O Christmas Tree!

How lovely are thy branches!

This year we cut down another tree from the mountains. Logistics were a little better, but we still hit the same road bump as last year: ending up piling in the car just before lunch time with no plans of bringing a lunch along. Subway bailed us out this time. We also strapped the tree to the top of our minivan for the first time. (no rack on our MPV last year, so we took the truck, too)


our picnic spot at the top of Butte Creek


View of Mt Shasta from a different angle


all dressed for snow, but none to be found! (except a small batch by our tree)

Since there was no snow, we drove up a lot higher in elevation hoping to find a red fir, but white fir were all we could find. I think the one we chose is lovely, but I miss having that really bushy full affect. I think it's a noble fir that does that.


cute back pack baby


the kids had fun crawling through this tree, but we missed the shot with the camera.


Matt's ritual cutting with the antique woodsaw continued this year. What a man!


The kids took some initiative and started decorating the tree with some leftover party decorations. Not a bad effect. (those are toys they wrapped for themselves in the foreground)





peek a boo!


Evalyn was excited to help put the star on top.

Happy Birthday Matty-boy!

Matt celebrated his birthday this weekend, with a day of fishing and eating yummy food. Evalyn gets so into parties. I'm just glad there's a dollar store to subsidize her fetish. Balloons and streamers, German Chocolate Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting, and lots of fun blowing the candles out multiple times. Henry thinks every birthday is his and can't resist that flickering flame. Watch the short video (15 sec) at the bottom. Classic kid moment.

Home for Thanksgiving

I wasn't prepared for Thanksgiving weekend to be over to quickly. I wanted to be more on top of things when we got back. Now I'm scrambling! So of course I must stay up a few hours later than normal to catch up (try) with reading blogs. :) And then I must end the late night with a quick post so I can cross something off my list.

Quick recap on our festivities:

We drove up to Salem to my parents house and spent the weekend with my parents and all but one of my siblings. It was the first time I'd been to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house in almost a decade. Crazy. Since we're staying home for Christmas, Matt took some extra time off for a long weekend away.

The big event of this turkey dinner, other than feeding 20 people (almost half under age 5), was cooking two birds. One was your basic storebought Broad Breasted White (dubbed Norbert). The other was a free-range locally raised bird that we named Herbert Ninnenger. Matt and I were in charge of cooking the birds. Since the free-range bird was easily 4 times the price, we didn't take this responsibility lightly. Armed with a Cook's Illustrated recipe, we unconventionally cut the legs and wings off from the breast, brined and roasted the bird in 5 parts. It worked pretty well and enabled an equal side by side comparison and a decent table presentation. The most striking difference was the dark meat. Herbert Ninnenger's flavor was more complex, not to mention its/his/her thighs and wings were easily twice the size as the factory-raise bird.






The food was great. The table set-up was a recent addition to my parents house: they exchanged the free conference room table they'd had for close to 20 years for 6 or so modular rectangle tables from a local restaurant that went out of business. My sister Heather gives more details here.














The next day Matt and I were able to take the first part of the day and go to the Portland Temple where we were married. Then we got to eat out at a restaurant for lunch. Chevy's. Mmmm. Without children. We also stopped by Trader Joes for some yummy stuff. It was a fun treat.


(playing school, storytime)

Later that day we rounded up the cousins and rode the Salem Riverfront Carousel. There was a new feature: catching the brass ring from the mouth of a salmon cutout. If you got the gold ring you'd get a free ride. Since it's a new feature, there was a naming contest. The kids and Matt came up with two entries: Gil and Splashy. Other than Henry almost falling off when they restarted the ride and Evalyn teetering on melt-down if she didn't get on the hourse she wanted, it was a great outing.





Saturday was the big Girls Day Out. We drove up to Portland: IKEA, lunch at Burgerville (local chain that serves locally grown/raised food) Powell's City of Books, wasted time trying to get out of the city center, and a brief stop at REI before heading home. I ventured out on my own to Kohl's later that evening and found some great deals there.

While we were out, Matt and Oswaldo took the kids to Ankeny Wildlife Refuge. There was a bit of juggling with car seats, being down a minivan, so Ben got to ride in our van, which Evalyn was excited about.





