The Wood Between the Worlds

These are the things that I want to remember about our Christmas this year:

*We tried our best to have a "green" and smart Christmas. We bought most of the gifts used off of craigslist and the gifts were wrapped in paper table cloth that I reused from my ward's Relief Society Christmas dinner. It was frugal and we saved a lot of waste. Our kids were thrilled with their recycled gifts! I think that this will be a new Jefferies tradition.

*Some silly things that Joshua said:
"I think that Santa Claus should be translated because he is SO nice!"

After coming with us to purchase some neighbor gifts, including Books
of Mormon for our closest neighbors
"are we going to doorbell ditch those Book of Mormons to
our neighbors?"
Good idea, Joshua...good idea.

*The Saturday before Christmas (the day we were supposed to drive to Utah) it snowed 6 inches. That's A LOT for Portland, where snow rarely falls on the valley floor. This was after a whole week of school was closed due to about an inch of snow. The forecast was saying that it would warm up to 40 on Monday or Tuesday, so we decided to postpone our trip until Monday. That whole weekend was sublime! It kept snowing and snowing. Boy was that great! We sure did enjoy it.

*Since it rarely snows here, they do not have very many plows for the streets...thus only the freeways and highways get plowed. The streets in our neighborhood were so snowy! I decided to pull out my old cross country skis!! Oh heaven. Toby was delighted when he saw my skis. He really wanted to come with me, so I rigged up a harness out of webbing and rope and I pulled him around the neighborhood in a laundry basket. Just for future reference, the laundry basket worked GREAT! (I wish I had pictures...insert mental image here). He had a smooth, comfortable ride and it pulled along the snow like a dream! (We have been trying for years to figure out a way to pull our kids while we XC ski. I think that Toby will want his own skis soon though.

*On Sunday night while we were sleeping, an inch of freezing rain fell on top of our six inches of snow. Church was definitely canceled for the second week in a row. It was such a beautiful sight that I bundled up and went outside to take pictures.

Just in case we missed you or your mail got lost in the snow storm, here is a copy of our Christmas card. Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!! I will post later...I usually procrastinate because I dislike uploading my photos. :-)

Today I am stuck in my house. The weather is quite frightful and church has been canceled for the second week in a row! School was canceled all last week (except one day) due to a little bit of snow, but yesterday it snowed 6 inches and overnight we got freezing rain (I will post pictures later). I am taking advantage of this downtime to express random gratitude for life. Here are some things from this past year that I am grateful for:

1- I LOVE living in Oregon and taking advantage of hiking in the beautiful forest, frequenting the ocean, canoing in the rivers and going on lots of fun camping trips!

2- Once again...I am SO thankful for my house! I LOVE it! Especially right now when it is so cold outside. I love that we have an attached garage to park our cars in so I don't have to trudge through the snow everyday with two kids, freeze my fingers while I scrape snow off the windows and get snow down the back of my neck when I scramble into the car. I love my master bathroom with garden tub. It is so relaxing. I love our backyard! I love the trees out there. I love our garden area. I am so glad that we got so much done in our backyard over the summer. We built a patio out of rustic basalt, a pathway around the yard and a patio cover. We still have a lot to do, but it is lovely. I love the view out my bedroom window when I wake up in the morning: a wall of trees and greenery. I especially love the view out my window when the sun shines through the leaves illuminating them and casting a comforting warm green glow.

3- I am SO grateful for Brent, Joshua and Toby. I LOVE all of our little adventures together (see #1). I LOVE that my little guys are up for adventures. I am so grateful for how healthy we all are. I am glad that Brent encouraged me to get all the foods with hydrogenated oil/trans fats out of our life (not that we used much). We are now working on getting out the high fructose corn syrup. I LOVE that Joshua wants to eat healthy food and he encourages others around him to do the same. Last year, he told his kindergarten teacher that she shouldn't drink coffee because it wasn't good for her body. His teacher sent me a note later this year telling me to tell Joshua that she quit drinking coffee, after her doctor encouraged her to do so also. She told me that she was touched to know that Joshua cared. I am SO glad that I am a mom. I love giving and receiving hugs and kisses from my boys. I love dancing, singing, goofing off, wrestling, kung fu fighting, reading, and playing with them. I LOVE that Brent is my absolute best friend and we talk about everything and anything.

4- I am GRATEFUL for Obama/Biden and change we can believe in! Yes we Can! I am looking forward to health care reform and a system where EVERYONE can get the heath care that they need, including people with pre-existing conditions, people who work hard full-time and don't make enough money to pay astronomical insurance costs...but yet they don't qualify for medicaid. I am hoping for a straightforward and honest system where you get what you pay for, instead of a system of red tape and companies with share holders and profit margins. I am hoping for a country where people won't be tied into stressful jobs in order to get health insurance (to cover their stress-induced medical problems). I am hoping for a healthier country where prevention is the priority. I am looking forward with hope to a new economy built on green and clean energy! I LOVE Obama! He is new and exciting. He is a family man. He inspires hope in many people.

5- I am thankful for LIFE and all that it teaches me. I am grateful for learning and how my perspective can change over time, with an open mind. I am thankful for FUN, FUN, FUN!

6- I am grateful for Brent's initiative to set goals to move us toward financial Independence within the next 10-15 years, and all of the little and big things we are doing together to get us there. And I am glad that we both foster the goal to make our home as self-sufficient as it can be (with gardening, preserving, rain water collecting, gray water recycling, solar power, chickens, etc.)

7- I am SO glad that Joshua is getting everything he needs at school this year. He has joined special education (for his sensory issues) this year and is profiting a lot from that. While, at the same time, it has become obvious to all who work with him that he is academically gifted. I am indebted to his teacher, the principal, and all the special education people. Most of all, I am just grateful that he loves school and that he loves to learn.

