Cason turns NINE!

We celebrated another birthday at our house on Saturday when C turned NINE!

We have learned that having a New Year's Eve birthday makes for poor party attendance, so we had C's friends party the day before which accommodated all the invited guests being able to come.
Rich took the rowdy bunch of boys to a nearby arcade for three hours of video game fun, with the explicit instructions from me to not bring them home until there was only 30 minutes left in the party.  I had it planned that we could do the pizza, cake & ice-cream and gifts in 30 minutes and I wouldn't be left with crazy-wild boys with nothing to do but torment my house.
Rich brought them home 12 minutes early and explained that he was sure it would take longer than 30 minutes to do pizza, cake and gifts.
The result?  It took the boys exactly 30 minutes to eat pizza, cake and open gifts and I was left with crazy-wild boys tormenting my house for 11 1/2 minutes - possibly the longest 11 1/2 minutes of my life.
But C had a great time and had a smile a mile wide, so it was (almost) worth it...

On the 31st we celebrated C's real birthday by going to OMSI as a family.

We were reminded of the other downside of a New Year's Eve birthday when we promised C special donuts on the way home, only to find the donut shop closed.  So we hit the downtown food carts with a promise of donut's from donutarama - closed!  In an effort to redeem ourselves we offered C his favorite fish and chips food cart - closed!  We went home 0 for 3 and C was cursing his birthday all the way home :(

After eight years of having sport-themed cakes, my son actually chose this cake  - Triple Layer Fudge Brownie Cake - Rich and I were in heaven (it is SO rich!) but I think C is ready to go back to a sports themed cake next year.  Maybe it was a bit much for a nine year old palate...

We (hopefully) redeemed C's New Year's Eve birthday by staying up playing games and eating chips & salsa until C finally gave in at about 10:30 p.m.  It's the closest he has come to seeing midnight on his special holiday/birthday.
Maybe next year!

The Dougall Daily gets published

After four years of blogging, I FINALLY took the time to upload all the blog posts and get them printed
(thanks to some significant post-surgery down time :)

When the finished product arrived I decided to wrap them and put them under the Christmas tree as a family gift.  I wasn't sure how well that would be received but I am thrilled to report that not a day has gone by since Christmas that I haven't found at least one of the kids sitting, reading one of the books.  Even J and T fight for their turns with them and love looking at the photos.


The kids have had some good laughs as they have been reminded of funny things they did or said that got documented.  I only wish that blogs had been around eleven years ago when we welcomed K and that we could have K and C's first years documented as well as we have J and T's.

I will be uploading 2011 next week and we will add a fifth book to our collection!
The kids are already asking when it will be done.

{PECO} Let Earth Recieve Her King

I have neglected to post about my concert(s) earlier this month with the Portland Ensign Choir and Orchestra
(formally the Portland Mormon Choir and Orchestra)

We began the month of December by performing six songs at The Festival of the Nativities in Vancouver.
 Two weeks later we had three concerts (two of which were sold out) over two days.  I love singing in the choir and I especially love our repertoire at Christmas that allows us to sing about the Savior.

We now have a professional photographer, among many other new choir positions, which allows me to show off some photos from our concerts...

A fun note was that Rich advertised for the first time in our concert program and I have to showcase the ad because his brother-in-law did an AWESOME job creating it...

In three weeks PECO will be singing the national anthem at the beginning of the Portland Blazers vs. Sacramento Kings game!  I couldn't be more excited, especially considering that Rich and C already have tickets to that game (go Jimmer!).  So now I will not only have a cheering section, but two incredibly handsome people to sit with to watch the game.

For our spring concert we will be performing The Redeemer which is both challenging and beautiful.  We have a lot to do in the next few months!
Then in June we will be performing with Jenny Oaks Baker for our season finale.
If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend attending :)

{Holiday} Jake's Cherub Choir

I am uploading the last of 2011 photos...playing a bit of catch up.

