We’ve been going to White River on Mt. Hood for years. It’s a great place to take our sleds and get some really good rides. There’s plenty of room to spread out and many choices of hills for the brave and not-so-brave. You do have to watch out for the occasional goof ball with an inner tube that flies down the hill, out of control and at crazy speeds. Luckily, those people usually wipe out gloriously and leave early in the day!
The boys had a blast on this most recent trip with their new sleds. We also tried out our new snow shoes. Boy, those make the hike up to the slopes so much easier. Brian and I can’t wait to use them again on a more scenic day hike. We’ll probably try Trillium Lake next or maybe a bigger adventure near Bachelor.
As usual, White River made for amazing pictures. Enjoy!
For days after Christmas, the Windheim’s build Legos. This is the first year that mom hasn’t had to help at all…kinda makes me sad. Â Thank goodness Santa gave me my own little race car set so I could join in the fun.
Now to the point…
Brian experimented with my camera and some time-lapsed photography software to create a video of this year’s Lego projects. Take a look.
Wow. We had such a great Christmas this year. The kids were amazing.  They each, on their own, made gifts for the whole family and asked for special shopping trips to purchase small gifts for each other with their own money. They were so proud of their gifts and really got into the spirt of giving rather than just receiving 🙂 That made Christmas morning extra sweet.
And, then, there was the comedy. After each gift was opened, no matter who it was for or who it was from, Joe gave the receiver a hug and warmly said, “That was my idea.” It got to be really, really funny!
And, the pets had their memorable moments. Otto never let his new toy leave his side, and Smokey never left the tree. He will be so sad when we take it down.
My favorite gift to give this year was snow shoes and poles for the entire family. We’ve been talking about trying it for years, and now we’ll really do it! I think it really surprised Brian…which I absolutely loved 🙂
I’ve posted all of my fun photos from the family Christmas Eve brunch and from Christmas Day on my photo site. Hopefully, I captured a small fraction of the joy we felt this Christmas.
I had a lot of fun creating this year’s Christmas card. I was inspired by an old Norman Rockwell print called “Tired of Waiting.”  I showed the kids the print and they played the part of the sleeping kids beautifully!  Otto, our mini-Schnauzer, got into the shot, too, though he wasn’t good at pretending to sleep 🙂
I upped the ISO to avoid flash and made sure to get plenty of natural light on the boys’ faces from the window. Then, I antiqued the coloring to make it look old. Â I love photography.
Brian and I have created a pretty impressive Christmas music collection over the years. Â We have classics like Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and I’d even put Harry Connick Jr in that category.
More modern favorites are Bare-naked Ladies (that one rocks) and Sarah Mclachlan (beautiful). Â My absolute favorite is their combo song, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I listen to that one over and over and over.
This year I added some indie chick songs with the Hotel Cafe collection. It features Lenka, Sara Bareilles, Colbie Cailat, K.T. Tunstall, etc. Â It has a few duds (Katy Perry and Fiona Apple) but overall it’s given me some fresh tunes.
And, I just downloaded the Last Christmas song by the Glee cast.  That song puts me back into the pre-teens when Wham! released it.  I can still clearly imagine the video that MTV ran over, and over, and over.  The Glee cast nailed it and took it up a notch. Sorry George Michael 🙂
Oh, and Brian got the Heat Miser song remade by the Big Bad Voodoo Daddies. It’s great. Don’t even tell me you don’t remember that song from the animated classic The Year without a Santa Claus. That’s by far my favorite of all those old movies.
What are your favorites? I’d hate to be missing any gems out there!
I can’t believe that the Bunco Babes are going into our 4th year of getting together. We have such a good time. So good of a time that we hardly actually play the game anymore.
Got one more Christmas “to do” checked off my list. The Christmas candy is done, done, done. I made candied pretzels, dark chocolate-mint fudge, chocolate peanut butter balls and bourbon balls. Yum! The kids and Brian were awfully excited when they saw all of it. I had to start slapping hands ’cause they just couldn’t stop munching 🙂
I’m am cracking up! I suggested, half joking, that the boys try my Jillian Michael’s DVD to help build some muscles. Well, they are now on Day 4 of the 30-Day Shred. After their workout last night, we arm wrestled. It’s getting tougher (especially with my left arm), but I can still beat all of them. I should probably record it, ’cause you know it ain’t going to last for long!
This was a fun little project. Pretty easy, and not as messy as the old peanut butter methods…which I found out is actually not good for the birds. They can get it stuck in their beaks! Â My instructions are now on eHow.
