2010 Christmas

What a wonderful Christmas we had at the Willoughby’s!!!!

Food, family, fun times, and smiling kids…..nothing could be better.

My mom and dad came up on Thursday night after driving to the Oregon coast first (they picked up ½ bushel of fresh oysters for Christmas Eve dinner). My mom helped me finish baking our family recipe cookies, (I think we baked over 160 cookies). On Friday we iced and decorated them…nothing like waiting till the very last moment!! Danny and Judy arrived about 3:00 PM that same afternoon.

Our house was full, but like I told Paul….I would rather have a full house than an empty house!!!

Paul unfortunately had to go into work Christmas Eve, but only had to work about 2 hours, he was home just in time for dinner…fresh oysters, fresh crab, and Metropal bread….yummy!!!! Later that night we let the kids open up 1 gift, but I got to chose the gift….. Maddux opened up a gift from Aunt Bernie and Paityn up her photo book from Paul and I. The last 2 years I have made a photo book of her softball year. She likes them, but I’m sure in years to come they will be more special to her. I enjoy making them.

The kids ending up going to bed about 9:00 PM and then the crazy Santa helpers came out to play!!!! Actually Paul, Danny, and Judy went to bed, so it was just me, my mom, and dad that were up till early in the morning. Danny and Judy don’t normally give stockings to each other, so this was all new to them. I go a little crazy at Christmas and no one knows what to expect!!!

I had 6 stockings to fill, cookies, milk, and carrots to eat, letters to write back from Santa, and place all the gifts under the tree. Busy night, but I LOVE IT!!!!

Christmas morning arrived at about 7:30 AM this year. The kids let me sleep in a little!!!

We all got up, of course made coffee, and all opened the stockings from Santa together. It took about 1 ½ hours to unwrap all the gifts that were underneath the tree. The kids received everything they had asked for and we all had a wonderful morning. We then had French toast and bacon for breakfast and then relaxed.

Later that day the Rubottom’s came down to open more presents and have Christmas dinner with us. We had 12 people for dinner!!!

There was one sad part of the day....our VERY close friends "The Cedarwalls" were moving to Reno the day after Christmas. We were very fortunate and they came to visit us Christmas night. Lillee (Maddux's girlfriend) was able to spend the night at our house and Paityn spent the night at their house. They will always be in our life and we will forever love them!!!!

Merry Christmas to all!!!!

Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas!!!

Productive Weekend - Tualatin Tournament

This last weekend was another basketball tournament. This weekend’s games were in Tualatin and also Tigard.

The Newberg 6th grade girls played a little tougher competition!!!

Another busy weekend at The Willoughby’s home also. Friday night after work Paityn and I ran to pick up our family Christmas tree. Paul had just gotten off work and was very tired, he worked 12 hours. I had also just picked up Maddux from school and he didn’t want to go back out.

So Paityn and I were off.

We went down to a local tree farm (where we picked our tree up from last year), walked up, looked inside at a couple that had stored inside out of the cold and rain and didn’t see anything at all. We then looked outside at some pre-cut nobles and saw one almost immediately. I had the guy pull it out so we could look all around it and asked him to keep it out while I took a quick look around at the rest of the trees. I yelled back at him and said, “we’ll take that one”…. Paityn and I picked up dinner and back to the house in less than 30 minutes. Not bad for me!!!!

When we got home Paul took the tree off the top of the car, put it in a stand, and took it inside for me. I thought…..wow, one more thing checked off my list!!!

Saturday was a very productive day, actually the entire weekend was good.

Aunt Linda and Uncle Tony came over for a nice visit. They gave the kids their Christmas gifts and we were able to visit for quite a bit. Linda helped me with putting lights on the Christmas tree and we even were able to decorate quite a bit of it. Tony and Paul were able to catch up too.

The visit at the house ended up with Paityn running through the house looking for “beaver treats”….

So Tony’s sister’s husband (Bob) is a professor at Oregon State University and he is of course a BEAVER BELIEVER!!!!!

The last time he was up at our house he gave Paityn such a bad time and they were messing with each other about the DUCKS and the BEAVERS….So Bob had a Christmas gift for the kids, but mostly to get a rise out of Paityn. Both kids opened the gift together and Paityn was scared, Maddux had no idea what was going on. He was just excited to be opening something..It was a book, a BEAVER book. 47 Beavers on the big blue sea was the title of the book. Inside the front cover there was a poem that Bob had written…. Once Paityn finished reading the poem she, went crazy!!!! She went running around the house trying to find the BEAVER treats…It only took about 5 minutes. I asked her when she had calmed down a bit, “ aren’t you a bit concerned that Bob was actually in our house last night”? That just started her off again….

Insert Poem

We all then started getting ready for Paityn’s 1st of 2 basketball games.

The 1st game was at Tualatin High School and started at 3:00 PM. Linda and Tony also decided to come with us. We just love them so much and I know they love our kids!!!!
Paityn played good, quite a few things she still messes up on, but overall I think she is doing great.

The team ended up beating West Linn and then we had to move to Tigard High School for the second game of the day. Linda and Tony had to leave to drive back to Corvallis.



We ended up going to get something small to eat at a local Mexican restaurant and then headed to the 2nd game. By our surprise the girls beat Century, so that meant we were at least in the Championship game on Sunday.

On Sunday the girls 1st game was at 8:00 AM in the morning…(Way to early on a Sunday).

This game was against Tualatin, we found out before the game started that they had also won both of their games the previous day. So we knew we would have to play good to beat them. The girls played great and did end up winning. That only meant that we had to turn back at 3:00 PM and play them again for the Championship.

The 2nd game did not go our way, baskets were not in our favor…..we ended up losing that game and received 2nd place in the tournament.

So far for 2 tournaments the girls are 6-2, not bad at all considering more than half of them are first time basketball players.

If Paityn goes to Newberg High School, it might be fun to watch her play in high school….if she goes somewhere else, that won’t be an option!!!

1st Basketball Tournament – McMinnville, Oregon

This weekend was Paityn’s 1st basketball tournament ever!!!!!

Coach Joe wanted to start off with a tournament schedule to see how the girls looked against other teams. Since we just found out earlier in the week that Paityn made the team, we were a little shocked that there was a tournament already, but actually happy.

I could tell she was very nervous. Her stomach didn’t seem to bother her, but you could tell when you looked into her eyes she wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

The girls had 2 games on Saturday and 2 games on Sunday. The 1st game they played a Centennial team and ended up beating them. The girls scored over 30 points, Paityn had 4 of them.

The game started and she had to jump, since she was the tallest girl. I looked at Paul and said…”hopefully Joe showed her what to do”. You could tell, she was a newer player, but the more they played the better she did. The girls didn’t run their offence, scrambled around quite a bit, but ended up winning the game. They were happy and in the end that is all that matters.

The girls had back-to-back games so the 2nd game was against McMinnville. They played really good, but ended up losing that by 6 points. We later found out that they were an “A” team also, so that made the girls feel a little better since they are only a “B” team at this point. Coach Joe wanted to see how they looked before he actually placed them.

Sunday they also had 2 games and they ended up winning both of them. The girls ended up in 2nd place behind the McMinnville team and 3-1 for the weekend…..not bad at all for their 1st tournament of the year!!!!







Great job ladies!!!!