Christmas 2013

This year we tried something different.  We decided to make Christmas Eve our secular holiday and try to keep Christmas Day more focused on Christ.  It went ok.  I thing we need some refining of details and more of a plan of what to do on Christmas Day.

So, that being said, Santa came on Christmas Eve to our house.  Luckily, our kids are small enough that they sleep in to their regular times.  Yay!  I know, we won't have that for much longer.

I ran down to get the cinnamon rolls out of the fridge and into the oven.  Unfortunately, they were still rock solid from being frozen the day before.  I crossed my fingers and put them in a warm oven, praying they would defrost and rise while we opened presents.

Stockings were first, of course.  Matthew got toothbrushes and toothpaste as well as some stacking cups.  Anna got some lacing cards and a princess calendar that is hanging on her wall.

The first then Anna saw when she came into the living room was the trampoline.  She was so excited and started jumping on it right away.  Score 1 for Daddy!  It was her favorite gift that day.  Anna got some clothes, a crocheted hat, a new piggy bank, some Sunday movies, and children's scriptures, along with the trampoline.

Matthew also got a crocheted hat along with a new blanket, a toy car and boat, and a little baby.  Daddy got him a big Tigger.  It's almost as tall as he is.

Steve got us all a surprise gift.  It turned out to be a bike trailer.  It's supposed to be for me to take the kids around, but I'm too short for Steve's bike, so he takes them out when he exercises.

We spent the rest of the day playing with our gifts and hanging out in the backyard in our PJs in the 70+ weather.

That evening we had our fondue dinner.  I tried something new, a Christmas tree salad with kale, lettuce and lots of fruit and nuts.  It was delicious and even Steve liked it!  We also had homemade rolls and yummy meats.  I even found bockwurst!  This year I made plans to use up all the meat and nothing went bad.

On Christmas day, we had a short devotional about the shepherds and how we can be like the shepherds, too.  We then Skyped with as many of our extended family as we could.  It was nice to spend part of the day with family even if we couldn't be there with them.

The Christmas Season

Anna working on her gingerbread house

Steve's decorating efforts on his side of the house.

Please excuse the wonky picture placement.  Blogger wasn't working for me.
We had a great Christmas season this year even though it felt a little more rushed than usual.  In years past, Steve and I have had a goal to have all Christmas gifts bought and Christmas letter written and sent out by the last day of November.  With the move to Morgan Hill in early November, it just didn't happen that way.  We didn't even mail out a letter; we just emailed it!

We started off the season with St. Nicholas day on December 6.  Anna and Matthew left their shoes outside their bedroom doors.  In the morning, they each found a candy cane, a winter book, and a little St. Nick.  Anna's St. Nick is a little wooden peg person, while Matthew's is a stuffed round gnome.

My decorated half of the house

This year's ornament, pinecone gnomes

Both kids with Santa, Matthew didn't last long.

On December 13, we had St. Lucia day.  This year, that just consisted of eating baked Lussekatter and reading a little picture book about a family celebrating it.  After reading the book, Anna says she wants me to make her a Lucy dress and candle head wreath.  I told her that would be fine as long as she remembers that means she has to make breakfast for everyone!

Anna with Santa at the ward party.

Making Christmas sweets with Anna

We finally got down to some serious Christmas preparations.  First up was decorating houses- our house and gingerbread houses.  We bought 2 house kits, one for Steve & I and one for Anna.  She had so much fun decorating that house!  She concentrated hard and had her little tongue stuck out.

Anna with her house.  She was so proud.

I got most of the decor set out on a Sunday afternoon while the kids were napping.  It will Venice when they can help, but now they are more likely to break something.  I love having a mantle and being able tout stuff up on the acoustic piano that was here was nice, too.  I think the downstairs looked very festive.

My three merry snowmen.

Sawing away with the stupid, ineffective saw.

We waited a little before getting our Christmas tree this year.  The last couple of years our trees got so dry that we were afraid we were going to start a fire.  This year, we went to a real tree farm and cut our own.  They don't have local evergreens like fir or spruce.  Instead there was a pine with really long needles or cypress trees.  We chose the cypress.  It was...interesting.  The needles are more like a cedar, flat, and the branches were very bendy.

