Christmas 2012

I figured I better finish up our Christmas posts now that we're three weeks into January.  We thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas season and stayed pretty busy with all the fun.  Our ward went all out with a Polar Express themed Christmas activity, even including a moving cardboard locomotive, complete with steam puffing out the smokestack.  Everyone came in their pajamas, too.  Santa made an appearance and even though the boys spent their entire time in line memorizing what they would say to Santa, only Grant could bring himself to offer a quick, sideways glance at Santa once seated on his lap.  Tate kept his eyes safely diverted to some point on the floor and Luke lasted long enough to snap a quick picture.  How come some of the most exciting childhood experiences are also the scariest? 

 We were hoping to have the Kimballs join us for the weekend before Christmas, but sickness and bad weather prevented any visitors from coming.  We still had fun as a family and continued with some family traditions.  On Christmas Eve night we had a little family nativity with the boys and I dressing up like shepherds and Ryan as the angel who delivers a message to us.  We then went to find the previously set up nativity in another room (basically a baby doll in a box with some toy animals around).  Apparently Luke had snuck in the room while the angel was delivering his message because we found all the animals thrown around the room and baby Jesus tipped out of the manger.  After putting everything back together we all had a chance to bear our testimony of Jesus.  Then we continued with the Nickerson tradition of bundling up to head outside for a star walk.  It was freezing cold, but fun to pretend to look for a new star.

When we got back home, the kids got cozy in their new Christmas PJ's and we enjoyed some hot cocoa before sending the little ones off to bed.

 

 The boys were very excited on Christmas morning but actually did not come and get us out of bed until 7:00am.  We had emphasized the night before that they had to stay in their room until then and, surprisingly enough, they listened.  We all had a fun time opening presents and getting treats in the stockings.  Even I had a surprise or two (a swanky, red necklace), thanks to my awesome hubby.

Poor Luke had been sick and had quite a sore bum Christmas morning.  He took about 20 minutes until he had calmed down and was ready to enjoy the presents.  He must have filled his diaper early in the morning and then gone back to sleep, because his little bum was quite raw!   That's got to be a pretty hard way to start your Christmas, no matter how old you are.

 The boys were very excited that we finally got a gaming system.  Ryan and I felt even more in tune with the 21st century when my brothers gave us a 6 month membership to Netflix.  We are living the high-tech life now!

 Luke's two most favorite gifts: his huge puppy and a stuffed animal that was sold as a reindeer but that Ryan assures me is definitely a moose because it has palmate antlers; a long, skinny, one-colored body; and a rounded muzzle (all traits that a moose enjoys and a reindeer lacks).  Grant had picked out the reindeer/moose for Luke from the dollar section at Target and it has become Luke's new sleeping buddy.  After much debate, Ryan now refers to it as "the moose formerly known as reindeer" or "the moose that once masqueraded as a reindeer" or "the mislabeled moose" or, when pressed, "the reindeer that looks exactly like a moose and nothing like a reindeer".   It's also fun to see that Luke tackles the giant puppy and rolls around in its fur about 20 times a day so we know we picked a good gift.

 The boys have really enjoyed all their Lego gifts this Christmas, and I have enjoyed the extended quiet play time they have brought.  If I ever notice that things seem too quiet in the house, I usually find the two of them kneeling on the ground, surrounded by Legos, building away.  I'm just glad there is something they like to do together that somehow results in less fighting than usual.  And it's fun to see that they build some very clever things- usually planes, boats, or cars for their little character people.

 

Ryan's boss was awesome and gave all the docs a new Traegar grill for Christmas so for Christmas dinner we let the Traegar do the work.  The turkey turned out delicious!  Possibly the juiciest turkey we have ever had!