Although this photo is far from high quality, I had to include this photo of J's cherub choir.

J attends a pre-school at a local Presbyterian church and the church provides this choir opportunity, which J really enjoys attending (thanks to the cute girl standing to J's left - wink!)

The week before Christmas, the cherub choir sang the opening hymn during the church's morning services. 

I cannot begin to tell you how DARLING I thought that J and his little friends were in their little choir robes.

 Loved it! 

Our family stayed for their entire church service because they presented the nativity story.  

I have never had (all) my kids beg so many times (and loudly) to go to "our own church".  

Different isn't always bad, it's just different, and it turns out that my kids are more comfortable with what they know.  I think that one service bought me at least a few weeks of no complaints come Sunday mornings :)

{Christmas 2011} skyping Elder Dougall

The best part about Christmas for a family of a missionary has got to be the PHONE CALL!

Only nowadays it is done over skype and it is even better because everyone gets to be seen.

We loved getting to see Tanner.

He looked good!

He sounded even better!

We love you Tanner!

{Christmas 2011} the BIG gift

After all the gifts were opened, everyone was given a similar large, lightweight gift and told to begin opening them all at the same time. 

 The result was that everyone ended up with a new life jacket...

The life jackets would have been a silly gift had there not been two kayaks in the front room just awaiting their discovery...

The invite is now out there - come to Portland and explore our pretty city from the river!

{Christmas 2011} the gifts

Another Christmas has come and gone. Each year as we tuck in the kids on Christmas Eve, I wonder if we have done enough...whether they will each get what they want and whether the magic of Christmas will stay alive for one more year.

As is always the case, our simple take on Christmas was more than enough. The kids seemed happy, there were plenty of gifts to open and the enthusiasm and smiles lasted for the day.

T is always first to see what Santa has brought. Although he asked for a "rubber duck" and "a boat for the tub" he went around and around the room looking at the gifts unable to locate his stocking...when I asked him what he was looking for he told me that he wanted to find a "robot" - no robot this year but luckily he quickly forgot that little glitch...

J asked Santa for a "skittle gun" - it turns out that the elves don't know how to make a gun that shoots skittles. Instead he was given a nerf gun and a package of skittles - maybe Santa didn't hear the request just right...

As always, C wanted sports apparel. Pretty easy to fulfill that request and made even better when C declared it "the best Christmas ever"...

K's ONLY request this year was for an OSU snuggie. This from my daughter who is NEVER cold but, amazingly, since receiving her snuggie she has found herself cold nonstop and she is sure glad for something to keep herself warm...

Conner was with us for Christmas and we always appreciate his easygoing personality...

My favorite part of our Christmas is that each of our kids buy a gift for each of their siblings - they use their own money and hit the dollar tree with so much enthusiasm! I don't know whether the giver or the receiver is more excited come Christmas morning - but I do know that there are more hugs between siblings than at any time of the year and that makes it all worth it...

It turns out that Santa has a bit of favoritism toward OSU - we all ended up with new OSU shirts to show our beaver spirit!

Merry Christmas!

{Christmas 2011} the food

It is the day after Christmas and I will admit that over the past 48 hours we have eaten WAY too much.
But with that said, we still have to document our overindulgence...

Christmas Eve morning I made reindeer pancakes that I had seen on pinterest.
They turned out super cute!

While I took care of details for our Christmas Eve dinner (ham, au gratin potatoes and creamed spinach - which I didn't document) the kids kept themselves busy making a gingerbread village.

I found a knock off recipe for krispy kreme doughnuts (on pinterest) so Rich thought that making them as a family would be a fun Christmas Eve activity. We took the donuts to the next level by offering all kind of toppings and the kids went to town.
 The verdict? They did NOT taste like Krispy Kremes but it was a fun activity nonetheless.

