Christmas 2009

We celebrate Christmas by opening our presents on Christmas Eve, as is traditional in Austria and Germany. While the kids are busy doing something else in the house, the "Christkind" quietly slips in unnoticed and leaves presents under the tree. When he is done he rings a bell, which is the signal to the children that they can come down to look at their presents.

Rebecca and Joseph seeing the tree filled with presents underneath.



We always sing "Stille Nacht" and "O Tannenbaum" before doing anything else.



Rebecca with her American Girl Doll, "Rebecca."



The Girls



The Boys



Joseph couldn't have been more thrilled with his tools. He used his tools to open his other presents and "cut" the ham at dinner time.





We light a few real beeswax candles in honor of the traditional Austrian Christmas tree.





We eat peas and rice and ham. My dad grew up with peas and rice for Christmas Eve dinner. It was expensive to buy rice for them in those days, so it was a real treat. We grew up with it, too, and are carrying on the tradition.



Note the tools. Joseph hammered the ham, sawed the ham, drilled the ham....

One special present was a collection of photos of heavy machines (tractors, trucks etc.) from the temple site in Kiev, Ukraine. My dad, who is project manager for the building of the temple there took the photos. When he takes a picture of a worker he likes to give them a copy of their picture. Most of these workers have never owned a picture of themselves in their whole lives. They like to take their picture around the site and show it to all the other workers. Joseph loves tractors and trucks, so it was a perfect present for him.

Mary in our traditional nativity play. The bowl was her own idea.

Sleep in heavenly peace...

Rebecca lined up her doll's accessories. It was her idea to use the shoe box as a closet.



We're usually too tired to open everything on Christmas Eve, so it continues in the morning with stockings, more good food and good times.

Christmas Parties

What would December be without a bunch of Christmas parties! This year I hosted our annual High School Friends Christmas Party. It's been fun to get together every year and watch our children grow. They all get along great and have a fun time playing together.

Next we had our church Christmas party with Grandma Julie in attendance (and Rebecca singing in a trio), and Warren's work party at a fancy hotel in Pasadena. Warren sang a few Christmas songs at the kid's church party in the style of Kermit and Piggy. The kids loved it, of course!

We also celebrated as is tradition for us at Warren's work with lunch and a visit from Santa.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

One of my favorite memories from this Christmas season was getting out our two mini Christmas trees (courtesy of Grandma Carol). The kids were so excited to decorate them and it welcomed in the Christmas spirit.

Speaking of Christmas trees, I grew up with a real Christmas tree and we bought it every year close to Christmas, in fact we didn't put it up until Christmas eve, as is tradition in Austria. When I was little it was a surprise, as I got older I helped decorate.

This year we were expecting lots of family for the holidays. My parents and all my brothers came except for Arnold and his family who stayed in Germany. Last year my mom and I got a great real tree at a great price pretty close to Christmas, so I was waiting for her to do the same this year. Well, life got busy and people got sick, so it was Dec. 23rd when we finally got around to looking for a tree. We tried everything we could think of. No one had any real trees left. In fact, one store said they had been sold out for two weeks already. While we were at a hardware store looking for something I saw a sign that said all the Christmas things were on sale. I didn't really think about it till later that night but called and confirmed with the store that it included the fake trees. My mom and I went back the next morning and exited the store with a normally $200 tree for only $35! Talk about having fun shopping! I got a storage bag for 75% off and even a tool set for Joseph for 50% off that we almost bought a few weeks ago for full price. We had so much fun at the hardware store that morning!

Happy 2010

Happy New Year 2010!

We celebrated with British Christmas crackers. They seem more fitting for New Years than for Christmas in my opinion anyway. We all had fun reading the silly jokes, wearing the silly crowns and playing with the silly toys. My dad was there, too, but he was the one taking all the good pictures.

May 2010 be a wonderful year.
The best part about it will be all the babies being born in the family.

TWO MORE TEETH!

No. 2

Rebecca lost tooth number two on Friday and another one on Saturday. The first one wasn't even as lose as the second one, but came out when Joseph pulled a spatula out of her mouth that was covered in rice crispy treats.
So now she is missing three of her four front teeth! Hope she can still bite enough to eat.

No. 3 (now both bottom teeth are missing)

Thanksgiving Week Activities

We had a wonderful week of Thanksgiving Activities. Rebecca had the week off school, which was perfect timing.
Our Thanksgiving Events began Sunday night with an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. It was our Church's turn to host this year, which meant we were in charge of the venue and the accompanist: me. Six different choir directors and their choirs came together an hour and a half before the service and jointly rehearsed the pieces they had been practicing individually. For me as the accompanist this meant one run through with each conductor-a quick lesson in their style and how they wanted to conduct the piece. I was switching back and forth between the organ and the piano for the whole service and was playing some challenging pieces. Musically speaking it was the most challenging thing I had done in years. From an audience's point of view it went fantastically. From my own perspective there were a couple of minor things I wish I had done differently, but it was a great experience and overall it went well. It left me exhausted though. So it was good Rebecca had the week off.

We began our own activities with a Family Night lesson on gratitude and painted turkey hands and wrote down things we were grateful for.

I'm extremely grateful for my husband and children: the greatest treasures in my life. I love that Rebecca and Joseph are great friends. Here she is reading his favorite book to him, one he has been requesting day after day after day.



Next we went to a friend's house and made "Native American" vests, headdresses and necklaces.






We also spent a fun morning at Disneyland, exploring Toontown, Tom Sawyer's Island (or Pirate's Lair as it is now called) and taking the train around D-land.

Joseph is the one who insisted we wait to see Mickey Mouse. When we got inside he was too shy to say hi to Mickey or interact with him at all. But when we got out of the room he was all smiles. When asked what his favorite thing was that day he responded: "Mickey Mouse!"

Thanksgiving Thursday we were on our own. We were going to go out to a restaurant for steak, but the ones we were thinking of were all closed. So we had leftovers: ham, mashed potatoes and vegetables. It felt festive. The weather was beautiful and we spent a fun afternoon at the park. I made my first ever batch of orange rolls from scratch and also some rice crispy treats with the kids. Somehow the baking made the day feel like a holiday.

Thanksgiving Friday we had the full-blown turkey dinner with all the trimmings with our cousins the Brashears. It was great to visit and get caught up with everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for all of you! Hope you had a wonderful week, too!

I'm grateful for...