Visitors from the East (of California)

Our home was filled with happiness the day Gram-Z and Papa arrived! The anticipation mounted as we prepared our house for our special guests...a poster from Caleb saying "Merry Christmas to All!", fresh sheets and the heart pillow on their bed, treats on the nightstands, groceries in the fridge, and presents wrapped. Even Andrew couldn't go to bed without hugs and kisses from Gram-Z and Papa. Highlights of our visit with them include:

• attending church together and having them there to hear Brad's talk about "the true story of Christmas"
• going to the temple to see the lights and the Angela Johnson sculptures--they are beautiful.
• Drinking our favorite Stephens hot cocoa which was hand-carried-special-delivery- with-love from Gram-Z
• Going to the library to visit Papa and check out some new books to last through the rest of the break
• Visiting the "dancing lights" for Family Home Evening and cranking up the music
• Lots of walks and trips to the park with Gram-Z

• Making Gingerbread houses with Gram-Z

• Watching Andrew make (or should I say, eat) his first Gingerbread house

• Celebrating Gram-Z's birthday and the Prophet Joseph's birthday with special sugar cube candles that lit up the room!

• Christmas Eve Nativity pageant--what good sports they were to take direction from the narrator as well as the other actors!


• Sharing testimonies and gifts to the Savior
• Delighting in being together for the excitement of Christmas Morning
• Andrew walking to Papa on Christmas night

• Andrew latching on to his buddy, Papa, from day one--every time he'd see Papa it was like "long time, no see!" and he'd crawl over to him quickly (like a puppy dog) and kiss his leg with an open-mouthed kiss.
• Cheering on Gram-Z as she raced her cow to the barn (Wii game)

• Having a magical fairy in our house who took out the trash, washed the dishes, did the laundry, etc., when nobody was looking!
• Visits to Uncle John and Aunt Becky and Uncle Tad
• Late-night chats, and always learning from the words and actions of two very wise and wonderful people
• Watching the mutual love and affection grow between everyone as we had special little happy moments together.

Christmas Miracles

"It's a Christmas miracle!" This became a catch-phrase around our house this season. Whether it was finding the *LAST* one in town of our MUST-HAVE Christmas gift, or finding out a car repair was not going to cost even 1/8th of what we thought, we started saying this to each other whenever something really great happened. However, as I've been thinking back about some of our little "Christmas miracles" this year, most of them have to do with our health:

• Andrew's trip to the ER at 2am turned out to be only an ear infection
• Caleb's swollen blister/wound wasn't a black widow bite or something worse
• Lauren's painful sore throat wasn't strep throat
• Mom didn't have a kidney infection
• Brad didn't get sick AT ALL!

Wow. We sound like a bunch of hypochondriacs, don't we? It has been a bit of an infirmary around here, but we are grateful none of our ailments were worse! Thanks to grandparents who were there to help when we had to take kids to the doctor and when mom wasn't feeling 100 percent. The best part of being sick is feeling better again (obviously). I guess what I'm saying is that I appreciate my good health even more after being sick and that antibiotics are one of the best "Christmas Miracles" of all.

All I Want for Christmas...

is my two front teeth!

Caleb was so excited to sing this song at Christmas this year. He lost his first tooth on Monday, December 8th while eating breakfast. He told his class all about it during Sharing, and even wrote in his journal about all the "commotion" (as he put it) Mom and Dad caused when all three of us were trying to be brave enough to pull it out the night before.

The other tooth was so loose we were sure it would fall out any day. He really hoped he would lose it before Christmas so he could officially sing that song. It didn't fall out until the 27th, but we were so excited when he pulled it out of his mouth after eating an apple at Sweet Tomatoes. Talk about "commotion"! Gram-Z was snapping pictures, I was squealing, Caleb was running around the table showing everyone...it was great.

Decker the Halls

Grandma and Grandpa Decker left snowy, wintery Texas (after a 3-hr-plus de-icing debacle on the airport runway) to come spread Christmas cheer in California. They jumped right into the Christmas chaos and ran errands, snuggled babies, and played with preschoolers, so that two grateful mommies could get some last-minute Christmas shopping and organizing done. (How could we have done that without you?!) Some highlights of their visit were:

• bonding time with Andrew, showing off his tricks
• the "First Gift of Christmas!" (as Caleb called it): "Mimi's and Movies" Basket
• Making hundreds of Christmas pretzel kisses with lots of helpers to make it go quickly
• Highlight for the kids: Super Franks and sleepover with G&G
• Highlight for Mom & Dad: Christmas party and a night at the Hyatt Hotel--sleeping in and gingerbread pancakes--heaven!

