Christmas 2014

(I just love a catchy title.)

It's been a full and hectic week of Christmas celebrations and family outings for the past 6 days straight! I'll give you three guesses as to how I feel about this...

a. stressed and grumpy
b. enjoyed it but glad it's over
c. more! give me MORE CHRISTMAS!

(If you answered C then you are correct. If you didn't answer C then you don't even know me, man.)

Round One: Christmas Eve at my folks 
Highlights: Celebrating with my cousin Michelle and her husband Dan who are visiting from New Zealand. Kelly's hot chocolate bar. Surprise stockings. Playing NERTS.

{ipad wishes come true!}

Round two: Christmas morning at home

Highlights: The slow and relaxed pace. Watching my kids exchange gifts that they had bought for each other themselves. Surprising the kids with a new trampoline when they thought we were all finished with gifts. A new fancy camera from the hubs! 

{new hat, hoodie, sweats, and phone case!}

Round three: Christmas afternoon at Russ's folks

Highlights: Enough food for two days. Teri's gravy. Movies and games until late. When the tree fell on my nephew, Mark, and no one went to help because we were all laughing to much. 

{Grandpa Ray with his grands and great grands)

Round four: Christmas dinner Friday evening at my folks with extended family

Highlights: Dad's prime rib. Discovering coconut lindor truffles. Poo-pourri. Up the River, Down the River (card game) & 5 Second Rule.

Round five: Cannard/Lynch extended family Christmas Saturday afternoon

Highlights: Aunt Niki's chicken salad. My father-in-law taking the place of "Scotty the Elf" for the first time and capturing it on camera ;)

{the grandma club}

My most favorite thing of all throughout all the celebrations was spending time with family (I love our families so very, very much!), the enjoyment of giving gifts to others, singing happy birthday to Jesus, and really making it about Him with our kids.

I hope everyone had a truly Merry Christmas!

Christmas Card 2014

Monday Confessional - Christmas wrap

This weekend was "the weekend". The weekend I was finally going to wrap all the presents I have had hiding in various places in my bedroom and walk-in closet since Black Friday. I gave myself plenty of pep talks, bought new paper, and then procrastinated at every opportunity because... wrapping takes A SWEET FOREVER.

By Saturday evening I was at a total of zero presents wrapped so I shut myself up in my room while the boys picked a movie to watch in the living room. Eight minutes and two presents later Russ came in and said they were going to run to the video store and if I came with he'd take me to Big Burger for a shake.

SOLD.

And that's all she wrote for Saturday because then I wanted to see the movie they picked and next thing I knew it was midnight. Darn.

Sunday morning was our church Christmas Extravaganza service (my favorite of the year) and after that an afternoon nap and the Amazing Race finale because, priorities, people. I finally started wrapping again at 5 pm, finished seven presents, and then got a text message from our friend Tracy wondering where we were because we were supposed to be there for dinner 40 minutes ago.

Shoooot.

We had a delightful evening by the way. Santa came!

{Blake for real excited, Cooper good naturedly pretending, and Kendall obviously not.}

When we got home again Russ had to go to bed so my wrapping operation was shut down for the night. I'm sure you can guess how heartbroken I was.

The good news is, if I wrap nine more gifts today, I'll be halfway done!

Yaaaaay...

J&J's Annual Shopping Trip - 5th edition

Sunday was the fifth annual "Christmas Outfit Shopping Trip" that Jana and I look forward to every year. Because mama's gotta look her best on Christmas.

At first we planned to leave right after church and head straight to lunch before beginning our shopping, but then we decided... let's skip out a wee bit early! We coordinated to indiscreetly slip out of the service at the same time, and it worked fabulously... until we met up in the church foyer and Jana realized she'd left her coat on her chair. Thus, she had to take the walk of shame back into the service.

Her walk of shame was not as bad as my walk of futility though... at our first stop at Costco to pick up my Christmas cards. Jana dropped me off at the entrance and I told her I'd call her to drive back up to the door as soon as I had them. A plan that would have worked better if I didn't then leave my cell phone in her car. 