Sunday was church and family time (Heather's new baby girl, Julia Blyn, was blessed). She's a sweet little baby, and looks so much like her big brother! Except "pink" of course.



We had some leisure game time and then we left for home Monday morning with a leisure stop in Ashland as the coolest game store ever. I really really want to own Settlers of Cataan now. And if I can actually find someone to play it with me, the Seafarer's expsansion looks pretty cool too.

Now I'm thrust into a crazy haze of so many needs to get checked off that I don't even know where to start! Matt's birthday, cards, shopping, decorating, sewing, cooking, wrapping..... maybe things will feel better this weekend.

Evalynisms

I've had these quotes on my desktop Stickies for awhile and had to share them.


(from late August, a groggy morning for me and a typical chipper one for Evalyn)

Can I watch you put your contact in Mommy?

Sure.

Do you put them in in the winter Mommy?
Uhuh.
When it's cold?
Uhhuh.
And even when it's Halloween?
Uhuh.
And even when the flowers grow?
Uhuh.

Of course I went from grumpy to smiling by the end of this exchange.




(from mid-October)

Evalyn, wait til I've cleaned that sticky counter off before you empty the dishwasher...... (crash clatter as stacks of cups fall everywhere)

"Don't worry Mom, I'm an expert at cleaning"



(And here's my favorite, also from October, but it requires a picture for clarification...)

I'd given Evalyn something to do during naptime and was in the other room on my computer when I hear her loudly proclaim:

E: "Mom, look! I put her vagina on!"

(Playful Patterns Girl Picture)

M: "Umh, let's call that her pelvis instead."

Creative Play

Why the TV has stayed off most of the day.





It may look like a bunch of junk thrown in a pile next to the tree (which it is) but to these guys it it is the coolest homemade tree house ever. The kid in me (with memories of many a tree fort) suggested the pulley bucket. (Makes me want to go out and buy a couple of real pulleys and some rope at the hardware store.) Between outside play, homemade playdough with small toys that were rediscovered during a recent toy purge/reorganization, and some new-to-us box of books found at the bottom of the toyshelves, it's been a very creative day. One of those, "I didn't rely on the TV to get me through" feel good mommy days.

Which was good since Linnea didn't really sleep soundly until 6:30 this morning (molars breaking through) right when Evalyn woke up. (?!?!) It was a very off and on sleepless night for the majority of our household.

An Early Snow and Marking One Year

(post-dated)

Here's some quick pics of a little early November surprise (the 5th). And a belated One Year Anniversary of relocating to California from Maryland (the 9th). We were supposed to get rain that day with temps in the high 40s. Instead almost an inch of very wet snow! It was a fun surprise. And thankfully melted the next day or two. I'm not ready for the backyard glacier yet.








I LOVE this snowsuit. Partly because I got it at REI's 75% off clearance sale when E was a baby and all my kids have worn it now. And partly because it's so good at keeping toddlers warm and dry and easy to get them in and out. Except the boots. There are no good warm, waterproof, traction, flexible soled, easy to get on and off toddler boots (size 5-7 WIDE) that I've found yet. Fill me in if you know of some. Plastic bags over socks in whatever their normal play shoes are is my stand-in.


Hard to believe that a year ago we'd left our first home in the early morning and flew across the country. It was a rough first few months. It seems like it wasn't until this summer that things started to feel more homey. Friendships growing, establishing ties, just time really. I still have bouts of homesickness for our Maryland home and friends and family there, probably always will. But change is constant and even if we were transported back, it wouldn't be the same. That sounds kinda lame. What I mean is: you remember parts of high school or college or whenever fondly and have this hankering to be back there and live in that feeling. But its more the feeling of that place and time and it wouldn't be the same to relive it. Something like that.

I remember one winter afternoon especially as a point along this journey to Here. I was driving home from an escape to Ashland (the fabulous Inner Child Cafe before it closed) and shopping in Medford (when I still needed a Target fix. I'm mostly past that now.) The kids had fallen asleep and I'd turned on my playlist of music. I'd just crested Siskiyou Summit. It was an overcast day but the clouds were high and the mountains were covered in snow. The song Landslide came on, performed by Peter Breinholt and Nancy Hanson. I'd been feeling especially homesick and lonely that day, wanting that "bosom friend" to hang out with and have play dates and all that. Add to that the exhaustion of hauling around three young kids. So this song came on as I was decending the grade and I started sobbing. All the words spoke to my heart and the message was one that I so needed to feel. You'll do okay. Change is okay. Even now I get choked up listening to it.

