And Finally...(at least as far as Christmas is concerned)

Here is our Christmas picture this year...we are sending them out in Christmas Cards soon...never quite get it done before Christmas, so really they are probably more like Holiday Cards, but oh well...

Christmas Day (And The Day After)

After we opened presents on Christmas Day, we went to Blaine's sisters house. We played games (including our current favorite Apples to Apples,) ate, opened more presents and then went and saw Narnia...great movie.

On Monday we went up to the snow for a few hours. The kids attempted to build a fort and had a few snowball fights. Lucy played her heart out and nearly froze to death. I had to spend about 40 minutes getting her warmed back up, poor puppy.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a blast, as usual. We went to a fabulous dinner at my Aunt Karen and Uncle Steve's house. After dinner we had a talent show...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

My Uncle Steve flipping more than 20 coins off of his elbow into his hand.

Emily and Linda, members of the "Happy Hand's Club" performing "Some Say Love" (If you're not a Napoleon Dynomite fan, this may be over your head :)




An interview with a muntant girl, starring Rachael, Hannah and Blaine's arms.




Hamster magic tricks with Shannon and Rachael.



Baby Megan trying to gain the courage to roll over.






And finally, the musical talent of the Curb Family and the Turner Girls.

What a show...can't wait to see what happens next year

Christmas Preparations

Christmas is so much fun...Right? It's just the week leading up to it that you have to wonder about! For a number of reasons, I ended up having to do most of my shopping the week of Christmas. This is in and of itself an adventure, but add to it two snow days resulting in a two hour late start and no morning kindergarten and AHHHHHH! I ended up trading babysitting with my neighbors - which was a life saver! Don't know that Christmas would have happened without them.



So Monday and Tuesday I shopped. Tuesday night my cousin came and hung out until two in the morning - which was a blast, though, probably not the smartest thing I've ever done. Wednesday I returned the favor of babysitting to my neighbors and watched 10 kids, then went to a pizza party for Joel's friend in Portland - which was a TWO HOUR DRIVE into town thanks to rush hour and Christmas traffic! Thursday and Friday, we baked cookies, tried to clean the house and then gave the kids their big gifts (we gave the girls computers and Joel a Gameboy and we wanted them to be able to use them before we left for various relatives houses.)

Saturday, we wrapped presents, handed out goodies to the neighbors and started Christmas festivities with a messy house :)

Shew...glad that's over. It took a lot of caffeine to keep me going through Christmas Day...I think I will try to space things out a bit more next year.

Done With Finals!

We discovered that Lucy sleeps just fine...as long as she can see someone in the room. We put her crate in our room last night and finally got a full nights sleep!
She is a bit timid still. Poor thing got frightened yesterday, because a dog the size of a guinea pig tried to attack her...pretty funny really.

Max is afraid of Lucy. He won't come down stairs now. He sits on the armoir in the hall and meows until you take him outside.

School is tying up for the trimester. I had a Math final last night. I think I did pretty well, we'll see. I struggled a bit trying to figure out the slope point formula and the slope intercept formula - even sounds like a foreign language. I can't believe I learned this stuff in 9th grade - wish I could remember it now. Writing, on the other hand, has been a breeze. The kids all had excellent report cards! Hannah was disappointed because she had 3 "A's" and 4 "B's", but I think that is a great report card. It will be nice to have a month of to focus on the holidays.

Well, I'm probably boring you all, so I will update again when I have something more interesting to talk about or show you. Or better yet, maybe we should have a contest to see who has the most interesting comment...Maybe I can get 31 comments like Michael. Oh wait, you have to be dead or write about lattes to get that many comments, huh?

Lucy is here!

Finally our cute little Lucy is here! So far (in the three days that we've had her :) she has proved to be a very sweet puppy. She has a mild temperment, which was my hope in getting a female. She does have a couple of bad habits - crying for an hour at night when we put her in her crate, and waking up at 5am - but it's really no different than the three other babies we had to train to sleep through the night.

Other News:

Alyssa's Getting Married!!!


Alyssa had her bridal shower this weekend! It's so bittersweet to see a young girl grow into a capable, wise, godly young woman. Alyssa and I have had a mentoring type relationship for the last 6 years and over the last year I've come to realize that it has turned into a friendship. She often has more wisdom for me than I for her. I'm really happy for you Alyssa! Congratulations!

"Old" Friends
An old friend was at Alyssa's shower...back for a vacation from school and the mission feild. Such a blessing to see Tracy and to hear how God is working in her life :)

Christmas Trees, Band Concerts, Puppies and Grandmas

Well, that was exciting. I was sitting in the dinning room trying to do my math when the Christmas tree fell over! (Amazingly, no children were involved :) All is well and only one ornament was lost. I think I even have it in there the right way now.

Hannah had her first band concert last night. They did very well. It was the most in-tune, on-beat beginning band concert I've ever been to. Way to go Hannah!

Our puppy is now coming on Saturday...good for finals, bad for kids anticipating puppies.

Thank you "Grandma Turner" (Blaine's mom) for coming for dinner and Hannah's concert last night!

Whipple is Indeed Alive and Other News

At least I thought he was alive...

We had a very busy weekend! It started with Rachael's first choir concert, the Blaine coached Hannah's basketball team in their first game, then Lita and Michael came for dinner and finally we got a Christmas tree and decorated the house.


Now it's time to finish my last two weeks of Math homework and my last paper titled "This I believe..." I'm concidering writing it about the necessity of humor in parenting. I think I have a couple of pretty good ideas for that topic: Hannah and Rachael at 1 and 2 cracking a dozen eggs on the floor and sliding back and forth in it in their diapers, Joel relieving gas loudly at a very solemn part of a church service (and we were in the second row!), Joel hiding in the car for an hour while I'm frantically searching the whole neighborhood and eventually involving the police, Rachael telling her Grandma that she was chubby then topping it off by saying, "Aren't you glad I didn't say fat?" And the list could go on forever. Should be a fun paper to write :)

The puppy is coming Thursday! Yeah! Just in time for finals...woops!

Sherwood is kicking butt in football! They play at Autzen Stadium next week against Marist. Should be a good game because they are both undefeated. Unfortunately, Hannah has a game and Rachael has a concert so we will not be able to go :(

We went to get our tree at a U-Cut place in Sherwood...It was actually a lot of fun. We got a huge tree for $35!

Thank you Michael and Lita for coming for dinner...we had a lot of fun!