50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration

Way back in August we all started talking about how Fred and Rama's 50th wedding anniversary would be coming up in December. Rama suggested that she might like a family dinner at The Lion House to celebrate. That sounded like the perfect idea for this very special occasion. We started planning the menu and talking about what we would do for the evening. We made centerpieces and printed and framed pictures of their wedding day. All was ready.

On December 27, 2013 Fred and Rama celebrated 50 years since they were married with me, Scott, Alan and a couple bags of take out Chinese food at their kitchen table.
The next day, December 28, Glenn, Renee and family flew into town and the big party was that evening. We gathered at the Lion House. It was a beautiful room and fit quite nicely with the red roses that we used because that is what Rama had at her wedding. We were served a delicious dinner of Sarah's salad, salmon, lots of rolls and carrot cake.

Look at that big plate of delicious salmon. Didn't eat a bite.

After dinner we had the grandkids ask Grandma and Papa some questions (that we had prepared for them) about their dating days. It was cute to hear the answers from Fred and Rama. Then Brielle played the piano for everyone. She played "Bagpipes of Scotland". She did such a good job and wasn't nervous at all. Mostly just excited to play. Glenn and Renee's family performed "Loch Lomond " with the head boppers. So cool. Turns out, head boppers are a must have. Brian and Rachel's kids sang a song together about grandparents. They are all such good singers. The grand finale though was the video that Alan played for us at the end. Seriously, it was amazing. Certainly brought on some tears for some. It was so neat to see the young Buchanan family in old home movies. We saw young Rama playing piano with her boys, kissing them as they headed off to school, bringing home new babies. And young Fred wrestling on the floor, throwing up Christmas wrapping paper on Christmas morning, hiking around Scotland in his kilt. It really is priceless and such a treasure to have this video that Alan made. He worked hard on it and it definitely paid off. I think we all loved it.

 The video. I LOVE this picture. So sweet.

 We were so happy to celebrate with Fred and Rama on this huge milestone. Fifty years of marriage!! I'm so happy for the family they have created since that day fifty years ago. And grateful to be a part of it. I love you, Fred and Rama. Congratulations!!

Brielle's 8th Birthday. So sick.

 Brielle slept in later than anyone else on her birthday morning. That was odd considering how EXTREMELY excited she was for Santa to come and for Christmas morning and for her birthday. She had been up in the night with a really deep, hard cough, so we knew she was sick. We didn't know how sick. We waited and she finally came downstairs and just fell onto the couch. I asked her if she wanted to see what Santa brought and she said, "no, later." What??? I felt her head and immediately went to get the thermometer and the ibuprofen. I took her temp and it read 106.7 degrees!!!! Oh my gosh. I thought there was no way that could be right. I took the other side and it read 107 degrees! So, I took everyone else's temperature in the room to make sure the thing was working. And it was.

We gave her the ibuprofen and kept taking her temp. to watch for it to come down. It came down quickly and she was coming back to being herself just as quickly. Thank goodness. She kept saying, "I don't want to be sick on my birthday." Brielle was sick her whole birthday day. We kept giving her ibuprofen and acetaminophen all through the day to keep the fever down. That worked and she was able to have a decent birthday and Christmas.

After Christmas presents were opened, Brie got to open her birthday presents. She was soooooo excited about an ice skating outfit with ice skates for her American Girl doll. 

 Her birthday present to go along with the ice skating outfit was ice skating lessons for her! I took Brie and Ava ice skating last winter and ever since, she has believed she was a "real ice skater". She lists that as one of the things she does. A real talent. She plans on being a spinning, twirling ice dancer when she grows up. She'd only been once though. Probably, she needed some lessons.

 We had a fun birthday/Christmas day and then had birthday dinner before I took Brielle and Ava to see "Frozen". All she asked for her big dinner was shrimp and "juicy tropical fruit". Well, apparently the girl was born in the wrong place or the wrong the season. It was such a good (and easy) dinner though - shrimp platter, cantaloupe, oranges, kiwi, mango, broccoli, cauliflower and a cheese ball with crackers.