The recipe is really simple. Just rinse and dry the turkey with paper towels inside and out. Salt and pepper the inside body cavity of the turkey then fill the body cavity with celery, baby carrots, garlic cloves, rosemary sprigs, and a lemon cut into quarters (Ryan squeezes the juice out of each lemon quarter with his fist as he puts it into the turkey). Then rub the outside with olive oil and salt and pepper the outside.  Cook at 325 F until the temp of the deepest part of the thigh is 165 F (~4 hours).  After removing the turkey let it sit for at least 15 minutes before carving it.  

It has been the best recipe we've used in an oven and it was made even better by smoking/cooking it in the Traeger grill at 325 F with Maple wood pellets.  The turkey was so moist that the breast literally gushed liquid as Ryan carved it. Delicious!!

Getting in the Christmas spirit

This December was the first in our marriage where we stayed put and did not visit family.  We had plans of seeing some of the closer relatives, but with sickness and work schedules, that wasn't able to happen.  Knowing that we would be "alone" for the Christmas season, I tried to plan ahead and make sure we had many fun things to do to help make the season merry and bright.

We gave our wall hanging some functionality and turned it into an advent calendar, with a little pocket for each day.  I wrote a Christmas related activity on a paper in each pocket and each morning the boys took turns pulling out that day's activity and seeing what was on the agenda for that day.  Some of the activities included: watch a Christmas movie, make treats and bring to neighbors, make a Christmas crafts, drink hot cocoa and sing Christmas songs, do 5 nice things for someone else, etc.  The boys loved it, even though every morning started with a mini fight because each was positive the other had pulled out the paper yesterday and today it was their turn.  Then I would remind them that Grant had the odd days and Tate had the even days.  After another 30 seconds of fighting, they would agree with whose turn it was and read the paper.  Next year Luke will be in the mix so that will be even more fun!

 Thanks to Steph and Gregg's gift (from the Wood family gift rotation), we caught up to the rest of the world and had an "Elf on the Shelf" this December.  After a few days of deliberation, we named our elf Hermey, after the blonde elf on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer who wants to be a dentist (a very wise career choice in Ryan's estimation).  His nickname, given by Luke, is Dee because each day when the boys discovered where Hermey was hiding, they would point him out to Luke who would smile excitedly, point his chubby little finger at the elf and exclaim "Dee!!".  A few of the best places  we found Hermey/Dee are as follows: riding the ugly yellow donkey we won from the Wood family white elephant gift exchange, standing sentinel in the kitchen while holding the boys' toy cutlass, planking on the ceiling fan in our bedroom, peeking out of the boy's box of costumes in their closet, and chilling in Grant's candy bag from Halloween (yes he still has some Halloween candy) with only the tip of his hat visible poking out of the bag.

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The boys assisted in the Christmas decorating and trimmed the tree.  We considered updating our $10, five and a half-foot tree that we have used the past 8 years, but decided next year would be the year to do that.  I knew our decision was a good one after I  had picked the tree up and repositioned it for the second time due to Luke's love of tackling it to the floor.  After the third time I stopped rearranging the ornaments and garland and let it embrace it's increasingly disheveled Charlie Brown look.  We all loved our tree this year but Luke loved it best of all.

 Much to Ryan's dismay, there was not much time for long winter naps.  Although sometimes these things are unavoidable, especially when you're sitting down in a comfy chair preparing your church lesson.

It wouldn't be Christmas in a Nickerson/Wood household without an abundance of goodies being made and consumed. I'm actually not sure what Luke was eating in this picture, but it looks like cake fragments and his smile is so cute it had to be included.

The boys helped decorate this cake for us to eat on Christmas Eve and it was delicious!

I decided to make a more permanent addition to our decorations this year and made Christmas stockings.  This was quite a decision for me to make considering that I never actually finished the only two sewing projects I had attempted in the previous 7 years of owning a sewing machine.  I found a great tutorial online and went to work.  After one night of battling the urge to throw my sewing machine into the street and light it on fire, I finally figured out how to get it working and finished the project relatively quickly.  This project has kindled a small desire in my heart for more crafting, but only time will tell if Ryan's greatest fear will be realized and I start acquiring boxes full of fabric that I simultaneously never use and refuse to get rid of.