Well, I didn't mean to write so much about this but I'm glad I did. And I'm glad we're here.

We're off to see the Wizard....

Halloween this year was a bit more elaborate than in years past. My younger sister April and her family hadn't been down to see us in our new place yet. Rather than come any random fall weekend, why not do Halloween together? Not long after these plans were made, my older sister Heather realized that would be a boring Halloween if all the cousins were 4 hours away. So they decided to tag along as well.

The next question was costumes. The older kids had their own ideas of what they wanted to be (robot, dinosaur, princess, lion), but then we had a brainstorm of doing The Wizard of Oz.

*We morphed Ben's Robot into the Tin Man,
*Evalyn's Princess to Glinda the Good Witch, and
*Troy's Dinosaur into a Flying Monkey.
*Katy's Lion needed no altering.
*Henry made a cute Scarecrow since he loved the one Daddy made earlier this year.
*Lillie loves shoes of any kind, so Dorothy was a perfect fit. (ha ha, that pun was an accident, really)
*The babies were cute little Munchkins wearing zany outfits

*April was a tall formidable Wicked Witch of the West (sans green, we ran out of time)
*Carlin made a fabulous Wizard of Oz
*Heather and Oswaldo were Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, with a farm apron, buttoned shoes, and overalls.
*Matt's costume was the best, I think. I'll let you guess it from the group shot.
*I was the Wicked Witch of the East (the one who gets smashed, I went for the smashed hat look and wore shoes under my striped stockings so it looked like my shoes were missing) In hindsight, a citizen of Oz might've been better. Or the Yellow Brick Road or something. We were getting a little short on characters at this point.



The week leading up to Halloween was filled with phone calls and measurements for the fleece hats and booties I was making, the dresses Heather was making, and coordinating everyone's costumes (we had a last minute change of Scarecrow, Toto and Flying Monkey). Needless to say things were a little chaotic when Halloween day descended and the appointed time for getting dressed for pictures was running behind schedule. We didn't get to the church Halloween carnival until it was almost over, but we did make it for the Trunk-or-Treat. Although I must say that it was the craziest one I've participated in: crazy kids running around, returning several times to the same cars instead of meandering between cars and parents chatting and everyone admiring each others costumes, etc.

We went back to the house for a group picture, then Trick or Treating in the neighborhood and finally home again. The dads stayed home with the Munchkins (well, all except Carlin who tagged along for the first 3 houses). Henry really got the hang of saying Trick or Treat. He got so into it he even tried opening the door himself before someone came to answer it! The weather was perfect, windless, not too cold and plenty of stars to glance up at. I'm especially grateful for this as I listen to the rain pouring outside now.



After getting the sugar-wired kiddies to bed, we were too tired for board games, but it was too early to call it a night. So we opted for hot cocoa and watching The Illusionist. It was a lot of fun with a little less insanity than the previous group-coordinating effort of matching homemade pajamas last Christmas. Oh my. When will we learn our lesson?!?



Saturday was very laid back. The dads took the older kids up to the fish hatchery on the Klamath River to see the spawning salmon. We sisters chatted while the babies napped. It was lovely. Later that day Heather and Oswaldo left for home. April and I analyzed my closets and brainstormed some storage solutions (she's a whiz at that kind of thing). Sunday afternoon April and Carlin made their exit. It was a lot of crazy fun.


All six cousins lined up with Uncle Oswaldo


Running along the hatchery pools


Stomping in the leaves alongside Bogus Creek

The Fall Foliage and Backroads

In my rather premature fall post of Labor Day weekend I was a bit pessimistic about the fall season here. Yes, it's different, but just as glorious in it's own right. It's sort of crept up on me and this past week of gloriously perfect (and almost too warm) fall temps of highs in the low 70's and low's in the low 40's. A lot of trees were doing the typical goldish yellow turn with a few especially bright specimens here and there. The hillside hardwoods were getting easy to spot against the green pines and junipers, often along the gullies where more water and runoffs would support them. Like magic I suddenly looked around and realized it really was fall!

