The Christmas Post

Yes, I am aware that it's already mid-January, but I feel I owe you a Christmas post. Truth be told, I've kind of been putting it off. Then there comes a time when I realize that I can put it off no longer or else you'll be getting a Christmas post in July and I just can't do that. That's silly!

So, the original plans for Christmas were that we were going to go to Utah and spend it there with my family and Joseph's siblings that live out there. Then I got a call one day from Joseph's sister saying that she caught wind of our plans and that we had to change them because the whole lot of Joseph's family decided to visit us in Sunnyvale for the holiday. Plans changed. No problem. Disappointed? Yeah, a bit. Excited? You betcha!

How and where we were going to host 16 extra people was beyond me, but we were going to burn that bridge when we got there.

Then came the news that Joseph's paternal grandmother was dying. That warranted the last minute trip to Long Beach to say goodbye, and there we met up with Joseph's whole family. Since everyone showed up in Long Beach, it meant that nobody was going to be able to make it to our place for Christmas. I was bummed, but also relieved that I didn't need to plan anything.

So, Christmas just ended up being our wonderful little family and Sam (Joseph's brother who lives with us, for those who didn't know). In all honesty, it was sooooo nice. It was nice not having to travel and deal with all the stress that comes with that. It was nice not having to host. It was nice just to relax and drink in those moments and create these memories of those that are dearest to me.

Well, me being me, I neglected to take a single picture of Christmas morning. However, do not dismay, one reason I didn't take any pictures is because we broadcast our Christmas morning on justin.tv. Not the entire morning, but at least the first half hour or so. I made about five highlight videos, so you don't have to watch the whole thing unless you really, really want to.

After we opened presents I had to get started on dinner. I had invited my friend, Angie, and her family over to eat with us. She was 39 weeks pregnant. There was no way I was going to let her cook Christmas dinner while she was that far along. Besides, just because I felt a bit relieved not to be hosting Joseph's whole family does not mean that I didn't want to host anyone at all. It was a simple, but delicious dinner: roast beef, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad and pecan pie. Seriously, it was more simple than it seems now that I'm looking at the list.

So, that was our Christmas. Relaxing. Just like it ought to be.

And I finally got the tree down yesterday. Moses had been bugging me about it all week, "Mommy, Christmas is over. You need to take the tree away." I was expecting tears like I've gotten in years past.

I hope your Christmas was great, too!!

School Portraits

We've actually had the pictures for a couple months, but I didn't want to have a Christmas gift spoiler for the family, so I didn't post these earlier.

Asher got his picture taken, too. The photographer for the preschool allowed younger siblings to get theirs done as well, so I jumped on the chance to get Asher's picture taken. Now I just need to get some family pictures done at some point. If you live in the Bay area, suggestions would be welcome!

Akiko - Kindergarten

Moses - Preschool 3s Class

Asher - Almost 4 Months Old

You can see the lovely blue of his eyes!

Both of my sweet boys

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did!

It Really Is A Wonderful Life

Earlier this evening, I had the opportunity to kick up my heels and relax on the couch. There was a fire blazing in the hearth and a mug of peppermint herbal tea in my hands. There was a baby cooing and aahing as he happily scooted and rolled from one toy to the next all over the living room floor. My older children were giggling with each other in the other room. We had just finished a divine dinner of leftover Christmas roast, veggies, Smurf-blue mashed potatoes (Akiko's request), and Grandma Char's rolls.

Now, I know a couple of you are thinking, "...and then disaster struck," but no, my friends, it didn't. This scene played out for a good 45 minutes. Seriously. And the only reason it stopped was because I had finished my herbal tea and decided to clean up the dinner mess.

It was during this picture perfect scenario that I paused to reflect on how blessed I am. This year, I turn... dare I say it?... 30. There you have it. Now you know, if you didn't already, how old I am. Anyway, I've been watching my friends on Facebook, as they've ended their third decade, with some bemusement. Some have welcomed the milestone with open arms, but most have gotten through it with dreaded undertones. So, you're probably wondering where I stand on the issue.

I welcome it. Let's face it, when I turned 19, 20, and 21, I thought I was utterly awesome. In retrospect, I was an utter doofus. I made many decisions that came back to haunt me in some very bad ways. I was immature and unreliable and extremely selfish.

As a glass half-full kinda girl, I like to think that I was just "getting it out of my system," but really, there were a lot of dumb things that I did, and consequences to be dealt with, that could have been prevented. By the time I was 22, I decided that where I was headed was not where I wanted to be and I made some huge and drastic changes in my life. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but, oh, it was so worth it.

So, as I lay on the couch, thinking about life, I decided that, for turning 30 this year, this is exactly where I want to be. I couldn't be happier. Let's see what the next decade brings!