Doesn't Tate come home from preschool with the cutest things?  He made a "ginger bread" nativity scene, complete with marshmallow sheep and gumdrop baby Jesus.  I made him wait to eat this until Ryan could come home and see it, at which point Ryan praised Tate's work and then claimed the Milky Way donkey as his own.  And, yes, that is Luke's hand probing for anything he can grab and pull down into his lair under the table.

 One of our advent activities was to make "gingerbread" houses for FHE.  After all these candy house building activities, I'm beginning to realize that the main excitement for the kids comes from the possibility of eating unlimited amounts of candy, and not in the building and decorating of the houses.  Next year I think I might just lay out graham crackers, frosting and candy and tell everyone to eat until they are full and then call it a night.

 They do make for good photo ops though!

 We enjoyed going to see Grant perform at his school's "Winter Program" (apparently it's offensive to say the word "Christmas" at Christmas time).  He was so handsome dressed up in his Christmas church outfit my mom sent.  It was fun seeing him on the stage singing along and looking awesome.

 We found the least crowded post office here in Yakima (it's actually inside a grocery store), and sent out our packages early in December.  I think Luke wanted to make a trip to see his grandparents :)  Hopefully we can be with them for Christmas next year!

A Very Wood Family Thanksgiving

This year Ryan's family decided to get together in Gooding, ID, for Thanksgiving and the above photo is most, but not all, of the gaggle of children that resulted.  They had a blast running around together, jumping on the trampoline, and filling their lungs with crisp Southern Idaho air! 

 No Wood Family Thanksgiving would be complete without spending Thanksgiving morning splitting wood so that's exactly what the guys did.  The grownups did most of the work but the boys stopped throwing dirt clods at each other long enough to take a couple of swings.  Here is Ryan giving Grant his first lesson on the finer points of wood splitting. 

 

 Tate wanted to give wood splitting a try as well.  After swinging the maul a few times each, the boys helped gather up the wood and throw it into the back of the pickups.  Then they went back to chasing each other with dirt clods.  Ah, to be a child again!

 Then, of course, they went and dropped off two truck loads of split wood at the home of a single older lady.  When they arrived the lady was floored with gratitude.  She had eaten her breakfast that morning in a 56 degree kitchen without starting a fire because she knew she probably didn't have enough wood to get through the winter.  Needless to say, she was very happy to see us and was near tears with gratitude.  Later Ryan talked to the boys about service.  They understood the significance of what they had done about as well as a 5 and 3 year old are capable of but I hope that experiences like this make them into men who understand that helping those that are weak is part of what makes them strong.

 The kids all spent several hours per day on the trampoline jumping, chasing, and tackling each other.  Luckily, one of Ryan's greatest fears was not realized because no teeth were knocked out in the ensuing melee. (This photo was clearly taken during a lull in the violence.)

 Here's Grant on a tire swing that is hung in a huge willow tree in front of Glade's (Ryan's brother) house. 

 And what Fall get-together would be complete without a leaf pile to jump in?  Ryan's brothers and Tate raked all the leaves into a pile and the kids had a great time jumping in them and being buried. 

 Cousin bonding time on the sled. It was awesome to see what a great time they all had with each other.

 And this is the alarming result when No-Shave November and a sweet case of bed-head collide.  Epic!

It's even better in profile with Ryan jutting his chin out to look like a disgruntled Neanderthal. To the chagrin of some and the delight of others, Ryan shaved his beard off after Thanksgiving. 

