HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

We had a busy but fun week leading up to Christmas but one of my favorite things was Zoolights which we attended for the first time.  Here are some pictures from zoolights and a few others...

The zoo train...we had tickets but the line was long (over an hour wait) so we returned them.

Gumpy and the boys in front of the zoo store

The kiddie Christmas tree.

The family at Zoolights (Colton is in the baby backpack you can just make out his forhead between Xander and me).

Christmas Eve

I made Mason and Xander Snuggies...they were very excited.  Carson got a Cars blanket and pillow,

Colton got monkey pj's.  Afterwards they wrote their letters to Santa, Xander's was the best, it read:

"Dear Santa, I know that Christmas is not about presents it is about Jesus birth.)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Christmastime Is Here

Christmas

So We went last Saturday and got a Christmas tree for the front room...which means we have two now!  I have been having so much fun getting ready for Christmass in our new house!  Even Jonah, who can be a bit of a grinch, has been excited.  I will post pics soon of how the house looks with lights on it and of our trees.
I have been really into red and silver as well as snowflakes this year and I have had a lot of fun getting a few new decorations that fit our new home.  We have also decided that we will have Christmas morning here before heading to Salem to be with family instead of just spending the night in Salem.  We are definately excited and looking forward to starting our own family traditions for Christmas.  I am still hoping to get around to Christmas cards but we will see if it actually happens.


Xander

So Xander and I spent all day yesterday at Doernbecher Children's Hospital getting Xander tested for aspbergers.  We basically came away with a lot of information but not a definite diagnosis.  They have already determined Xander has ADHD and they have also diagnosed him with an anxiety disorder.  The autism tests came back at a level consistent with a diagnosis of autism but they have given us a to be determined diagnosis instead because they want to make sure his anxiety did not interfere with the tests.  In the end they suggested working with a psychologist to control the ADHD and anxiety and then come back for a re-test in a year.  So I guess we will see how things are going a year from now.  The diagnosis really only means something if it allows him access to different modifications in school which may enable him to be more successful but his current school is so good about it that I dont know that it will matter.  Now I get to meet with his teacher and the school counselor plus a few others to determine what to do for him at school so it will be interesting to see what they think.  Just goes to show that life is full of adventures.

Church

So I am excited to say that I got a new calling at church.  Jonah laughs at me because I say it is my first "grown up" calling; meaning that I am the one ultimately accountable rather than working in a group where someone else is in charge.  Anyhow I have been called to be the humanaties specialist.  I don't have a full understanding yet of what all that entails but I am excited to learn and get started!  Well I guess that is it for now....

Amazing...

Just saw this link posted by a friend on facebook, this is so cool!

Here's To You Amanda

Okay so my sister so kindly pointed out to me that I needed to update my blog so here we go...

First off I am not sure what to write about because I don't feel like anything special has been going on.  We had a busy week getting ready for Thanksgiving since we hosted at our house this year.  It was so much fun being able to enjoy the holiday in our new home!  I am amazed at how much more we feel at home here, more so than even the home we had in Rainier.  I love Newberg so much there are so many great families, lots of kids, and great schools I just love it here and I am so glad we have been blessed with this home.  Now if Amanda would move here it would be perfect (altough your probably tires of me saying that) ; ) 

Otherwise...Mason has been doing great in school, and has been enjoying cub scouts.  Xander also has been doing well in school and is being evaluated next week at Dornbecher Children's Hospital to make sure he has no other learning disabilites or anything other than the ADHD that he has been diagnosed with.  Carson has enjoyed having new friends and participated in the co-op preschool we have been participating in with some of the other families from church.  Colton has been growing like crazy and is climbing everything, I feel like I spend half the day pulling him off the kitchen table. 

We have all been enjoying our Christmas preparations this year.  For the first time ever I went black friday shopping aat 3:30 am.  I went with 2 great friends and it was crazy but fun and I was able to get most of the Christmas shopping done.  We have our fake tree up and are hoping to get a real tree this weekend for the front room.  Well thats the short of it....I will try and do better about updating this more often.

Oh What Do You Do In The Autumn Time?

People always speak about their favorite season, I used to think mine was spring, and I do love spring, but the more I thought about it I realize that my favorite season is the time when seasons are changing. I especially love the time between summer and fall as well as the time between winter and spring when all of these changes are so prevalent. This year we are in our new to us home and are experiencing all the seasons here for the first time and creating first memories to go with them.