Inchworm

So, in the last couple of weeks, I've often been finding Asher where I did not put him. For example, I'll change his diaper in the middle of the living room floor, go outside to throw the diaper in the garbage and come back to find Asher had rolled under the side table or something. Thus far, I'm pretty certain that Asher's movements have had no motivation and he's just been squirming and rolling randomly around.

Last night, however, we were on Skype with my sister, Kristen. I had the computer on one side of the bed with the camera pointed at Asher. He kept inching forward so that he could pound the keys. This was the first time I noticed him purposefully move towards something in order to get to it.

So, while this is a proud moment for me, it also makes me kind of sad that he's growing so quickly. I've lamented before to my friends that the last five and a half months have been such a blur. It's been one thing after another: Asher is born. Akiko starts kindergarten. Moses starts preschool. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. On and on and on. Thank heavens for this blog, or I'd have no idea what we've been doing.

He's not quite six months old and already he's finding motivation to move towards his prize. That seems early to me and it's definitely earlier than the other kids.

Akiko only army crawled and rolled for about two months while she was simultaneously pulling herself up and cruising. She walked at 9 months 1 week.

Moses actually crawled for a bit, but he was well past 6 months before he started that. He walked at 9 months 3 weeks.

I keep trying to tell my kids to stop growing so quickly. Today, I noticed one of my favorite shirts of Akiko's is starting to get small. (Kristen, it's that darling one you bought in England.) They never listen.

Next thing I know, Asher will be cutting his first teeth. I remember crying when Akiko cut hers right after she turned six months. That's when it dawned on me that these kids aren't going to stay little forever.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that video of Asher. He's been inching forward a lot today. Now I really have to get on the ball and keep the floor cleared of anything he can get into trouble with. *Sigh!*

Yeah, this day, for real, will be coming up sooner than I hope, too.

Stolen Quotes

Sam posted these on his FB status moments ago. He heard these today from the kids. I was busy elsewhere, but they're too funny not to share:


Two good quotes for today:

Sam (in reference to a MadLibs page): Aki, do you like to eat "cute food"?
Aki: Sure! Like chicken and bbq sauce in the shape of babies!

---

Aki: Hey! Let's play Mariokart!
Moses: Hey! Let's not!

Last Half of November, First Half of December

Okay. Okay. I promised it was coming and I've put it off too long. Here's pre-, post- and, of course, Thanksgiving itself. Yeah, it's a consolidated post, so be warned. It may be lengthy, but I'll try to keep to the point.

The Week Before Thanksgiving

(Nov. 17-21)

Joseph had gotten news, sometime in mid-October, that his grandmother was dying. She had been told she had between three and six weeks left to live. All Joseph's aunts and uncles and most of the grandkids were making plans to go to Long Beach to say their goodbyes. Joseph's parents were going to make it out the weekend before Thanksgiving. So, the Wednesday morning before that, Joseph asked me to make last minute plans to go down there that weekend, too. Not too hard a feat since we're only a six hour drive from there.

Once Joseph's family heard our plans, there was a mad scramble for all his siblings, who didn't already have plans, to make plans to go there that weekend as well. So, three stressful planning days later, all 22 of the David Wecker clan arrived in Long Beach to say goodbye to grandma. Extremely rare photo op!

 

Akiko and Moses were elated to get to play with their cousins, Noah and Daniel, again.

We got to meet Odin! Such a cute baby. Seriously, Emma. Great job with this little guy.

Asher and Odin got along so well, they even took a nap together.

Joseph got to finally meet Carl's twin babies, just a week shy of their first birthday.

Cute little Sierra.

Darling little Seth.

Asher had some big smiles for his great-grandpa Jack.

He also had lots of love to give to his great-auntie Helen.

So, it was a short trip. Too short. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon. It was really nice to be able to say goodbye to Grandma, though. That was a great opportunity I don't think a lot of families get to do. We miss her. She's a wonderful lady. I'm so blessed to be part of her family.

Thanksgiving Week

(Nov. 24-28)

So, we came back from Long Beach late Sunday night. I had two utterly short days to shop and repack everything we needed for our trip up to Gresham, OR to spend Thanksgiving with my brother, Mike, his wife, Chelsie, and their sweet little toddler, Liam, my 14 month-old nephew whom we had never met.

Chelsie and I, being the young mothers that we are, have never taken on Thanksgiving dinner before. This year, it was all her and me. I must say, we did a fantabulous job, though credit for the turkey still goes to Chelsie's cousin/Bishop, who smoked the turkey for us and, therefore, freed up the oven for the pies and such.