Fall Fun

I know, fall is over at this point of the year, but I still have to post some of our fun fall activities.  Tate came home from preschool last month with a cute, leaf-stamped "thank you" card for his daddy and a turkey made from an apple and candy (which I had to talk him out of eating long enough to take a picture of his work).  The "thank you" card read, "Dad, Thank you for letting me play games.  Thanks for letting me play soccer with you!  Thank you for letting me play on the computer.  I like when you and mommy tickle me! (heart) Tate"  

We actually had quite a bit of fall/Thanksgiving decorations made by the kids this year.  Behind Tate's head you can see the bottom of our Thankful Tree we had on our wall throughout the month of November.  Each leaf had something that we were thankful for written on it (Legos, mommy's cooking, the free market economy, etc).  Tate liked to sneak extra leaves on the trunk of the tree when we weren't around to help him get them on the branches.

Grant's kindergarten class went on their first field trip of the year to a pumpkin patch.  Tate and I tagged along and had a fun morning with them.  There were all the fun activities that make a pumpkin patch awesome: hayride, corn maze, hay maze, farm animals, big slide and, of course, they each got to pick out their very own pumpkin.

 

Grant and Tate ran around most of the time with Grant's best bud at school, Jared (they kind of look alike).

 Isn't Buddy (Grant) such a cute boy?

 All of the pumpkins were pretty small, but Tate picked out the biggest of the small pumpkins and carried it all by himself.

Another fall activity enjoyed by all was the continuous consumption of Halloween candy.  Grant agreed with me that the candy "blood" that came with the vampire teeth was gross, but we got a few good pictures out of it anyway.

And, just because it's cute... Lukey man and Ran enjoying dinner.  Please note that Luke's legs are rigid with excitement.  I'm surrounded by such sweet boys! 

Happy Halloween

When I was growing up, Halloween had officially arrived when my parents brought down the Halloween box from the attic.  It was an extra large cardboard box filled with Halloween costumes and decorations that we could keep out for the whole month of October.  It was always fun to try on old costumes and play dress up with what we could find.  I remember it had a distinct smell, a good smell that reminded me of a craft store.  It must have been stored near a good smelling candle up in the attic.  

I have since made a Halloween box for our family and the boys were very excited when I pulled it out.  We actually keep most of their old costumes in a box in their room.  They get it down almost every single day to dress up and fight bad guys.  So this Halloween box doesn't have many costumes, just decorations, pumpkin carving supplies, etc.  The boys enjoyed helping me set up the decorations and insisted on using their Halloween plates and cups at almost every meal.

The Monday before the big day we had our Halloween Family Home Evening, with a spooky themed dinner and pumpkin carving.  The boys did a pretty good job cleaning out their pumpkins and Ryan used his sweet hand skills to carve some pretty cool faces.

 Grant wanted a Wolverine pumpkin just like his costume.  As a side note, Grant and Tate have both taken to going shirtless as often as possible. 

 We were not short on the treats this year.  The Ward had a trunk or treat at the church on Tuesday and then we did some trick or treating in our neighborhood on Wed.  Above, Ryan went as an orthodontist vampire (he got home from work with only enough time to put on his cape and get in the car).   Below, you can see the real vampire outfit he wore to work (along with the fierce scream and red eyes).

 Here is our mismatched, but scary, super-strong, cute family.

 

 Those are my bat wings on my head.  Really creative, I know.  But Luke makes a pretty darling skunk, doesn't he?

 Our loving vampire and adorable skunk.

I had to include this so you could see the skunk tail in it's full glory.  With each kid sporting the skunk costume for their first Halloween, that has to be the best costume we have ever purchased.

Tough Mudder!!

   At the end of September we participated in the long awaited Tough Mudder race in Seattle (~11.3 miles long).  We had been training throughout the summer and were excited and slightly nervous to participate.  The nervousness for me came mostly because I came down with a random ear infection a few days before the race.  I developed a pretty decent cold the week before the race and then one night, all of a sudden I got extremely nauseous and dizzy.  I called a member of our ward who is an ENT and he sent in an antibiotic and steroid (to help with the dizziness) prescription (figuring it was an ear infection).  I started the antibiotics and started to feel better (no more dizzy spells), but still felt a little feverish and tired the day before the race.  Luckily, I felt okay enough to run on race day and only got a few strange looks from people as I had the occasional coughing spell during the race.

