Christmas 2018

Here's a brief recap of our Christmas season both in Washington and in Utah.

 We used this picture for our Christmas card this year. Mom Lewis took it outside their back porch when we went to visit the PNW family for Isaac's baptism. Here's what we wrote on our cards. This year was filled with lots of exciting changes for our family. In January, we moved from Moscow, Idaho to the greater Seattle area. Austin started working for Puget Sound Energy in the Energy Efficiency department. He loves his job and his commute, a 30-minute bike ride along the beautiful Sammamish River trail. He’s already clocked over 1,500 miles! Our favorite change this year happened in June when Dallin Glen was born! He is a constant joy and we love watching him grow. We are especially grateful this time of year for the birth of Jesus Christ. He makes all things possible. We send our love to you. Merry Christmas! 

 Seth could not get enough of Dallin time. 

 Special time with Grandma Lewis

 We went to a community Church which had lights and music flashing in sync with each other. It started to pour (I mean, pour!) as soon as we got there. It made for a very eventful evening. 

 Austin spent two weeks working on this puzzle. Seth gave it to him as a thank you gift for helping out with their toilet over Thanksgiving. 

 Our little Frank Sinatra.

 Watching "The Dickens Carolers" perform at the library. Austin requested "O How a Rose Ere Blooming" which they did a lovely rendition. 

 Wanted to open aunt Emily and uncle Bronson's gift.

 Grandma Doutre's gift to him. Look at all those balls!

 Poor kid couldn't make past the 1 hour of Church from the late flight the night before. Looks like Grandpa Doutre couldn't either. :)

 Doing cousin and sibling gift exchanges.

 Really digging that book.

 Christmas Eve with my little man.

 Austin is the sweetest. He worked on this every time I went to mutual. I knew he was working on something but I had no idea what it was!

 We gave him some things for Christmas that we got for him before he was born like this bib. That's how we roll. 

 I mean seriously. All the heart eyes. 

 Christmas 2018!

 Before the nativity

 Hanging with Grandma Doutre

 Playing minute to win it games

 As always, got to have some Johns time! Thanks for letting us crash your whole day!

 Somebody was not happy that their mommy was holding another baby so she had to wiggle her way in the middle. :)

 On our flight home bright and early

We flew home on our 6th anniversary and we just took it really chill that day since we were so wiped out! We sure had so much fun though! 

Planning The Holidays Using the 5 Senses

My sis-in-law Becca introduced me and the Doutre women during our TOFDW (Time Out For Doutre Women) call on this podcast episode about creating a safe haven for your home using the 5 senses. I loved that concept and thought to apply it for the holidays this year. 

It culminated with getting an email workshop from Learn, Do, Become website (done by Power of Moms cofounder April) about making the holidays intentional. She was talking about how our memory is good about capturing moments and holding on to those-they come in forms of the 5 senses essentially. 

I may not remember everything that happened this year but I'll remember how my house smelt (whether that was through a burnt meal or apple pie out of the oven!) or through a peaceful moment with just looking at the Christmas tree and talking about life with Austin. I remember doing that last year (pic above). I was pregnant with Dallin and I got all teary-eyed thinking that a year from then we would have a 6 month old. It seemed surreal and sad that our time with just 'us two' was coming to a close. But it was so peaceful and calm and I want to always remember that moment. 

I'll also remember Christmas at my home with the smell and stickiness of caramel popcorn!

What I also like about creating my holiday through the 5 senses is that I don't have to stress about doing every little Christmas event/tradition and it feels very adaptable. A lot of things that I want to implement aren't 'events' but what feeling it will create. I know we'll mold traditions as it comes but hopefully this will get us a good start. It's a running list right now and I think we'll plan to do at least two from each group (one that Austin wants and one that I want) and then feel it out from there. And life happens so I'm not trying to stress if it's done 'right'. 

This year, I do want to read more about the Savior each night. We've had a pretty consistent pattern of reading as a family a few verses of scripture each night before Dallin goes to bed so I want to continue that habit and incorporate the Christmas story in there. Along with the New Testament, any other resources I should check out?

Here are some ideas we're thinking about for each of the 5 senses:

Taste

Make apple pie together

Drink hot chocolate

Candles at dinner or just have Christmas lights on during dinner

Smell

Scented pinecones 

Cranberries with cinnamon sticks on the stove top-simmering all day

Touch

Hugs and kisses after family prayers

Hold Dallin while we read books-try to do as many Christmas books as we can

Snuggle up with our favorite fleece blankets

Hear

Christmas music! 

Sing songs around the piano

Listen to A Christmas Carol on audiobook or the Mormon Channel

Sight

Less clutter in living room and bedroom-this is kind of like pre-holiday: try to get rid of a lot of things that are unnecessary and take up too much room

Go see Christmas lights in different neighborhoods and/or the zoo lights

Attend local Christmas concert/play or Messiah event

Watch Hallmark Christmas movies

Have a fire going and turn on Christmas lights as soon as it gets dark

If you were planning the holidays with the 5 senses in mind, what would you do? What are your favorite traditions?