• Celebrating Grandpa's birthday--chocolaty-chocolate cake and no matches to light the candles (oops!)

• Turkey dinner on Sunday (while the babies napped--woohoo) with cousins and G&G

• Christmas FHE by G&G--retelling the Christmas story with visual aids and lots of helpers
• Caleb's cute enthusiastic performance at his school Christmas sing-a-long (video taped by Grandpa in case mom missed anything while wrestling a very active one-year-old)

• Pedicures with the girls on Natalie's birthday

• Discovering computer-animated lights and Santa's sleigh in a nearby neighborhood

• Visiting Santa, who, even though Caleb did not know what he wanted for Christmas, told him, "No problem, just send me a letter or write me an email."

• Saturday morning "Christmas" breakfast with cousins and G&G--enjoying "down time" in our pj's while the kids played
• Watching our kids and their grandparents together--so much love!

The Best Part of Christmas

Every year at Caleb's school they host a little Holiday shop, where the kids can bring their money and do all their Christmas shopping. Someone is there to help them, and they they even wrap all the kids' presents. Caleb always looks forward to this. According to the flyer, gifts range from about $1-$7, so we budgeted $3 a person, for a total of $24 for the eight people on his list. He was going to use his own money, but Brad and I offered to pay half of whatever he spent. Imagine my suprise when he comes running over to me after shopping (just beaming) and says, "Mom, I got all my presents for $7.75! And I even got one extra!" Wow. He managed to spend less than $1 a person! Cute guy was so proud of himself, I didn't even dare ask what he'd bought.

So, we've been trying to emphasize that the best part about Christmas is giving, and we were talking about it again last night. Caleb pipes up, "I used to think the best part about Christmas is GETTING, but now I think it's buying all your presents for not very much money!" There might be some truth to that, but I think we'll continue our discussions...

Thankful

Today I found out one of our beloved Apostles, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin passed away. My heart goes out to his family, specifically to my dear friend who is his granddaughter.

I took some time today to look through some of Elder Wirthlin's talks--I remembered hearing him speaking about Gratitude. He always spoke from the heart and always included a bit of humor. I came across this great Ensign article, that happened to be EXACTLY what I needed to read today. He quotes Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote, “The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.” I think I might have done just that. But he says, "Those who live in thanksgiving daily, however, are usually among the world’s happiest people. And they make others happy as well."

He continues...

"As we strive to open our eyes, hearts, and arms, our step will become a little lighter, our smile will become a little brighter, and the darkness that sometimes broods over our lives will become a little lighter. Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been an especially grateful person...Every day is a new canvas—a new opportunity."

This is my inspiration and challenge to myself: to "live in thanksgiving daily".

Thank you, Elder Wirthlin, for your life and legacy.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in many years, we went away for Thanksgiving. It was fun to visit family and spend lots of Q.T. together. There were so many things I was grateful for about this trip:

• that it only took us 10 hours to drive to Southern CA. With the freeway shut down in both directions, it could have been much worse (I think!)

• that I didn't have any pressure to cook the Turkey dinner for a crowd. Dad's fried turkey was delicious, his famous stuffing was better than ever--the whole meal was perfection.

• that Dad's house itself provided more entertainment than my kids could ever dream of: movies, video games, computers, board games, barbies, baseball, scooters...and a DOG!

• that Ashlee was there. Oh yea, I was glad Phil was there too! :) I loved getting to know Ashlee better and loved having Phil and Ashlee there to play with the kids and to be on Andrew-patrol. I'm certain they burned off any extra Thanksgiving calories chasing Andrew up and down the stairs and all around the house!

• that we were all healthy. We've had many holidays where at least one of our family members gets sick. Although Brad had lost his voice at an event the week before, he claimed he felt great. And is there anything worse than traveling with sick kids? We were glad that we avoided that. Whew.

• that Caleb and Blake hit it off so well. They were inseparable, two peas in a pod, attached at the hip, etc, etc. It was really sweet to watch their friendship grow.