 

 We ran the race with Rick (one of Ryan's coworkers), two of Rick's brothers, and another friend from our ward.  Niki (Rick's wife) took a few pictures of us during the race so we are glad to have a few action shots. 

 These two pictures are from the ring obstacle.  Ryan and I both fell in the water on this one.  I actually didn't mind falling in this water because it helped wash some of the mud off.  In the distant background of this picture you can see runners climbing up a big, steep hill in another part of the race.  There were tons of places on the course where you climbed up and down muddy hills and crevices.  Most of the down hills were so steep I would just slid down them.  They were really more like drop-offs than down-hills.  Another obstacle similar to these rings was a set of monkey bars that was about 30 rungs long, 15 going slightly uphill, then 15 going downhill to get across a big pool of water.  The general sense of fun is heightened by the fact that the rungs spin freely in your hands and some of the bars are also greased.  It not only takes a ton of upper body strength to do but some pretty serious grip strength to keep the rungs from spinning out of your hands.  I just fell in the water again after a bar or two but Ryan made all the way across! The nice part was that, again, I got some of the mud cleaned off as I swam to the other side.

Me on the course looking relatively clean.  Those two extra muddy guys next to me are Rick's brothers. 

 

 This is the Mount Everest obstacle.  I was somewhat nervous about this one.  It was the second to last in the race and I was pretty spent by that time.  You have to run up a greased half-pipe and jump as hard as you can in hopes that your teammates can grab your hands and pull you over.  Most of the fellows made it up in one try but it took me three.  I was really glad to have a bunch of strong guys on my team to help me get over some of the obstacles.

 Still smiling after the race.  The last obstacle was one of the craziest for me.  It's called Electroshock Therapy.  Basically, it's a big framework of 2x4's that has wires hanging from it about every 6 inches and some of the wires are live with electricity.  The framework is over the top of a big mud pit (maybe 80 feet long?) that has a row of hay bales in the middle.  You have to run through the electrical wire-covered mud pit, jump over the row of hay bales, and get to the other side.  If you can make it through that obstacle without falling down, like Ryan did,  you'll only get shocked a few times.  Being a true maverick, I decided to not follow protocol but tripped over the hay bales in the middle of the obstacle.  Once you are down and getting shocked, it's pretty difficult to get back up.  I think I got shocked about 10 times (up to 10,000 volts is not fun, let me tell you)!  Once we finished I felt like I had electricity flowing through me (I'm sure it was mental).  

Check out the two videos on my Facebook page (I couldn't figure out how to put them here).  The first is the official Tough Mudder video of the Seattle race.  You can see Ryan at around 22 seconds in the video coming out of the obstacle called Arctic Enema (a 4 foot deep ice-bath in which you have to dive underwater to go under a wall to get to the other side of the obstacle).  The second video is of the Electroshock Therapy.  One of Rick's brothers got the worst of the shocks, falling down and getting knocked out cold several times.  If you like things that are truly unsettling, it's worth a watch.

With the team post-race, just missing one.  The shirtless gentleman has that haunted look in his eyes that comes from having just danced with Death in the Electroshock Therapy obstacle.  He was not nearly as amused as the rest of the team by his performance in that obstacle.  If you haven't watched the video yet, you should.

They had cold outdoor showers we could clean off in after the race, but I was already freezing and didn't shower off too well.  But I was proud to wear my headband for the ride back to the hotel.

Ryan, looking particularly tough, earned that headband.  He took an extensive shower in the cold open-air showers after the race so he's more Tough than Mudder in this photo.

There are a bunch of other photos at
http://www2.brightroom.com/email/101664/44823/150343574
and
http://www2.brightroom.com/email/101664/44817/150343569

They were taken by Tough Mudder photographers so we were unable to paste them onto our post. 

Good times!!