These are the pictures from our last minuet try at getting a Family Christmas picture.

And this is how I feel at the end…

With the rain in Oregon, it makes it challenging to get a fun outdoor Christmas picture. Our weekends have been booked since November. We took some pictures on Thanksgiving day. Here’s what we got. This next year I am going to take pictures in the fall, so we will be warm and the colors will be so much warmer too.  I didn’t like any of these very much, so we did a very last minuet picture the day before I mailed out the christmas letters. 

~cheryl

I rarely post about controversial topics on here, but I have one thing that drives me crazy. Dogs in stores. First, I want to state that we have a dog. We love her. We play with her and she is part of our family…in an animal sort of way. But she is NOT one of my children. She has to sleep outside, eat dog food, and we don’t buckle her in when she goes with us in the car. 

Now I understand that some people have very special bonds with their dogs. Much deeper than I have with ours. Their dog sleeps in their bed, spends most of the day with them and has special privileges that my dog does not have. I understand this. I don’t get it, but I do understand this.

But I feel like somewhere over the last couple of years, dogs (in public places) have been allowed to do things that is totally unacceptable of a child. For instance, many a time I have been in a parking lot and watched a dog owner let their dog out of the car to use the bathroom in the beautifully landscaped area. Now if I let one of my boys, who quite often need to use the bathroom and usually give me only a few minute warning, out to pee on a tree in a parking lot, I would get ugly looks and rude comments. Even if it was a 5 year old who’s bladder forgets it’s full until the very last minuet. And heaven forbid if they were to poop by a bush. 

Then there is the whole issue of dogs in a store. I have many times had my children in a store and a dog, not on a leash comes running over to my children. Now first let’s look at the safety of this. I don’t know this dog. This dog does not know my children. What if one of my children provokes this dog and the dog were to respond with biting my child. The owner is nowhere to be seen. Shopping in some isle. With no contorl over the dog. Which comes to my bigger issue…

I have seven children. We work hard raising our children to be polite, well behaved socially acceptable children. And even with all that said, I still have people who are rude to me. People who are in disbelief that one husband and wife could do such a wretched thing as have seven children. That I have personally overpopulated the earth. And yet my children are not peeing in the parking lots, running and jumping on other shoppers legs or other children or eating trash out of a trash can. 

And somehow, in todays society, it has become more acceptable to allow dogs just about every where people go then to just smile at a big family and maybe say an encouraging word. 

So I was thinking, if I got a pig and treated it like a dog, how would people respond. Could I let it poop in parking lots? Carry it in the store and let it run up and down isles? Would the bank give me a pig treat for my dog? Would everybody stop and tell me how cute my pig was? I think not.

Each Christmas, I decided what I am going to decorate my tree for the next year. I love changing all the decorations each year, but to do this at the start of the holiday season is very expensive. So last year, I decided I wanted a white and silver tree this year. I bought all the ornaments at the end of the year for 90% off. White balls, silver balls, and silver glittery snowflakes. I picked up an old church hymnal at the thrift store for 24 cents. I already had white lights. So this year, all I needed was a tree!

The cost of my tree was $15. We cut it ourselves- which is part of the fun of getting a tree out here in Oregon. I tore the pages out of the hymnal and gave them to the children to fold into fans and whatever else they wanted. We strung the lights, hung the ornaments, and added our musical pages and…had a beautiful tree for a total cost of $35.00!

I always seem to have a hard time finding a good place to hang all the stocking. This year, the wall behind the tree seemed the perfect place. I hung some old twine up to hang all the christmas cards and pictures.

Going out on a date to a Christmas Party!!

~Cheryl

We spent Saturday after Thanksgiving making Apple Cider with our cousins on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. The children always have so much fun being out there. So many good memories…

Eric’s brother and his wonderful family~

shooting some family Christmas pictures~

best cousins friends~

~

~cheryl