Family Photo Shoot

Over the Thanksgiving break we had a family photo taken.

Having a family photo taken is a lot of work!  Picking out what everyone is going to wear and making sure it all works together, making sure everyone has a good haircut, finding a time when everyone is available, including the photographer, and then in our case this year – dealing with the weather.  A dense fog decided to move in the morning we were to have our outdoor picture taken.  Fortunately our great photographer found a pocket of sunshine!

Last year I chronicled our family photo experience here.  If you want a laugh, check it out.

For you mothers of young children who think having a family picture taken will get easier when they get older – think again!  I use to bribe my boys with the promise of Happy Meals if they smiled good for the picture – now I just threaten!

But I have to admit that our family photo experience this year was one of our easier ones.  I only had to threaten Clark not to make silly faces a few times!

Thanks to my friend Sarah who took these wonderful pictures.  She is also the one who took the picture I use in the header for my blog.  If you live in the Portland area and need a family photo taken I highly recommend her!

The Wilkes Family – 2008!

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Holiday Greetings from our house to yours!

Merry Christmas!  Hope you are enjoying a wonderful Christmas day!

I wanted to share our family Christmas card with you.

Enjoy your day!

 

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Deck the Halls with Joy!

Do you have a favorite word?

A word that just speaks to your heart, a word that motivates and inspires you?  A word that just seems to pop up every time you turn around?

That word for me is Joy – it’s not an unusual word this time of year.  In fact, last year I added this to my holiday decorating….

I decided that Joy was not just for Christmas but it was something I needed to remember and focus on all year long so I left it on the wall – it is now a permanent part of my decor.  A daily reminder that it is up to me to bring Joy to my world.

Because that is not always an easy thing to do – I decided I needed a few more reminders.  I have an entire Joy tree (this one doesn’t stay up all year).  The Christmas tree in our family room is decorated with Joy ornaments….

and a few other pieces of Joy decor…

Recently I came across the following quote that I have decided is my new mantra for 2009.  I love it so much we put it on our Christmas card this year.

“Let us relish life as we live it, find JOY in the journey, and share our love with friends and family.”   Thomas S. Monson

I have decided to tweak it just a little bit – I want to find JOY in MY journey.  Life does not always go according to plan but it is up to us to find JOY in the journey that life gives us.  I hope to find more JOY in my Journey in 2009.

Do you have a favorite word, a word that speaks to your heart?

I have had several requests for pictures of my holiday decorations.  I recently posted pictures of some of them on my family blog – if you are interested you can check them out here, just click here.  Enjoy!

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Visits with Santa – a Family Tradition

Back in 1985 a tradition was born.

In Portland, if you want to see the “real” Santa, you go to Santaland at Meier & Frank (now Macy’s).

So of course when we took our first baby to see Santa, off to Santaland we went.  As a six month old Logan thought nothing of the funny, jolly old man and happily let Santa hold him for a perfect photo moment.

Well, it was a different story the next year  Our cute little 18 month old didn’t think that funny, jolly old man was too great.  Logan started screaming when we attempted to hand him to Santa so we could get a picture.

Being the smart man that he is, Santa invited mom and dad to join him.  So all three of us piled onto Santa’s lap.

O.K. –  so no comments about the hair – it was the 80’s!

Thus, a tradition was born!  For the last 23 years the whole family -now six of us – visit the “real” Santa at what is now Macy’s.  We all pile onto Santa’s lap for the traditional family photo!

Yes, each of my children, ages 24, 22, 19 and 15 still sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas.  And you know what – they love it!!  You see the rule at our house is “You don’t believe, you don’t get!”

We haven’t missed a year.  There have been years when someone has been missing in the photo – the years our boys were serving missions in Argentina and Chile and then there was the year Clark had a wrestling match (don’t start me on that one!).

But there has been a family Santa picture for the last 23 years!  I have them all in an album if you want to see!

Well, if you have been watching the weather at all, you may know that the Northwest is now in it’s 9th day of Arctic Blast 2008!  Yes, we currently have 10 inches of snow in our front yard and this morning all cars were being advised to only drive if you had chains.  I don’t think the City of Portland owns a snowplow!

As a result of the weather our annual visit to Santa hadn’t happened yet.

Well, we were running out of time – only three more days until Christmas!  I wasn’t about to let this be the first year we didn’t have a family picture with Santa.

So, we put the chains on the car, loaded in and headed downtown.  It was no surprise but there was no line to see Santa and we got the photo!  Guess I am the only mother in Portland willing to risk her children’s lives to get a photo with Santa!!