 She asked for ginger snap cookies for a birthday cake. We had made them together the day before. We had Tawna, Evan, Annie and the Hones all with us to sing to her and have cookies and ice cream.

 And to finish off the festivities everyone got a little night cap of ibuprofen and was sent to bed. Happy Birthday baby Brie. Boy, do we love you. It is my greatest joy to watch you grow up. I absolutely love the girl you are becoming.

CHRISTMAS

Christmas Eve was a really nice, relaxed day. Which seemed odd, but I enjoyed it. We would be having Christmas Eve "late lunch" at Brian and Rachel's house, so there wasn't a whole lot we needed to do. The main thing on the agenda for the day was Brielle and I (and everyone else) making the ginger molasses cookies for her birthday "cake". We then had a very nice lunch with Brian, Rachel, kids, Rama, Fred and Uncle Kim. We exchanged gifts and I think we found something that both Fred and Rama really liked and could really use. Suspenders for Fred and a bathrobe for Rama. Yeah!! 

We didn't end up acting out the nativity with the cousins, so we did it with just our little family when we got home. It didn't go so well. We didn't have very many willing singers or actors. The kids were starting to act really tired and whiny and cranky. A few hours later we would find out that everyone was getting very sick. We made the little play happen though and at the end of the final song Brielle said, "Well, THAT was THE worst nativity we've ever done." She was probably right. 

We moved quickly along to opening our one Christmas Eve present (pajamas) and got everyone to bed. They were feeling sick, but they were still VERY excited in their new matching pjs.

Scott and I stayed up a little bit later hanging out with Tawna, Evan and Annie. At about 11pm, we were ready to go to bed and wait for Santa to come. Then we heard it. A deep, barking, croup-like cough coming from upstairs. Brielle was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at us in the front room. I went upstairs, picked her up in my arms, wrapped her in a blanket and told her to close her eyes as I walked her outside. We sat on the front steps out in the cold to see if that would help the cough. We gave her some ibuprofen. She said, "I saw what you guys got for Kate. She is going to LOVE that little car! And I'm so excited about the scooters." So, after we put Brielle back to bed, Scott and I stayed up a little longer. 

In the morning, the kids came down to find that Santa left all of his presents by the fireplace for a change. Probably because it's closer to the chimney is what we think. They were so excited to find that he left them each a Mickey or Minnie Mouse shirt and a "ticket" to Disneyland. 

And dear Santa even responded to the kids letters to him with an individually personalized note to each one signed "Merrily Yours, Santa Claus". He ate all the cookies, milk and oranges too.

After a really sick Brielle woke up and had some medicine in her enough to enjoy the morning a little bit, we moved it into the front room to open presents. Kate LOVED her new red coupe! It's still (Feb.) in our front room and she drives it in circles around the kitchen every day.

As of one week before Christmas, Brielle and Ava's only wish was for a plush Elsa and a plush Anna doll from the new movie, Frozen. Scott and I had to go to great lengths to get these dolls, but we did it! (And had to take the original presents we had for them out from under the tree, unwrapped them and took them back.)

And the Christmas morning fun continued.

An art set for Ava.

A remote control car for Zachary. It really is so cool!

A "baby" for Kate. She wouldn't even look at, let alone touch it for a couple of months. She sleeps with it now though.

And lucky me! A portable car battery charger. This really is just what I asked for since our children seem to love to leave the lights in the van on all night long and then they have a screaming mad mom in the morning when we try to go to school.

A jet stream for Scott so that we can all enjoy the "bubbly".

Tawna has become the official Christmas quiche cook. We had it after opening presents for breakfast. It was delish.

With everyone hopped up on medication to keep temps down and help them feeling okay, we decided to go up to the church cultural hall to test out the new scooters. This was especially cool because the wheels light up. With the doors closed the room was pitch black and they loved zooming around with their wheel lights blinking.

And a happy little driver.

It was a very nice, kind of quiet and take it easy Christmas. Which was wonderful!