an egg inside one of them when he was cleaning them out. The backyard is on it's way to being fenced and I look forward to the day that I can send the kids and the dog into the backyard to play and not have to worry too much that they have gone wandering down the road.
In other dog news Quincy is doing well, acting a little more puppy-ish today and a little more sure of us though he does bark and whine through the night. Hopefully he'll be a smart dog and realize soon that it doesn't get him anywhere. He likes to hide under my chair instead of in his kennel and is sleeping there right now. He played pretty hard with the kids in the backyard during the chicken butchering.

Pictures

You get pictures and multiple blogs tonight because I finally uploaded pictures from my camera. I did get a picture of our stockings hanging from the framing right before we moved them to put the fireplace in, the stockings are now hanging from the bookcase. The fireplace did come on Friday and is partly installed. It is only partly installed because though the fireplace came, all of the parts did not. Erik did though cut the hole in the roof for the chimney which at this moment has plastic over it to keep the rain out. We are still hoping and praying to have a roaring fire by Christmas.

Our Newest Addition

Well, we did it. We have joined the community of dog owners. Today we drove to Astoria to pick out and pick up our newest addition. His name is Quincy (Hannah named him and we have no idea where the name came from). He's a blue heeler/lab mix and he's about 10 weeks old and right now he's sleeping peacefully in his kennel in the laundry room. Hannah is upset in the picture because she wanted Quincy to stand by her.

Stockings were hung by the chimney?

Our fireplace comes in today! Or rather it's suppose to. Erik and Hannah are going to go pick it up when he gets off work tonight, then we have to actually install it. Hopefully we'll have a fire by Christmas but Erik told me not to get my hopes up for a mantle by then. Right now our stockings are hanging from the framing. I was going to take a picture because it does look quite comical but once I finally found the camera it wouldn't turn on because of dead batteries. Too bad for you.