• that Katy was so sweet to Lauren. Even though Lauren is a bit younger, Katy played so kindly and Lauren just adored her. She shared absolutely everything without hesitation and Lauren loved being with her.

• that Spencer made us all feel so welcome. He is so helpful, smart, courteous, and well-mannered--he almost seemed like one of the grown-ups.

• that Julie shared her treasures with us. How lucky are we that she has such beautiful taste, and that she was cleaning out her closet?

• that Dad made sure we all had fun. As he always says, "stick with me!" Dad knows how to plan for maximum fun, relaxation, and overall enjoyment. From tide pools to movie nights, everyone had a great time.

Trunk or Treat!

Halloween 2008 was all about the Trunk or Treating. The Saturday before Halloween, we went to the Stake Carnival and Trunk or Treat. However, by the time we had Carnivaled (our second carnival in two days), Brad and I didn't have the energy to stay around to Trunk or Treat, especially knowing we were going to do another Trunk or Treat in less than a week. We didn't think to fill the kids in on our plan until we were on the way out of the church parking lot and they started asking when we were going to trunk-or-treat. OOPS! Luckily, they were appeased by the thought of eating their cupcakes they had won at the cakewalk that night when we got home--whew! What good sports!
Trying to get a cousins shot...hmmm
Lauren comforting a very tired little lion
Lauren and Whitney at the cake walk. When Lauren won, Whitney hugged her so tight and exclaimed, "I'm so proud of you! I knew you could do it!"

The following week was filled with school Halloween party prep, carving pumpkins (2 out of the 5--not our best year for carving!) and anticipation. On Halloween night I caught a few "glazed"-over eyes as we were having dinner and getting ready to go--it had been a long day! The kids had been in their costumes all day for school parties and parades. But they were totally energized when we got to the church for the Ward Trunk-or-Treat. Brad turned on the spooky sounds CD, put up spider webs, and Caleb was off to find his friends. Lauren and I took Andrew on one lap around to all the cars, and then they were both happy to sit in the trunk with Dad and pass out candy. Enjoy a few pictures of the night...




Andrew with another little lion friend

Halloween Parties

Before time slips away, I have to quickly recap our Halloween day of fun. We were so glad Daddy was home all day--we (especially mommy) needed his help that day. The kids got in their costumes bright and early before school and we had to divide and conquer because Caleb's parade started at 9am and Lauren's started at 9:30am. Brad took Lauren to school and saved us seats for her preschool performance. I went to the elementary school, hoping the rain would hold off a little while and that his parade wouldn't drag on all morning so I could see Lauren's parade too. It worked out just as I'd hoped. Caleb's class finished their lap around the blacktop just in time for me to rush over to see Lauren's parade about to start. Here are a few pictures of their parades...



After parading into the church, Lauren's class did an adorable little performance of Halloween songs: A Round Little Pumpkin, Owls in a Tree, 5 Little Pumpkins, 3 Black Cats. There is nothing more fun on Halloween than watching them sing in their cute costumes. She was so sweet and loved every minute. After the performance, Lauren gave us some cookies she had made.


The mid-morning was spent gathering items for Caleb's Halloween party and recruiting Brad to help with all the last-minute prep. I went over to the classroom to set up at noon and before I knew it the kids were back from lunch and the Monster Mash party had started! We played some fun Monster games and made glow-in-the-dark Monster Rocks, and of course had a Monster Mash freeze dance and Halloween goodies. It was such a treat to get to be in the class and get to know his friends better. I love getting a glimpse of what my kids are doing while we're apart during schooltime since I don't get to see that very often.

Pumpkin Patch

We came, we saw, we hunted...and we finally found the perfect pumpkins! We decided that Columbus Day is a great day for our family to go to the Pumpkin Patch. Brad is off of work, it's on Monday (ready-made FHE Activity), there aren't many crowds, it's right around Andrew's birthday, and we still have plenty of time before Halloween. Sounds like enough reasons to make it a tradition. I guess we'll see...

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the day:

Andrew loved riding in the wagon more than his stroller.
Where do we start?
Lauren liked riding too
Caleb preferred to pull the wagon
"This one's a good one, Caleb!"
Lauren has really grown since last year!
No matter how much I tell him to stop, he just keeps growing.
I'm so big, too!