We got 2 trees, a little one for the kids and a big one for the family.

Cutting the tree was the biggest pain.  The farm provided this saw on the end of a long stick.  It was like trying to cut through the trunk with dental floss.  Steve and I both worked at it for a good twenty minutes with no real progress.  Luckily, we brought a saw with us from home.  We got that out and were through the trunk in 3 minutes!

Decorating the big Christmas tree the first time.

Anna loved decorating the tree.  I love getting out the ornaments and looking at all the things we've made.  The tree was beautiful!  Anna went down for a nap and I started working on dinner.  Suddenly, I heard kind of a rushing sound.  I turned around just in time to see the entire tree topple over.  Oh dear.  Steve grabbed the tree and I mopped up the water all over the floor.  After getting everything all squared away, we sat back and admired our work.

House Tour: Outside Edition

Here are a few pictures of the back yard.

This is the patio right outside the dining area.  The landlord left a table and chairs as well as a grill.  There's also a firepit.

Right next to the eating area is the slide and swings.  Anna and Matthew love them.  The landlord even sent over a baby swing for Matthew.

This view shows most of the yard.  The swing and eating patio are to the right.  The yard is only landscaped half way.  That big brown hill is also a part of the yard.

I took the last picture standing next to the table.  This picture is from the door off the family room/kitchen.  I think you can hook a propane tank under the table and get flames.  We'll have to try that when it gets warmer.

This is our grapefruit tree.  It is loaded with grapefruits.  I only wish I knew when they were ripe!

This is our orange tree.  It doesn't get enough sun so we only have 3 oranges on it.  There is supposedly also a peach tree, though I haven't been able to figure out which tree it is.  We also have some grapevines along the fence behind the grapefruit tree.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

House Tour: Upstairs Edition

OK, you've seen the downstairs.  Now let's take a look at upstairs.  We'll start at the master which is to the right of the top of the stairs and go counter clockwise.

Here's a view of the living room from the upstairs.

This is our bedroom.  It's really big.

Here's a little more of it.

And the master bath.  I took this from the doorway of my closet.  This house has 2 walk-in closets like the Shady Brook house.

The vanity is at the far end of the room.  To me, the black countertop doesn't seem to go with the brown in the rest of the room.

And the little toilet room.  it has a big storage cupboard in there for all sorts of stuff.  You can also see the tree mural/photo that covers the wall withe the closets.

This is Matthew's room.  Most of the house is done in pale greens, but Matthew's room is light and dark blue.  Until today, there were large boat and planet vinyl stickers on the dark blue wall and closet doors.  That dark blue wall is the same wall behind the bed in the master.

 

Between Matthew and Anna's rooms is the bathroom.  It has a double vanity and a door to shut the toilet off from the rest.  It's quite skinny and can be a little tricky to bathe the kids.

Anna's room is in the front left corner (if you're looking from the street).

The last bedroom upstairs we've turned into the office/library.  It's quite big and opens with double doors.  It's got a walk-in closet where we are keeping all of our games.  It also faces the front of the house

 Next installment, the yard.

House Tour

So, I've heard from several sources that pictures of the house are wanted.  We are still in the process of unpacking/organizing/arranging, so the house is not that pretty.  That's why I've waited.  But, since so many want to see it, here it is.  Please excuse the mess.

Let's start downstairs when you come in the front door and work our way counter-clockwise.

This is what you see when you come in.  To the right is the living room, straight behind the stairs is the kitchen door, to the left the hallway leading to the back family room.  You can see the big chandelier in the 'dining area'.  We have no idea what we're going to do with this area.  To the right of the dining area is the sliding door leading to the outside dining area.

Here's a picture from the hallway to the living room.  Right now it's 2 couches and 2 lamps.  We've bought a TV to add to the wall.  Notice the striped carpet.  We had to move the tiles around to put the least offensive on the outside.  We priced new tiles and it would cost close to $500.  Not worth it.  Instead, we have a new rug covering most of it.