Our Christmas morning tradition, carried over from my growing up, always includes homemade cinnamon rolls. Another pinterest idea (we will just call this our pinterest Christmas) took our cinnamon rolls to the next level by rolling up bacon in the cinnamon rolls. It didn't add as much flavor as I had hoped so we may have to tweak it and try it again.

Fondue is our family's own tradition and this year we served it Christmas night. We did a cheese fondue for dinner, followed with a chocolate fondue for dessert.

T is classic! When I gave him his own bowl of chocolate fondue to dip into, he asked for a spoon, gave up on the dippers and ate his chocolate like it was soup :) The sugar overload was complete!

{Service} Portland: Ward Christmas Party

Last Christmas Rich's parents challenged us to find a service project to participate in instead of giving them a Christmas gift.  It was a great opportunity that our kids still talk about.  We knew we wanted to do something similar again this year and our ward provided a perfect opportunity.

In place of our ward Christmas "party" our ward did a service project to provide bags of food to children who rely on meals (breakfast and lunch) provided at schools, but who don't have those meals when school lets out for Christmas break.  Our ward set a goal to provide 1,000 bags of food - each bag would feed one child for that time period.

We grabbed a handful of bags and set out to fill them.  Although Rich and I filled most of them, K, C and J used their own money to fill one bag on their own.

After purchasing all the food, we set up an assembly line at home to fill all the bags.

On the night of the ward party, everyone brought their filled bags and there were supplies at the church to fill additional bags.  The kids were able to decorate (color) the bags before filling them with food, they decorated cookies and wrote letters to missionaries.  All this was done while the YM/YW and adults of the ward took shifts at the local community center feeding their needy families with hot soup provided by ward members.  

When it became obvious that we had provided more soup than needed for that one community center, calls were made and endless pots of soup were transported to the Rescue Mission, who was very grateful due to unexpected high numbers because of the cold weather spell.

All said and done, the number of bags filled by our one little ward was 700!

It took moving vans to transport them all and we overwhelmed the facility receiving them so a large percent of them ended up getting transported to another facility on the other side of town.

When the representatives from our ward showed up, these shelves were completely empty.

When they left, these shelves were completely full.

I am so glad that our ward leadership took our Christmas party in a different direction this year, allowing us to participate in a ward service project of such magnitude.  Not only did it provide food bags to children and hot meals to the homeless, it changed many peoples perceptions of who the "mormons" are.

I am ever grateful that my kids find service to be so much FUN!

"When Ye Are in the Service of Your Fellow Beings Ye Are Only in the Service of Your God" 

(Mosiah 2:17)

{Holiday} Advent Activity Countdown

It is hard to believe that it is December 24th - but by the looks of our (empty) advent calendar, it appears that whether or not I am ready, Christmas is tomorrow.

We have had a really fun time with the activities that we chose for this year...

1. Deck the halls!

2. Buy a new Christmas album and listen to it

3. Make the house smell like Christmas
(accomplished by baking Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies - YUM!)

4. Make Christmas Cards

5. Read a Christmas Story Book

6. Wrap Christmas Gifts

7. Make a new Christmas Decoration

8. Color a Christmas picture

9. Decorate the doors in the house

10. Build a snowman or make and hang paper snowflakes

11. Make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes

12. Make a treat and take it to a friend

13. Watch a Christmas movie and eat popcorn

14. Go out for a Christmas treat

15. Do something nice for someone

16. Drive around and look for Christmas lights
(a neighbor's "lights" include a nativity that has Mary and Joseph advancing toward the stable each day - we drive by each night that we are out to see how much closer they are.  The kids have asked us countless times to drive over on Christmas day to see them in the stable)

17. Go visit Santa Clause

18. Do service for someone in need

19. Have a campout in front of the Christmas tree

20. Call grandma and grandpa and sing a Christmas song

(K and C opted to play the piano instead of singing :)

21. Take gifts to teachers and friends

22. Read a story or watch a movie about the birth of Jesus

23. Make cookies and write letters for Santa Clause

24. Read "The Night Before Christmas" and Luke 2