Christmas 2015

We had a wonderful Christmas.  It seems like it was here and gone so quickly. 

The weather was unseasonably warm leading up to Christmas, which meant lots of time playing outside.  Right now our boys are really into hockey. 

Before Christmas break, I enjoyed going into Adam's school to help with their Polar Express Day.  It was such a fun and magical day! I loved meeting his friends and classmates.

 

It's hard to believe our boys were wearing shorts to school at the END of DECEMBER!  It sort of freaks me out a little bit because it's just so strange.  The boys have been exploring the woods and creek around where we live... in DECEMBER. 

And because it's been so warm and they were wearing shorts while playing in the woods, poor Adam has "the worst case of poison ivy in December" that his pediatrician has ever seen.  We've been dealing with this poison since around December 16th and after two trips to the dr and a second round of stronger Prednisone, fingers crossed he is finally on the mend.  I feel like I have a baby again since I am up once a night giving him medicine and applying cream when he gets itchy.  We now have to treat the woods (for Adam) like you would someone with a severe allergy since he gets such a severe reaction to poison. 

Other than the poison issue, we had a great Christmas!  

 

Caleb stopped over for a visit.  Owen does a super job taking care of him.  He thought Cal was hungry so he fed him some applesauce.  Watching Owen take care of Caleb is one of my favorite things.  

Filling out Christmas cards to his teachers and bus driver.

 Owen in his festive jammies laying by the heater.  This is what he does every single morning when he wakes up.  He comes downstairs and if the heat isn't on, he asks me to turn it on so he can lay by the warmth. 

 Christmas Eve day the four of us spent the morning helping to pass out meals to families in our area that needed them.  Our church does so many amazing things and one of them is their Christmas Eve ministries.  In the past, Mike and I would help deliver gifts to children in Lebanon that had a mother in prison.  The mother would give ideas as to what her child(ren) would like for Christmas and people from our church would purchase gifts and then we'd help deliver them.  We did that for a few years, however we wanted to do something this year that all four of us could do together.  It's very important to us that our boys have experiences helping others.  What better time to help others than Christmas Eve?

We ended up having a bunch of meals leftover so we loaded up our minivan and drove around asking people we saw if they could use it.  Almost every person said, "Yes" and if they didn't need it, they told us of a family that could use it.  Mike went to a few homes of students from his school.  I have to say that the four of us driving around giving out meals to families was one of my favorite Christmas memories.  We can't wait to participate again next year. 

That evening we went over to my parents' house to open gifts.  Christmas is even more fun with Caleb!

Then we went out to my aunt and uncle's house.  What a fun night!  Adam loved his Japanese gifts from Fletcher. 

 

 When we were little, our Gamma would get us Hannah Anderson jammies and my cousin, Kate, has continued that tradition for all the cousin kids. 

 Our crew just keeps multiplying!

Even Santa made a visit to our Christmas party!

 After the party, we came home and sprinkled oatmeal in the grass and left cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer. 

Christmas morning!

 We got Adam a zip line for Christmas.  Adam calls this tree our "Giving Tree" which I think is such a good name for it.  It now has our climbing rope, rope swing and zip line.  It is one loved tree :)

 The rest of Christmas day was spent visiting Mike's parents and then hanging out at home in our pjs watching movies and playing with new toys. 

Two days after Christmas we had my dad's side over for Christmas.  For my entire life we have always done this at 4pm on Christmas day.  This was the first year we did it a little differently and I have to say, I loved not cramming everything into one day. 

 We got to meet Amelia for the first time.  What a cutie!

 We were all missing my Uncle Walter and I wish so much he was still here with us and in this picture.  I know he and Ollie and Doc were smiling down on everyone. 

 That night we had Sam and Ella stay over night.  We love any chance we get to spend time with them. 

And now we get ready to ring in the New Year! 

Holiday Spirit

We are really enjoying the magic and fun of the Christmas season.  We have some special traditions that we look forward to every year.  Adam wanted to be in the Christmas pageant at church again this year.  Last year he was an angel, this year he was a townsperson. There were a lot more practices this year compared to last year... Saturday and Sunday afternoons for a few weeks.  Because of the time commitment, I told him he had to decide if it was something he REALLY wanted to do.  And he did.  He really enjoys singing and being up on that stage.  And while I didn't love the long rehearsals, I did love seeing him up there.  We all loved it.  My entire family came to see him- we look up a full row of chairs.  I love that Adam and Owen have some very different interests.  Owen would rather get 5 cavities filled before he sang on a stage in front of people, but he is a good sport going along and supporting his brother. 