"How hard can it be to find a car in the Costco parking lot?" I thought as I ventured out to find her. HA. Oh hahahaha. 

Ten minutes later, after wandering aimlessly and feeling like an idiot, I walked back into Costco and borrowed a cell phone. And then realized I don't have Jana's phone number memorized because, hello speed dial. 

Eventually we found each other. 

And drove straight to Sweet Tomatoes. 

So what if both those plates of salad are mine?! IT'S SALAD. Reason #23 to go to Sweet Tomatoes :)

Further stops included the mall, TJ Maxx, Ross, and last but not least, Red Robin for a late shared dinner, because we shopped ourselves to the point of famishment. Shopping is hard, guys! 

I'm kidding. Shopping is fun. Especially on J&J day. 

(Even if we spend an hour in Barnes and Nobles and walk out with zero purchases.)

Friday Night Thoughts

1. When your husband offers to fix dinner, accept gladly, but be prepared for him to make 17 hamburger patties.

FOR YOUR FAMILY OF FIVE. 

2. Peanut butter and bananas on toast NEVER loses its appeal. 

3. Christmastime makes my living room look 80% better than it does the whole rest of the year. 

4. And honestly, the same goes for the Christmas cards displayed on my kitchen cabinets. 

Bring on the cards, friends. 

5. When your daughter tries to talk you out of going to the doctor for her sore throat and has you convinced that you're wasting your time as she sings along to the radio the entire way there, keep reminding yourself that three of her cousins just had strep and it's better to check with a nurse on Friday than have to visit urgent care over the weekend. 

Because YES. It's strep alright. 

Dang it.  

It's Russell's fault

Our regularly scheduled programming will return shortly (ie: What I Wore Wednesday).

It appears that somebody stole his wife's SD card out of her camera and used it to put in a trail camera at his secret hunting spot.

This same somebody is currently in the dog house and has promised the return of the missing card with all the outfit pictures on it poste haste.

MEN.

Monday photo dump - catching up

I meant to do this Friday, but then the weekend happened, and also, a really good book, so here we are in a new week. 

Which means now the weekend gets to be included in the photo dump! See? It all worked out!

SCENES FROM THE CELL PHONE:

Family movie date last weekend to see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 

Such a cute movie! I'm a dork and cried. Twice. Coop, lover of all things Star Wars, Super Heroes, and action/violence,

declared it "the best movie I've seen in my WHOLE life!" So it won us all over!

Blake, under the tutelage of his Grandma Halverson, painted his first canvas!

I'm telling you right now, that thing is going to hang in my house the rest of my life. 

My grocery shopping assistant extraordinaire. 

Dude. I forget how much having a helper... helps. 

Coop shooting a free throw. We are ENTRENCHED in basketball again.

Weekends, week nights, after school, early morning, it's bonkers.

Kendall and I are in the last month of the mother-daughter devotional we started back in January. 

Honestly, we've been pretty hit and miss at remembering every morning,

 but when we do remember, we really enjoy it and it's led to some great discussions. 

The book I read this weekend. I have declared it "possibly my favorite read of 2014".

"Possibly", because I can't remember for sure what all else I read this year. 

But I really, really liked it! 

Our tree hunt was as short and sweet as you could possibly manage this year. 

$5 u-cut only 5 minutes from our house. We picked it out in all of 3 minutes. 

God bless Oregon, land of all the trees. 

Technically these aren't from my phone... but I saved them there from facebook! 

We went to a married's white elephant Christmas party Saturday night and had

ourselves a very fun non-ugly-sweater party! (Had to take a break from the horror after last year ;)

The ipad cake my niece, Debby, made for our cousin Nick's surprise birthday party last night. 

He's the techie of the family. Looks pretty good, right? It's tasted great too! 

And that's what we've been up to! Happy Monday!