This is the kitchen.  The door is behind the fridge.  It's really nice, except for the useless wine rack that takes up precious real estate!  It's got a gas stove and double ovens and a terrarium window behind the sink.  The fridge is a side by side, but it's the biggest one I've ever seen!  As you can see, we eat off the kitchen.

Past the kitchen is the family room.  We have no real furniture for this room yet except for a TV stand.  We're hoping to get a sofa bed for guests' children.  To the right is the door leading out to the other side of the yard.  This room is becoming the playroom.

So this is the hallway leading back to the living room from the family room.  The piano was left here by the owners.  At first we thought we wanted to keep it, but it's out of tune and taking up space.  We're hoping to give it back to them.

Behind the wall with the black piano is the guest room.  It's pretty small, just big enough for the queen bed.  The closet also houses my craft stuff.

Next to the guest room is the guest bath.  The guest room has its own door into the bath.

Next to that is the laundry room.  It's pretty nice.  There are cabinets above the washer and dryer as well as a rod to hang clothes.  On the other side of the room are more cabinets and a sink.  This room leads out to the garage.

Finally, under the stairs is the coat closet and extra storage.  There's quite a bit of room, so we're using it for food storage.

Standing

Here are a couple of pictures of Matthew standing up in his crib.  When I come to get him in the morning, he's usually standing up shaking the bars back and forth.  Let me out!  Let me out!

Murdock Park

I wanted to share a post about one of our favorite places here in San Jose.  It's Murdock Park and it's
just down the road from Steve's parents' house.

The kids and I go there at least once a week during the day.  We go with Steve about twice a month in the evenings.  It's such a nice park.  There are a lot of trees and a big field for running around in.  There are picnic benches, a barbeque area, and even bathrooms!  There are also 3 different play-areas, each designed for a particular age group.  We often go to the toddler area, but Anna is also starting to gravitate to the older kid spot, too.

Sometimes I push the kids on the swings, but often, I just spread out a blanket for Matthew in the grass and do a little sewing while we watch Anna run around.  She loves going to play and for scoping out possible playmates.  We bring the sand toys for
playing in the sand and Anna's balance bike for riding around
the play areas.

It's such a peaceful park.  We hear birds and see squirrels.  On Tuesdays, there's a group of Asian people that gather and do Tai Ji.  We love Murdock Park and will miss it terriblely when we move.

(Key to pictures- Top: Matthew & Anna at the top of the slide; Lefthand from top to bottom: M&A swinging together, Happy Anna, Anna trying to go UP the slide;  Righthand from top to bottom: Matthew's first swing, Anna crawling through the tunnel, Matthew exploring a magnolia leaf)

The Pumpkin Patch

The Saturday before Halloween, we headed to the pumpkin patch.  Just finding a good pumpkin patch was a feat in and of itself.  There's not a lot of farmland near San Jose.  I refuse to buy our pumpkins out of a grocery store box and most of the 'patches' were parking lots with hay bales, inflatables and pumpkins scattered about.

Steve did some research online and discovered Spina Farms on the southernmost edge of San Jose.  It's actually closer to Morgan Hill.  It's a really cute place with sunflowers growing all along the edges.  They had picnic benches all
over and cute decorations that were just screaming for parents to take pictures of kids with.
It was the most perfect day for it- sunny but not too hot.  We got there just in time for an early lunch at one of the picnic benches.  Then we were off to the activities.  There was a hay ride, a train ride, pony rides, and a petting zoo.  We let Anna pick 2.  She decided on the train ride and the pony ride.


First up was the train ride.  Steve and Matthew
went with her and they all rode in the caboose.  Next, Steve got in line for the pony ride while the kids and I roamed around, taking pictures, playing with kids, and looking at pumpkins.  Steve and I ended up waiting about 30 minutes before it was Anna's turn with the pony, but she loved it!
















It was finally time to find a pumpkin.  Anna had originally said she wanted a little one, but we thought we'd look around the patch first.  She fixated on a HUGE pumpkin with warts all over it.  We showed her others that were smaller or weren't so lumpy, but she decided that this was the one she wanted.  We also ended up getting the small pumpkin for Steve and a little bitty one for Matthew.