Taking a good family photo with six people can be a challenge.  Every family has one – the one member who loves to make funny faces in pictures.  You know the one – everyone looks great in the picture except for that one person – the one in the back sticking out their tongue or making rabbit ears.  Well ours is Clark.  See what I mean!

We have just learned that you never take just one photo – you take several.

You can imagine how we laughed when we saw this picture – Clark is the only one that looks good!!

But thanks to a persistent photographer we got it – we got a good one.

The one for the family album.

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Breakfast With Santa

When my children were younger one of our favorite holiday traditions was to have Breakfast with Santa downtown at Meier & Frank each year.  We probably did it for 10 years or so.  It was fun to get dressed, eat breakfast in the beautiful Georgian Room, enjoy the entertainment and of course see Santa.

Sadly, my children have all outgrown the experience and the Georgian Room is gone but we decided our neighbor children hadn’t outgrown it so we started our own Breakfast with Santa at our house.  For the last three years we have invited the three “cul de sac” families to join us for breakfast one Saturday morning before Christmas.  But instead of getting dressed up, everyone comes in their pajamas!

We serve the same menu they served in the Georgian Room.

Pancakes…

But ours come with Cinnamon Syrup

Little sausages…

and hot chocolate with lots of whip cream!

 The kids all have a great time decorating gingerbread houses together.

We use the  kits they sell at Costco!

And then there is that special visitor…..

This year, because of the weather, Santa arrived via special delivery (Thanks Dave!!)

After visiting with each of the children and finding out what they want for Christmas Santa heads out…. until next year Santa!!

Now the confession…

I use Bisquick to make pancakes!  I know, that may be hard  for some of you to believe but I do – or at least I did, until this year.

Several months ago my friend Sherra had a Pancake Throwdown  on her blog and shared a recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes.  Well, of course, I had to try them!  Since that day I have never used Bisquick to make pancakes again!

They are yummy!  If you don’t happen to have buttermilk on hand you can make your own by  putting 1 Tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar in a liquid measuring cup and then add milk to the 1 cup line. Let sit for 5 minutes and you have a decent buttermilk substitution.

Give them a try and you may never use Bisquick again either!

 

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Winter Wonderland and Cookie Baking Time!

We are having some unusual weather here in Portland – snow!  A few days of snow once every couple of years is normal for Portland – not 7 straight days of snow!  For the second Sunday in a row church has been cancelled.

As a result, our backyard has turned into a Winter Wonderland and we have had lots of time for baking!  I thought I’d share a few pictures of the magic all the snow has created in our backyard and what we’ve been up to in the kitchen.

As you can imagine the kids have had a great time playing out in the snow – even my big kids.  Snow is still considered a novelty around here!

We ended up with a house full of neighbor kids on Saturday as they came in to warm up and have some hot chocolate so I decided to put them to work – helping me bake cookies.

We made a batch of Lemon Drops, Snowballs, Snickers Cookies and Almond Sugar Cookies;

And if you get really lucky you will have a sweet five year old neighbor like I do who loves to do dishes!!

Of course, the big boys, were too busy to help with the baking….

There was ballgames to be watched and naps to taken!

Let it snow!

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Christmas Wish List

 

photo by ninjapoodles

About a month ago I sent my college kids an email asking them what they wanted for Christmas.

For those of you with small children – one thing you will learn as your children get older is that the items on their Christmas wish list get more expensive in direct correlation to their age!!  Gone are the good old days when we could surround the tree with gifts only costing $20.00 or less!

Feeling the effects of the economy, as many of you are I am sure, I decided to give my children some guidelines for their Christmas Wish List this year.  I asked each of them to tell me….

Something you Want

Something you Need

Some kind of Toy

Something to Read

I thought you might enjoy the list I got back from my 24 year old son!

Something you Want – a new car

Something you Need -a woman

Some kind of Toy – a boat

Something to Read – a church history book

I quickly learned that I needed to set even tighter guidelines – I needed to give them a budget to work with!  None of the items on his list except the book fell within his budget!

Each year my kids ask my husband what he wants for Christmas.

Each year his response is the same…

“Children who obey”

He pretty much gets what he wants every year – give or take! 🙂

Thought I’d share a photo of what’s waiting for me….

Yes, those are my Christmas decorations ready and waiting for me to “deck the halls!!”

How many boxes of decorations do you have??

Tomorrow I kick off my Virtual Cookie Exchange – be sure and check back!!

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