I suppose it would be safe to assume that Chelsie and I are purists when it comes to the kitchen. Chelsie made the stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce from scratch. I was in charge of the rolls (Joseph helped on these since the baby needed me at the time) and the pumpkin and chocolate pies (which I neglected to photograph despite the fact that they were absolutely perfect.)

Here are Chelsie's beautiful place settings. Handmade, of course.

Mike, making his Thanksgiving speech.

(If you look really closely, you can see my perfect pies on the kitchen counter.)

So, the deal was, we had to pay for our dinner with the pinecone on our plate by saying something we were thankful for or else we had to eat the pinecone. Moses took it a little too seriously and started bawling, "But I don't want to eat mine pinecone!"

Akiko, on the other hand, was perfectly fine with that.

And Asher enjoyed his first Thanksgiving dinner!

We had a lot of fun visiting Mike and Chelsie for Thanksgiving. We're very grateful that we were able to be with family for the holiday. I'm not sure how it happened, but I hardly took any pictures. Seriously, I didn't even take any of Liam, but you can visit Mike and Chelsie's blog if you feel so inclined.

Before I wrap this visit up, there's one more thing. One of my dearest friends from high school lives in the Portland area as well. I decided it would be fun to surprise her at work. She is a server at a German restaurant called Gustav's in Clackamas. I also thought it would be fun for Sam (Joseph's brother who lives with us and recently served a mission in Germany) to have a good German meal again. Well, I didn't get many pictures of our surprise visit either, but I did get some awesome pictures of Moses eating cheese fondue.

Since Thanksgiving

So, I've had a couple people, since my last post, ask me what is keeping me so busy that I have no time to blog. So, busy, in fact, that I've barely even had enough time to read your blogs.

Well, to be honest with you, I spent almost the entire week after Thanksgiving recovering from said holiday. I mean, we did spend almost 36 hours driving in the car over the course of 8 days. That's with a 4 month-old, a 3 year-old, a 5 year-old and an 11 year-old (Hannah, Joseph's baby sister). Actually, Hannah was awesome. She kept Akiko and Moses entertained in the back.

Anyway, after I finally recovered from the traveling, I decided to get a jump start on Christmas. With the help of Joseph's mom and Hannah, I was able to get the tree up and decorated.

I also started my Christmas baking the first weekend of December. 

Growing up, we always did plates of cookies for our neighbors and it was not uncommon to receive a dozen or so plates in return. That's what the tradition was then and what the tradition is now. Besides, it gives me the perfect excuse to go crazy with the baking, which I love. 

I try to keep my list of receivers simple. They include our home and visiting teachers and the kids' nursery/Primary teachers. It usually adds up to about a dozen plates or so. This year, however, I had a whopping 28 plates to make! We teach CTR 6, so, of course, I had to include the families of our kids (7 kids in our class). I also felt I ought to do plates for the kids' school teachers. Moses alone, between his preschool and nursery teachers, had six plates for his list (3 each).

3 kinds of cookies x 5 cookies of each per plate = 15 cookies per plate

15 cookies per plate x 28 plates = 420 cookies

Which also translates to 140 per each type of cookie

Yep. I'm crazy, alright!

I like to think of this as my army of snowmen.

The finished plates. Cocoa ginger crisps, cream cheese snowmen and chocolate peppermint sandwiches.

Akiko and Moses were great helpers and I had a lot of fun baking with them this year. I'm excited for them to get older and help out even more!

We also had our ward Christmas party, where the kids got to meet Santa.

Amazingly, I also got good pictures of the event this year.

Asher was really into Santa's nose.

Another project I happened upon, which has kept me busy as well, has been painting Christmas village figurines for Joseph's mom. You see, while we were up in Oregon, I accompanied Chelsie on an errand to the thrift store. I wasn't planning on getting anything, but I found three unpainted village buildings for $2 a piece.

Knowing that my mother-in-law lost her entire village when she moved from Utah to Maui, I thought it would be a great opportunity to help kick start another one for her. So, I've been working on painting these, too.

The blacksmith shop I finished while she was still here and sent it home with her already. I wish I'd gotten pictures. It turned out beautifully. The beauty/donut shop is still a work in progress.

So, there you have it. And I still have lots of other things on my list to accomplish before Christmas. How's your Christmas prep?

Still Here, Just Busy

Yes, I'm two weeks behind on Thanksgiving. I promise it's coming. It's just been real busy. I'll post more detail later, but here's a heads up:

We took a last minute trip down to Long Beach to say goodbye to Joseph's grandmother, who passed away earlier this evening. Then we drove up to Portland to spend Thanksgiving with my brother. Then I got thrown right into Christmas prep. So, Thanksgiving's post might be up to a month late. Sorry. I'm sure you understand.

And Grandma, we're glad we got to say goodbye to you. We'll miss you! Very much.