Christmas and Winter Break

Eli loved his winter break and didn't want it to end.  Every morning this week when I've taken him to school, he asks if he can stay home with me instead.  I keep asking him, "What happened?  You used to love going to school."  I guess he just had so much fun on his break that he didn't want it to end.  He also really loves Christmas and was not happy that I took down the Christmas decorations yesterday.  He wanted me to keep them up all year long.

Christmas for Eli was a little different this year because he knows that his dad and mom are Santa.  I didn't think he would be so young when he stopped believing in Santa, but life throws things at me all the time that I don't expect.  He came to me one day not long after Christmas last year and asked very seriously, "Mom, I want you to be honest with me.  Is Santa real?  Tell me the honest truth."  In that moment, I just couldn't lie to him.  I couldn't even really sugar coat it, though my brain was frantically searching for ways to do so.  I just had the feeling that if I wanted him to trust me later with other things, then I needed to tell him the truth.  Specifically, I had the thought that if he comes to me years from now and asks me if Jesus Christ is real, I want him to know that when I say yes, he can trust that I'm telling him the truth.  Of course, after I told him, he cried.  I felt like I had destroyed his innocence, so I felt awful.  Fortunately, he's fine with it now.  We tell him that we still believe in the spirit of Christmas even if Santa isn't real, and we still do certain things because it's fun to pretend sometimes.  We also tell him he has to pretend for his friends and cousins because their parents might not like us otherwise. :-) 

Speaking of cousins, part of the reason Eli had such a fun winter break was because he had lots of cousin time.  We spent a fair amount of Eli's break with Josh's family since we were all together for the holiday.  We had lots of fun celebrating Christmas and New Year's--playing with toys and games, playing kickball, riding roller coasters at Wild Waves, etc.  We also enjoyed celebrating Josh's parents' 40th wedding anniversary by playing the not-so-newlywed game!

Christmas Eve

I told Josh to get the stocking items this year, and he obviously did a better job than I do because Eli LOVED opening his stocking.  He was so excited to play with a 59 cent foam airplane that we wondered why we bought him anything else.

Josh and Eli with Grandma Rosie and Aunt Megan (pictured here on a rare occasion without one of her twins in her arms)

As you can tell by this picture and the one above, Eli likes to make different faces for pictures.

I Love You More

I (Josh) got to take Eli to school today. On his way out the door he said "I love you mommy". Stephanie replied I love you too, and then as the door closed behind us, he turned around and opened it again and said "I love you more". Stephanie responded, "I love you more than most", to which Eli replied "I love you most than more". I love them both the mostest!

Halloween Festivities

I couldn't have asked for a better October here--my favorite month since we moved here almost a year ago.  The skies were sunny with almost no rain (maybe twice the whole month?).  I know that doesn't sound like the bar was set very high, but if you ever move to Aberdeen, you'll know what an amazing feat that is.  I don't think any other month since I've lived here can boast that record.  Everyone told me that the beautiful Washington summers make up for the rain, but the summer came and went here, and I was quite disappointed.  It was still cold and rainy--at least in Aberdeen.  So maybe that's why I loved October so much.  I was expecting much of the same, but it surprised me.  The sun sneaked up on me and didn't leave the entire month.  Good surprises are always welcome. :-)

Well, I meant to blog about Halloween, but I couldn't help but mention the month of October in general.  Trust me, it was very lovely.  Anyway, a few weeks ago we started our Halloween festivities by going to the pumpkin patch.  We went on one of Eli's days off from school.  Since Josh still had to work, we went with one of Eli's friends and his family.  We had a good time playing, picking a pumpkin, having fun in the corn maze, and riding in the hay wagon.

A few days before Halloween we carved pumpkins.  This year we did two, and Eli picked the face for both.  While we were at the pumpkin patch he saw some glow-in-the-dark pumpkin fangs, and he BEGGED me to buy them.  He drew the face on the other pumpkin in pencil, and I carved out his markings.

This is Eli's imitation of the pumpkin's face.

The night before Halloween we had a fall festival at the church with a trunk-or-treat afterward.  Then on Halloween day, Josh and I went to Eli's school (it was Josh's day off).  The school does something called a serpentine where the kids parade around the school in their Halloween costumes, and then Eli's class had a Halloween party where the parents were invited.  At night we did the usual trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  Eli loved it all!  This year he wanted to be a knight/dragon slayer.

This is Eli's good friend at school and church.

Admiring all the delicious candy in his bag :-)

Cranberry Harvest

This time of  year is harvest time for cranberries, and western Washington is apparently a great place to grow the fruit.  I've been wanting to go down to the Cranberry Museum in Long Beach, WA, for a while now, but we decided to go yesterday when they had their annual cranberry festival.  Long Beach is about an hour and a half south of us.  I was hoping we wouldn't have to tour the bogs in the rain, and I got my wish.  It was a beautiful day, and the museum was lots of fun.  Since they were in the middle of harvesting the cranberries, we got to see part of the process.  I guess the cranberries we buy in the store are dry harvested, whereas the process we saw was wet harvesting.  They use the cranberries in wet harvesting for juice, jellies, etc. (most are sold to Ocean Spray).  That makes up for about 95% of the business.  Only about 5% of the cranberries harvested are actually sold in the whole fruit form (from about now until Christmas).  Those have to be picked dry so they don't get bruised.  Those that are wet harvested are flooded with water.  They use a machine to shake them loose from the vines, and the cranberries float to the top of the water.  It was very interesting and informative.

I enjoy eating lots of things with cranberries, so I was hoping for some yummy food, and I wasn't disappointed.  I had a delicious pulled pork sandwich with cranberry bbq sauce--honestly, very tasty.  Josh had a turkey sandwich with cranberries.  In addition, we tried a cranberry muffin, some cranberry lemonade, some cranberry strawberry jam, cranberry ambrosia, cranberry coleslaw, a cranberry caramel, and Eli and Josh had a cranberry bog frog--a chocolate covered caramel, cashew, and cranberry treat.  My mouth is watering again. :-)  And of course, we couldn't come home without some fresh cranberries!