Every year we go to the Sacred Heart church for their breakfast with Santa.  Our local police department does a wonderful job creating a special morning for the kids and families in our area. 

And I can't get over how BIG my boys look sitting on his lap (sniff sniff). 

We were happy to have two of our cousins along for this special day.  It was Wynne's first time meeting Santa.  Caleb adores his big cousin.  Santa was a little scary to him, but he felt safe with "Yaya".  It's so funny that from age 1 to about 3 Adam called Owen "Yaya".  Mike and I loved it, but Owen hated it and always corrected him.  Caleb now calls Owen "Yaya" and he's doesn't mind at all. 

3 more school days till Christmas break!

St. John 2015

We just got back from vacationing in St. John.  We had a lot of fun!  My parents took my sister and I to St. John many times when we were younger, but this was my third time going with Mike and our second time going with the boys.  Sam, Ella and Caleb were along this time and it made the trip even more fun!

The older kids spent more time in water, whether it was the pool or ocean, than they did out of water. 
Our resort had a big pool and hot tub.

We stayed at Grande Bay and the view from our condo was amazing.  I could sit on our front porch all day and watch boats.


 
Popsicle party on the porch.


To get from beach to beach you need to drive up VERY steep and windy hills.  Most people drive Jeeps on the island and the speed limit is never above 20 mph.  Most of the roads do not have guard rails and you need to watch for goats, donkeys, chickens, and cows that freely roam the island. 
 

Our resort was only a short walk from the Beach Bar.  We ate here a lot.  Since it's right on the beach, the kids could look for shells, climb trees, and play in the water while we watched them from the Beach Bar.

 

The Beach Bar had fun games to play too!

There were HUGE iguanas all over the place.  This was a picture from Paige. While they were eating lunch one came up to them and people were feeding it.

The beaches on St. John are incredible.  The island is becoming more popular as more people discover how amazing it is.  When I was little, our family would often be the only people on the beach. 

 Thankfully everyone seems to do a good job helping to keep the beaches clean.  They are gorgeous!

 I remember very little waves when we used to visit the island, but this time there was a strong current which made for some good sized waves.  The kids LOVED riding the waves and Mr. Adam has no fear of being tossed around by waves and doesn't mind being covered from head to toe in sand either.

We had a good time snorkeling.  We saw sea turtles, sting rays, and neat fish.  I'm pretty sure Paige and I saw a barracuda while we were snorkeling together. 

These 4 kiddos played so nicely the entire trip.  I was anticipating some arguing here and there, but there was none of that.  They all got along perfectly and it was so nice watching them play and explore together.

 They are such good buddies and my boys are really missing their cousins right now.

We have a tradition of doing hermit crab races when we visit Salt Pond.  There are hermit crabs EVERYWHERE!!!  We each picked our favorite, gave it a name, and had a race. 

 My mom's birthday was on Thanksgiving so we all went out to a nice restaurant for dinner.  Here's a picture of the entire crew. 

 And the next morning, we woke up to find our elf, Sam, and our cousins' elf, Doodle, both came to St. John!  We were shocked that they made the trip all the way there.

Speaking of the trip- Mike said on the way home that St. John really makes you work for the trip.  It took us a total of 14 hours to get there (including the layover) and 12 hours to get home.  It's a full day of travel... two taxi rides, two plane rides, and a ferry ride to the island.  But it's completely worth it.  We were talking to a couple that was staying at the same resort and they had taken a trip to Italy last spring and said that while they had a great time in Europe, they both agree that St. John is better.  I love this island.

He didn't even question why I wanted his picture under the sign:)

Openheimer Beach- sitting on the front porch of the Openheimer home.

And now I need to get out of island mode and back to reality.  School, work, basketball, homework, and busy schedules start tomorrow. 

Thankfully we decorated for Christmas before we left for our trip.  It was so nice coming home to a house all ready for Christmas!