Day 365: New Year's Eve Wedding

What a delightful way to end the year, at the beautiful, moving and heart-warming wedding of our friends, Colin and Barb. And I did it! 365 days, 365 photos! I am completely addicted and don't think I can stop - there will be 366 photos in 2012!

Day 364: New bikes

The plan had been for Johnny to get a new bike this Christmas and for Daniel to inherit his old one BUT since Johnny's bike was stolen a few weeks ago, both boys are now proud owners of new wheels.

Day 363: Whaleship Road

Our visit with David's brother and his family over all too soon, we left early this morning to return to Portland. At the entrance to Pete and Nan's road sits this abandoned ship which must have washed ashore a long time ago. I had time to take a picture of it, since Noah realized about thirty seconds into our thirteen hour journey that he had left his stuffed toy lion back at the house, and Johnny ran back to retrieve it.

Day 362: And more beach fun...

What a wonderful way to spend these days after Christmas! Another day, another beach...

Day 361: Fun at the beach

There is almost nothing my children like better than outrunning the ocean waves and being with their cousins - today they could do both as we visited with Pete, Nan and Max at their beautiful home on the beach.

Day 360: California sunset

After a perfect Christmas Day, we left bright and early for a twelve and a half hour road trip to Bodega Bay, California.

Day 359: The most longed for gift this year

Wow! What a lovely Christmas day! And amidst a lot of wonderful and well-chosen gifts, Harry was unquestionably the most adorable and beloved.

Day 358: Christmas treats for the neighbors

Johnny and I have been talking about how much we love all our family traditions in December. Here is the Christmas Eve tradition: baking treats for the neighbors in the morning and delivering them in the afternoon.

Day 357: Smores around the campfire

What better way to spend Christmas Eve Eve than hanging out with our wonderful neighbors, playing flashlight tag and toasting marshmallows?

Day 356: Gingerbread houses

Today was our annual gingerbread house building afternoon. Noah and I constructed and decorated the house on the left, Anna's is the rainbow roofed house on the right. Daniel's building was styled after a Chinese pagoda and Johnny's won the prize for the most candy-loaded structure. Great fun...

Day 355: Hermione

Oh my goodness! How are we going to be able to give this adorable girl back? We do love little Harry but his sister is pretty perfect too...

Day 354: Christmas baking

Today we threw the second of three parties we are hosting within a week! I cleaned the house this afternoon while Johnny, Anna and Noah did some festive baking and Daniel made beautiful paper snowflakes for the windows. No sign of real snow unfortunately!

Day 353: Visiting Santa

Today is my birthday! When I was a child, I really disliked having a birthday so close to Christmas, but now that I am grown up, I LOVE it. It has become a birthday tradition for our family to celebrate my birthday by going into downtown Portland and doing Christmassy activities. We visit Santa at the mall and the huge tree in Pioneer Courthouse Square and savor the festive atmosphere. This year, we finished the day by getting Voodoo Doughnuts (yum!) and enjoying the beautiful lights of Peacock Lane. A perfect birthday with my family!

Day 352: Christmas Pageant

What a Christmassy day! Christmas Pageant, Wrapping Party for the church's Giving Tree, carol singing and the last few gifts ordered online. I was directing the pageant so my friend Anne Marie borrowed my camera and took fabulous pictures - I wish I could post dozens of them here, but that would break the two basic rules of this blog. Fortunately I picked up the camera while Johnny was rehearsing his part as the Angel Gabriel...

Day 351: We three kings

Today was a very busy, fun-packed day. Right at noon, we went to Daniel and Anna's piano teacher's house for a Christmas Showcase, during which the kids got to play the carols they have been practicing. David took wonderful pictures of Anna and her friend Tristan playing a duet. This is the one I took, from not such a great angle, of Daniel and Anna performing their duet, and one of our family's favorite carols, "We Three Kings".

Day 350: Food Drive

I spent most of the day in our school cafeteria, enjoying first and second grade reports on bats in the morning, and then helping set up and supervise the school's food drive for needy families in the afternoon and early evening.

Day 349: Harry and Hermione

There is a real risk that this blog could be hijacked by kittens! Harry joined our family today and brought his sister Hermione to stay for a week. We are all aware that there is a high likelihood that we will find it difficult to say goodbye to Hermione when the week is up. We will certainly enjoy the antics of these two tiny ones for the next few days!

Day 348: When Anna met Harry...

Christmas arrived early to our house this evening when the newest member of our family came for a preliminary visit. Harry the kitten will move in with us tomorrow. A kitten was the only item on Anna's Christmas list...

Day 347: Front door

I have always liked our front door but I especially like it with a Christmas wreath on it.

Day 346: Applesauce-cinnamon Christmas ornaments

Daniel's teacher asked me if I would come up with a Christmas craft for her 4th/5th grade class so I made applesauce-cinnamon dough and took it into school today. The kids cut them out and I took them home and baked them. The house smells Christmassy and the ornaments will look terrific hanging on Christmas trees!

Day 345: Service Project

My wonderful Middle School youth group's December service project was to put together these "Friendship Packs": ziplock bags filled with a hand and toe warmer, gloves, socks, granola bar, vitamin c sachets, chapstick, hand sanitizer and kleenex. The idea is that members of our church will take them to have in their cars or bags over the Christmas season to hand out to people they see in need, particularly the homeless or the people we see asking for money on exit ramps and street corners. The kids did a great job, making up 37 bags which were all taken after church today. It is exciting to imagine them bringing a little comfort over the next few weeks to people who really need it.

Day 344: Off to the ballet...

Another annual Christmas treat, Anna and her daddy went into downtown Portland together this afternoon to watch "The Nutcracker".

Day 343: Christmas Program

Here is Noah and his preschool class performing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". The red dots on their noses are really flashing! Noah did especially well since he spent four and half hours in the morning at the hospital, bravely enduring a three hour long blood test to establish his growth hormone levels.

Day 342: Zoolights

This is one of the December events the kids look forward to all year: a trip to the zoo after dark and a ride on the steam train to see the amazing light display.

Day 341: Picking out a Christmas tree

This annual family adventure is one of our favorite days of the year. We drive out to a beautiful tree farm and wander for an hour or so among the trees, trying to decide which one is perfect for our home. Then Johnny and Daniel take turns with the saw, the tree is felled and we carry it back to the car. Tomorrow I need to find the Christmas ornaments!

Day 340: Decorating cookies

Noah and I had a lovely playdate with Noah's buddy Greg, the highlight of which was making gingerbread cookies and decorating them.

Day 339: Alleluia

This gorgeous Nativity set was a gift from my wonderful mother-in-law many years ago. I absolutely love it and am always thrilled to unpack it and set it up each year.

Day 338: Christmas lights

Our house looks so pretty! I love Christmas lights...

Day 337: Chess tournament

Johnny and Daniel had a great morning playing chess against many different opponents at a practice tournament today. The real tournament is in a few months' time. It was very exciting to see a whole gymnasium full of kids playing chess first thing on a Saturday!

Day 336: Nativity Scene

We have three beautiful Nativity sets that will decorate our home this Advent and Christmas season. I am sure the other two will eventually feature on this blog, but this is the one the kids can actually play with.

Day 335: December books

Oh my, December has arrived! I love this month, but I can hardly believe it is here already. We have many family traditions for December and one of them is this box of books that is pulled out on December 1st to be read throughout the month. All our Christmas books are here and we were all incredibly excited to see them today after eleven months in my closet.