Christmas 2017-3 months later

I realized I overlooked Christmas by quickly posting about Hawaii and never looked back-oops!

Here's a quick recap for memory sake.

We had planned to drive down to Oregon the Thursday before Christmas the week before that we got a call from Puget Sound Energy that they wanted a second interview with Austin. We were so thrilled and excited but the only day they could do it was Tuesday. I was already planning on having appointments, a piano recital, feeding the missionaries all right before we were originally planning to leave. But because of the unexpected called, we rearranged everything and had to drop some things in the process.

It's amazing when something is right, things can fall into place. We ended up leaving Monday before his interview. I rescheduled my doctor's appointment for Monday morning so Austin and I could leave right after that. That was amazing in itself that I could get something that quick when usually things don't open up for 2 weeks if that.

As I was in the waiting area of the doctor's office, my Dad sends me this text that says there has been a train that derailed southbound on I-5 south of Seattle. Unfortunately several people died from the crash and it caused major traffic on both sides of the freeway. It was getting me a little panicky thinking how we were going to make the trip to north Seattle the next day for his interview. One of my best friends lives in Puyallup so I made arrangements that we might just drive straight to her house instead of waiting till the morning to go. I wish we could have gone straight through I-90 which would have by passed all of that but the weather was terrible and I vowed never to drive our little Corolla in a snow storm again after what happened last year.

By the time we got to Gresham, it was close to 5PM and we were SO TIRED. It would be another 3 hours just to get to Puyallup. We decided to wait it out and brave the traffic in the morning as long as we got off to a real early start. Austin was connecting with Mark, his advisor, and he informed Austin that because of the accident, flights from Portland to Seattle were a lot cheaper. We jumped on that opportunity and Austin bought a round trip ticket for just that day. It was amazing how it worked out.

I think we anticipated looking at housing while we were up there just in case but I would have rather him gone on his own, had the interview, and be there on time for it, instead of trying to rush us to get there. And it all worked out because he got the job!

THEN we decided it might be good to look for housing. For a little while it was a bit stressful but it turned out to be a real blessing in the end. We love where we live and decent for the price and square footage compared to other complexes. 

Can we also talk about the blessing that Austin's commute in the car is about 15-20 mins, and if he bikes, it's about 30 minutes? Talk about golden. And he doesn't have to deal with I-405 traffic. Hallelujah. The people here are AMAZING. (I'll have to share about my first book club meeting-my gosh I should have taken notes. Talk about deep deep discussion. I was a little intimidated.) They are also the most friendly, welcoming people we've ever met.

Ok off that thought train. Back to Christmas. Caramel popcorn was in order because Dad couldn't help himself. We strategically did it while Mom was gone so she wouldn't have to deal with the mess. This caramel popcorn tradition has been going on for 40+ years and it will probably never die as long as Dad has a say in it. ;)

We went with Mom and Dad to Eugene to spend Christmas Eve with Seth's family. They had friends over for the 2nd annual music get together and it was a lot of fun. Thankfully I was familiar with all the Christmas hymns from playing in Church that I tried my best to accompany the cello player who did a really beautiful job.

Sunday was Christmas Eve which is a wonderful way to celebrate the season. It was nice to go to their Church and to be able to take the sacrament in remembrance of Jesus Christ and hear beautiful music from the choir that Tiffany conducted. Asher and Preston also got to do a musical number on their violins.

Because of the predicted bad weather, we ate a quick lunch and headed off to Vancouver where we were going to spend Christmas Eve at the Vances. But there was a point near Portland where all of sudden it got really icy and snowy on the roads. We inched our way towards Vancouver and ended up staying the night because it would have been treacherous trying to get up Mom and Dad's hill.

The Vances invited a couple of friends over for some appetizers, acting out the nativity, and singing carols. It was so much fun!

We woke up bright and early to see what Santa brought. Because all of our Christmas gifts were at Mom and Dad's we didn't open ours till later. But we loved seeing what the Vances got. They have a fun tradition where instead of having a big pile to open for themselves, they have a pile of the gifts they got for each other and so they have the fun of giving out their presents. 

The kiddos put together this fun puzzle to lead us to our present.

I was completely shocked that Ondalynn gave us their old piano! I about cried. (And Austin looks freakishly tired in this picture.)

We ended the day with going back to Mom and Dad's, opening gifts, and getting dinner ready for Seth's, Viv's, and Ondalynn's family. Lots of games and more gift exchanges after dinner and dessert.

These baby lit board books I was obviously super excited about-thanks Mom!

Cast iron skillet and dutch oven pan from the Doutre's. We are loving them!

Best present right here. This made me laugh so hard. Austin had been working on a present in our apartment and I had no idea what it was. Turns out it was this little board that he made. The hilarious thing about it is it's made from the board he bought for me 2 Christmases ago from Michaels hoping I would use it for a project. It was embarrassing that I didn't recognize that it was gone. And I love that he used "bear one another's burden" when the scripture has 'burdens'. So it's now a great inside joke that we can only bear one burden at a time. I sure love this guy! 

We ended the night playing games, eating food, and exchanging gifts. Christmas is a magical time of year!