Christmas Tree Hunting

Yesterday we drove out to the North Bend Ranger Station and picked up a permit to cut a tree in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. You follow their map, head out to exit 47 off of I-90, then along forest service roads to designed cutting areas. This felt like a first for everyone, so the excitement level was rather high. While waiting for Rich to come back with our take-away lunch from the George's Bakery in North Bend, the Santa train had simply driven by and our kids were already jazzed up by that sighting.

Anyways, we went out to the woods. It was a perfect day so we were far from alone out there. In addition to the flock of people looking for trees, we saw evidence from regular deer (?) hunters in the area. That was a chance to talk about hunting to the kids. But we were sticking to Christmas tree hunting!

It was truly stunning out there. I was thankfully busy taking this picture when Rich was experiencing a near-death driving experience with an oncoming driver who was not full of the Christmas spirit.

And the winner is! I think that the experience of it all really was the "winner".

Seattle Half Marathon Weekend

This past weekend, my brother Scott and his wife, Laurie, and family came down to visit. Rich and Scott ran the Seattle Half Marathon. The rest of us added to the the cheering section. Rich coming into the finish corral - 1:41!

Rich Lander and his biggest fan! She and her cousin made banners. Mina wrote "Go Dad Go" on hers! It was naturally decorated with butterflies and a pretty landscape.

A Family of Snow People

Yesterday i volunteered in Mina's classroom and helped make these fun snow-people for the students. The idea was so fun that we thought we'd make these at home!

Happy Decemeber

A couple of fun ways that we are warming up for the holidays...

Advent Calendar for the Family
We recently purchased a pretty wooden advent calendar at Target. I was looking for a non-candy way to fill it when a friend suggested these family activity envelopes. I LOVE this idea. We opened our first door tonight and found an envelope which read "family dance to christmas music". This was the perfect occasion to turn on my personal favourite holiday album, Motown Christmas. Too much fun. Miles has some serious dance moves that he's been hiding.

Elf on the Shelf
Another friend recommended this last year. Over Thanksgiving, a little red elf named Jack appeared at our house. He's been quietly spying on our crew ever since. This is a hit with the kids. This is the first thing they do when they wake up. I have woken up more than once now to Miles, face pressed into my sleeping face, saying "Where's Jack?".

Happy Thanksgiving (again!)

For the second time this year, we celebrated Thanksgiving. Mina has heard much about it at school so she was rather excited. We've been doing a lot of related crafts including these crowns which she made for each of us. Mina wanted to know if we would be having turkey and popcorn at dinner. For our low-key dinner, we had a carrot fennel soup and a cornucopia full of sauteed vegetables. For dessert we had homemade pumpkin ice cream. It was one of those mellow, largely unplanned days that rolled into a really sweet and memorable night.

At dinner we talked about gratitude and stated what we gave thanks for this year...

Miles -for food

Mina -"for all the people that i know and all the people that i don't know"

Annie -for our home and comfort

Richard -for the safety and recovery of my Uncle Howard

The recipe for the actual cornucopia came from a new household, Edible Art: Easy Cooking Art for Young Children. This book is rather fun and funky. So far we've made banana boats as well as number pretzels. Mina wants to make the whole book. Here are the other delights...

Giving thanks for each of you.

Beach Races aka Family Pictures 2008

Happy Halloween

We started the day with Mina's class party! Pappa and Miles came to join the fun. They had breakfast treats, played a number of games and acted out some fun Halloween poems. I helped with the "Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin".
Miles doing the pumpkin toss. He thinks that he's in kindergarten too.

Miles meeting the class witch.

Back at home, with our pumpkin collection. M&M drew several of the faces!

Our little bat getting ready to go out!

The bat and the dinosaur.

Miles out on the candy trail.

A cool pumpkin display in our neighbourhood. We aren't sure what that mark is on the top left of the picture. Spooky.

This year's favourite Halloween stories from school have been:

Jack Prelutsky’s “It’s Halloween” (a favourite of Mina's teacher)
Virginia Mueller’s “A Halloween Mask for Monster” (Mina can read this to Miles)
Kathi Appelt’s “Bat Jamboree”

HAPPY HALLOWEEN by Jack Prelultsky

It's late and we are sleepy,

The air is cold and still.

Our jack-o'-lantern grins at us

Upon the window sill.

We're stuffed with cake and candy

And we've had a lot of fun,

But now its time to go to bed

And dream of all we've done.

We'll dream of ghosts and goblins

And of witches that we've seen,

And we'll dream of trick-or-treating

On this happy Halloween.

Haunted House and Skeleton Dance

I've been looking for some good Halloween videos to share with the kids. I was happy to find these ones...

Disney's The Skeleton Dance
Disney's The Haunted House

Mr. Miles the Baker

Yesterday morning, Miles and i did some Halloween baking. He has a serious future in both baking and taste testing. We made bagels for Mina's class party as well as some Halloween-spiced sugar cookies. To decorate the pumpkins, we made Cynthia Lair's Yummy Yam Frosting and used some green sprinkles for the stem. If we eat up all the Halloween cookies and still have room, I was thinking of making some Skeleton Cookies for Day of the Dead.

Pumpkin Carving

Here we are starting to carve the pumpkin from Oxbow Farm. After we took out the guts, we took it up to a "Pumpkin and a Poem" Night at the school!