Here are a few of the things we have enjoyed this year as summer has started fading into fall…

Moving into our new house

Mason’s baptism

Starting a new school year at a great new school

Getting the outside of the house painted…just getting done before the rain really started pouring

Apples…going to the apple farm, eating crisp fresh apples, and canning apples for the first time (apple pie filling and applesauce)

Pumpkins, especially the pumpkin patch

Halloween
The anticipation of Thanksgiving being just around the corner…thinking of family and blessings

I am sure there are many more and I will try to update this as they come to mind.

Halloween

Well I feel like I should finally get around to writing again since it has been a few days, but I have been really busy and distracted between Halloween, the boys having no school Thursday & Friday last week, and just trying to get things done around the house.  We had a good weekend for the most part, we colored and did projects throughout the week and went to the ward trunk or treat (trick or treating tailgate style) party Saturday night.  Of course it was raining so the kids did trick or treat inside aftter all.  On Sunday they wanted to see Gummy and Gumpy so we ended up at their house and didnt hand out the candy we had purchased...that means I have a bunch of candy while I am trying to avoid eating it.  To be honest it is not really much of a temptation to me but I know the boys will consume it over time and I was really hoping to have them avoid eating too much candy this year.  Today Colton got his 15 month shots and I met my friend for lunch afterward at Costco.  It was nice to get together and get some shopping done although I really wish Costco carried some whole wheat flour and a larger selection of organic baking ingredients.  After we left Costco I stopped at the apple farm and they had a pretty good deal on apples since they close for the season at the end of the week.  That being said I have 50# of apples which I am going to can for pie filling and applesauce.  It wont translate to a lot but it will give me a good idea of how we would use it and give me a good starting point for next year.  Well thats all for now but here are some halloween pics...

BTW...Carson was sweet this year, he wore 3 costumes to different events/parties.  A construction worker (witch unfortunately are not on the computer yet), a fireman, and a puppy.  As you can see he also really wanted to be Batman but the costume is still a little big so he settled for a picture.  Xander on the other hand did not want a costume at all and chose pajamas.  Sweet, silly boys. 

Self Reliance

So I have been really excited since we moved into this house about becoming more self-reliant.  There are many ways to do this but we plan to focus on a few key things that work for us.

 First we are planning to get out of debt as quickly as possible; right now this means paying off our car.  In the long run it means getting into a bi-weekly auto pay plan for our mortgage (as well as hopefully being able to make an extra payment every year).  Doing those things alone should help us pay off our mortgage at least five years earlier than if we made a traditional monthly payment.  Also along with getting out of debt we hope to re-establish a savings, most of which was used when we purchased this house.

Second, we plan to plant a garden.  I never really cared about having a garden until two years ago when I saw how excited Xander was by the idea of having plants of his own; since we were in a rental until late this summer we haven't had room for anything but strawberries and tomatoes but seeing how much the boys enjoyed growing them has inspired me to try something on a larger scale.  I plan to start our garden early this coming spring and hope that within the next three years I will be able to have a year-round kitchen garden established wherein we are able to produce most of our own vegetables.

The third, and last goal we have for ourselves on our path to being self-reliant is to increase our food storage.  I have been trying to start researching this in my "spare" time and I am mostly in the early stages of gathering resources but in addition to the church website here are some links to some sites I like.  This site has been reccommended to me by a family friend many times and seems to have a lot of great ideas.  Many of you may also have heard of Shelf Reliance from shopping at Costco where they carry their shelfs from time to time you can visit their site here, it is a great resource for planning out what you need as have user friendly food calculators, recipes, and tips in addition to selling the food and storage systems if you want to go that route.  Another site that I have enjoyed looking at has a program that helps you get started in a very simple way using checklists and worksheets which can be found or purchased on their website.  The last website I enjoy is a site that belongs to my "other" grandmother Barbara Salsbury who has written many books and is quite an expert on emergency preparedness; she also has a way of taking a subject that can often be boring to read about and making it interesting and even humerous at times. Well I love her and you can meet her by clicking here. 

I suppose that is all for now...please let me know if you have any suggestions that may help on my quest toward self-reliance.  I am particularly interested in local companies that use organic ingredients as that is the direction I would like to be headed down.  Also if you know of places that offer food grade containers, such as 5-gallon buckets, please share.  The same goes for gardening tips as I have never really done this before and am somewhat nervous that I will somehow find a way to kill everything I plant!