Then last week I went on a somewhat out of the blue backroads "errand" to Hornbrook via Montague with the guise of delivering a few Prop 8 yard signs to some interested homes. (The chances of the last batch of these signs being seen by more than 5 people is definitely questionable and I probably could've used my time a bit better.) My real reason for willingly driving around during prime naptime hours no less, was to take in the fall colors. In high school this was one of my favorite solo escapes: just start driving and see where the road went, find short-cuts or long-cuts or hidden vistas and roll down the window and sing whatever I felt like (since there was no working radio in that 1968 "thank you for not laughing at my car" Volvo).

My route took me along the opposite side of Hornbrook Mountain than I-5. The very route, in fact, that I-5 was originally proposed to follow (a bit flatter terrain) but was negotiated towards Yreka instead of Montague and so Yreka flourished while Montague became a sleepy railroad town. Not sure how true that all is, but it sounds good to me. So I set out to explore this "underdog route". And I was not disappointed.

Up the northern end of the golden Shasta Valley, past the fallow alfalfa and hay fields. As I rounded Hornbrook Mountain (more of a turtle shaped mound, but a very big one mind you), the hillside changed from gray sage and evergreens to a warm canvas of oranges gold and even REDS! The oaks were unfurling their splendor for all they were worth. I was stunned. I didn't expect to see those brilliant reds. As I turned on and off of several side road to my destination and noted how hard it would be navigate these same roads in winter, I could finally respect all the trucks I see around town and understand why you'd choose to live on an isolated hillside to get such a quiet vista of the surrounding hills. It was stunning. (I wished I'd had a camera with to capture it, or rather attempt to capture it.)

Maybe it was just the lighting and the colors or the fact that it was the north side of the mountain so there tends to be a wetter microclimate there to support more hardwoods and less sage and juniper like the dryer south side, but I fell in love with this mountainous place a little more than I had before. Today and this past weekend as I drove up to Medford twice, crossing Siskiyou Summit 4 times, I was glorying again in the beauty that is already fading. But the secret is: the most brilliant colors are off the beaten path, you can't see them flying by on the interstate.



Combine that with the trip we took the weekend before last to Kangaroo Lake with Matt's uncle Doug and I'm definitely getting a better feel for this place. On that trip we drove south of town to Grenada to Hunter's Orchard for some pumpkin picking and frolicking. Then took a backroad up the hills and east to one of the few high mountain lakes you can easily drive to. Its 6,500 ft elevation was impressive indeed. We only stayed for a few hours before decending into the Scott Valley along the river of the same name. The kids loved the lake and having their Great Uncle Doug dote on them. We'll definitely be returning with camping gear next year.



Another nearby mountain lake we attempted to visit together that same weekend was Castle Lake, just above Lake Siskiyou. It was late in the afternoon when we'd met up with Doug at the Sundial Bridge in Redding. We were supposed to be caravan-ing but I got bored and went on my own way figuring I'd call Matt who was driving with Uncle Doug in his car. I did follow the directions, but I was in my impatient "let's get to the next thing" mood that my close family knows all too well. And the turnoff sign WAS hard to see. Needless to say I went the wrong way and lost cell phone reception and although the kids and I saw some pretty scenery along the river we were following, we never got to the lake. But we did see an amazing sunset against Mount Shasta. We'll be going back to Castle Lake again, too. Evalyn was really looking forward to "meeting" the Princess that lived there. :)

Soccer!

Ahh! Keeping up with the BLOGS! I've been so bad lately in reading and posting and commenting. Let's try again... Last week was Evalyn's last soccer game of the season. Her last two games were definitely her best. It was encouraging that it had all been worth it, she had fun PLAYING soccer and got her knees muddy and played most of the time and even tried to follow the ball around: all with minimal amounts of whimpering. Yay! I really had fun working with the kids, too. Just wish we'd had one practice and one game a week instead of two games most weeks with a scattering of practices. Thanks to Matt testing out a nice Nikon D60 DSLR for work, we finally got some decent pictures. It also had made me reconsider the camera purchase.... maybe I'll hold out a wee bit longer and get a DSLR instead. : ) (And thanks to everyone who contributed to that post forever ago. Your insights were much appreciated.)