8- I am thankful for my amazing body and the ease in which I can train for and run 13.3 miles....or 26.6 miles...or swim/bike/run.

9- I am grateful for good friends and amazing family, both near and far! So WONDERFUL!

10- I am thankful for my freedom. My freedom to go where I want. My freedom to vote. My freedom to choose. I am thankful for those who are willing to preserve our country's freedom...those who have in the past and those who choose to in the future.

11- I am MOST extraordinarily THANKFUL for a faith in a PERSON...in a FRIEND who knows me and loves me...wants me to FOLLOW HIM and be HAPPY...teaches me to LOVE all, and be loved by many. I am thankful that Jesus Christ is MORE than just a religious icon to me...but a REAL LOVE that burns in my soul. If nothing else, I am extraordinarily thankful that my heart and soul are capable of experiencing this kind of love.

Peace to all and enjoy a wonderful holiday season, wherever you may be...know my heart is with you.

Oh the joy! Oh the beauty! Oh the Wonder! To wake in the morning and see billions of large, unique flakes falling outside my window, and everything blanketed in snow...still and quiet. Lots of snow (for Portland). It snowed almost all day and we now have almost 2 inches! That's a lot more than we got last year, folks! Guess what that means?? SNOW DAY!! Everything is out of commission here when it snows, so yes that means church was canceled. It was so nice to lay in bed extra long watching the snow fall, then when they boys woke up they jumped in bed with us. We took a quick barefoot run around the backyard to leave fresh tracks. We had a short fireside devotional where Joshua read to us from the illustrated Doctrine and Covenants. (That boy is so smart and he hungers after more knowledge.) Then we unpacked the old snow clothes. We found stuff that fit both of them , miraculously. The little boys had a ultimate day of joy playing out there. They would have played all day if they could have stayed warm enough.

I love my kids. They are so sweet and smart and most of all they WANT to do good. Why is it then, that at certain times they act TOTALLY CRAZY in front of people...and then these people think that my kids are horrible?

Take, for example Tithing Settlement: we get into the Bishop's Office and the kids can't sit still, they can't keep their hands to themselves, they touch EVERYTHING, and they don't listen to us when we ask and tell them to stop. (For you people who are totally confused: the Bishop is the leader of our Church congregation or ward, and tithing settlement is a meeting between our family and the Bishop where we declare that we have offered 10% of our earnings for the calendar year). Our dear Bishop is so sweet and kind, but every time we have brought our kids to his office for a meeting they go berserk!! I am afraid that this is all that some people see of our kids and it is making me frustrated. So, every time I talk to the Bishop he tries to comfort me and tell me how the crazy times will be over someday (I actually LOVE these days...most of the time)...and tries to console me. Nice, but it makes me feel frustrated all the same. My kids are ALWAYS good in sacrament meeting. Does anybody notice that? I wonder.

Another example, is when we took our kids over to see one of the families in our ward that Brent home teaches: they are this really cool young family that we wanted to get to know better and guess what? Our kids were berserk! I don't blame that family for never wanting to invite us over again. I wouldn't invite us over again if I thought that the kids always behaved like that!

The problem is, I think that word gets around. We had a really tough year with both of the boys last year (and it was our first year here), so I didn't feel very social, and now I feel kind of like I am branded as the mom with the out-of-control children that I don't discipline and that I can't handle. Well, the news is that I do discipline my kids. I think that I often discipline them too hard. I wish that I were less coercive as a parent and that my kids would obey me because I elicit their love and respect (I know my kids love me very much). And here's another news flash: I CAN"T CONTROL MY KIDS! They have free agency, as I believe is part of the GREAT plan of Salvation. And sometimes I don't want to control them...if they're not endangering themselves or others....really!

The really hard part is that Joshua has a disability, but it is not very apparent. So he gets berserk when he is over stimulated, but people don't know about his disability (or maybe they think it's an excuse?), so they don't understand why he acts that way. They just think that I don't handle my kids very well...ooo it is FRUSTRATING! As Joshua grows older he is doing better so that's good, but I still feel like we can't rid ourselves of this scarlet letter unless we move (but I really don't want to move). And Toby is great, a little stubborn, but great. I don't see him having the same problems that Joshua has...but you combine his stubbornness with the terrible two's and that made for a tough year. It wouldn't have been so bad if Joshua wasn't also struggling.

And don't get me wrong. I KNOW that I am not a perfect parent. But I have tried so hard to improve and be the best that I can be.

I just feel like the only friends I have are either the ones who knew me and loved me before I had kids (so they know that by nature I try my very hardest all the time or they overlook the silly things my kids do), or ones who are totally kind and understanding. The latter have come to love me and appreciate my kids...both their struggles and their goodness.

My conclusion at this time is to ask you not to draw conclusions when you see parents and kids struggling. You don't know what's really going on and how hard they ALL are really trying. Maybe you SHOULD jump to the conclusion that this family could use your friendship, understanding, charity and unconditional love.

I enjoy keeping it real here every once in a while. I feel so much better getting that off my chest, and Nobody's life is perfect...not even in bloggerland!

Yep. This is us, canoing on the Willamette Rive at dusk/nightfall. Yep. We are crazy. Yep. We survived.

Joshua's class did a very cute Christmas concert. I wouldn't even blog about it except I was elated by the fact that Joshua stayed where he was supposed to, he sang all of the words to the songs and he did the actions when he was supposed to. That is GREAT improvement for him and I am so proud!! Way to go Joshy! You did great!

Toby and I had a great time mixing, rolling out and cutting gingerbread cookies while Joshua was at school. Toby loved his own little rolling pin!