Two beautiful 11-year olds

I have been reminded a couple of times now that I have neglected to post a blog about Mattie and Lauren's birthday. I apologize for putting it off, but I'm ready to document their
11th birthday!

We started off the celebration with a family birthday party. We were especially lucky to have it the same weekend that Alyssa, Taylor and Ada were here visiting.



They received some really cute gifts - handmade aprons from Grandma Lark...

And cute hats and earrings from Jared and Christina along with other very nice gifts from everyone.

Chris was especially excited about the gifts:


Sharing a birthday usually means sharing a cake, too, but this year Mattie wanted a chocolate cake with mint cream filling and Lauren wanted banana splits. Their desserts complimented each other nicely just as their personalities do which makes for the best of desserts and the best of friends.


Later that week my sister, Beth, and her family came for Thanksgiving. Their birthday fell on the day after Thanksgiving this year and you know what that means: shopping! For the first time ever I let them go shopping with me on Black Friday. (I don't think they found it as fun as I do.) Then Mattie, Lauren, and Tyler made cupcakes which I let them decorate. Then we cleaned the frosting off of every surface of the kitchen.

And Mattie, Lauren, Tyler, Quinn, Hannah, and Jonas made marshmallow people.

We ended the day at the Christmas Parade downtown.


We love having Mattie and Lauren in our family - they both bring joy and laughter to my day. I'm proud of the beautiful, graceful, and compassionate young women they are growing into. I love you, girls!

Wonderfully Warm

Winter hit Central Oregon hard last week. With temperatures in the single digits during the day and below zero at night, we had to be creative in finding ways to keep warm.

Sam and Jonas decided a ninja approach would be both toasty and stealthy.

With help from Grandma Ann, Lauren knit a yarn stocking hat. Not bad for her first attempt....next time she'll make one that will cover her ears too!

Jonas decided to go "on frozen pond" in PJs and boots.

Santa came to a party and warmed everyone up with his jolly cheer.

Being close with those we love keeps us wonderfully warm all through the year.

-awwwwwww

Losings....

Every autumn trees lose their leaves and Chris loses another year of his 30s. And this autumn, Quinn lost her first tooth (but awoke to find she'd gained $1).


With all the losing comes memories gathered.

All Hallow's Eve

Cross Country

Sam's been running cross country again this year. He has managed to improve his time every meet except one. This last week he cut a minute off his time! (I told him if he pushed himself as hard as he could he could have ice cream and watch TV all evening - he's not the only one who can manipulate (uhh...motivate) others).



Coming down the homestretch:

Apples

With our school budget cuts we have gone to a four day school week this year. (And let's hope it's only this year.) After several Fridays with bored children, I decided last Friday to take the kids to the Hood River, OR area to pick apples. Don't they look beautiful?

We visited three orchards - this one doubled as a pumpkin patch complete with a corn maze and beautiful views.



The Gala apple trees were getting pretty bare where we could reach so I hefted Sam onto my shoulders so we could get to the best of the apples.

Mattie very kindly acted as our photographer for the day. She's great with the camera, but of course there are very few pictures of her.


We found a fort which made Jonas very excited.


Everyone was happy, the weather was beautiful and the apples are delicious!

Running at church

Yesterday Jonas was running down the hall after church when someone came out of the gym. He hit the door and split his forehead open. I guess he's not Superman after all.



After spending a couple of hours in the ER, he was feeling much better! (The trick to not having to wait at the ER is to carry a screaming, bloody child in!) Thank you to some very good friends who took the other kids home and fed them. Here is Jonas "fixing" daddy's head:

Greetings from Jonas

Family Camping

The kids have been begging to go camping all summer, especially the girls. Sam goes camping a couple of time each summer with Scouts so he wasn't missing it, but the girls really wanted to go. So we finally picked a weekend to take them. It's taken me an entire week to be emotionally ready to revisit the experience and blog about our camping trip. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but I'm really not a camper. These kids were though:

I had visions of peaceful family time around the campfire in the evening, everyone visiting and laughing and making s'mores - you know like a Norman Rockwell picture. We managed the s'mores, but the kids were too excited to be camping to make sitting around the campfire enjoyable. So off to bed they went. My plan was to sleep in the car, but I didn't take into account the tinted windows making it blacker than night should be or the irrational thoughts that someone might decide to steal the car in the middle of the night and I'd wake up to find myself two states over. So after about 15 minutes in the car I crawled into the tent with Chris and Jonas. I slept better than I thought I would, but was rudely awakened by Jonas beating on me, mad that I was in the tent that he was supposed to be sharing with only daddy. I tried to make it up to him by making pancakes and bacon for breakfast.



After breakfast we took down our tents and loaded up again. We had big plans for a hike on Saturday. Chris and Sam had camped a couple of times at Tenas Lakes and couldn't stop talking about how beautiful they were. So we decided to hike the 2 miles up to the lakes and enjoy the view. Everything started off great...



As we got higher up the trail, it started lightly misting and then it got heavier. There were a few tears and a couple of piggy-back rides required. Then we finally got to the beautiful and much anticipated viewpoint of Tenas Lakes:


I can't say that it rained, but between the mist and the wet foliage we hiked through we were all soaking wet when we got to the bottom. Sam, Mattie, and Lauren went ahead at a brisk pace and beat us by a good twenty minutes. I stayed with Quinn and we trudged along together. I don't know how many times I said 'You can do it - we're almost there!' (I don't know if I was trying to convince Quinn or myself.)



Chris got to entertain Jonas for 2 miles playing games to distract him. Too bad Chris had the keys and we all had to wait, cold and wet, for him to get to the bottom of the trail. And that's how we all survived our hike.


I've discovered that writing this post has been therapeutic for me. I can finally look back and laugh at myself and our weekend of misery.

More recently, Sam learned how to make lasagna as part of the requirements for the church program Duty to God. Doesn't it look delicious? Well, we had it for dinner tonight and I can verify that it was indeed delicious!

Last day of summer

I took Mattie, Lauren, and their friend, Adrienne hiking at Smith Rock yesterday. It was a beautiful day and I had a lot of fun with them.


Lauren and Adrienne at the top of Misery Ridge.


Heading down the backside of Misery Ridge towards Monkey Face.


Watching the rock climbers on Monkey Face.


On our way back down to the river trail - look they're still happy after 2 hours of hiking!

Then Chris and Sam spend the afternoon golfing. Today is Sam's last day of summer - he starts school tomorrow. He has chosen to spend his day at the lake - even though it is 75 degrees. I'm trying to humor him and be happy about it.

Until tomorrow when four children will be at school and Jonas and I will have ourselves a quiet day at home and the fabric store and maybe out for lunch....