Christmas Music

We love Christmas music and always have fun at our family musical evening with friends and family. This year was especially memorable with this amazing Men's ensemble who sang for many events in the community, school and church. We never tired of hearing them sing. Their signature song was "We Three Kings" which was an arrangement from the vocal group Eclipse. These boys have some serious talent as individuals and as a group-Christian felt honored to be part of the group. From left to right: Kraig Partridge, Adolpho Dominguez, Ben Betteridge, Christian, Alonso Brizuela, and Andrew McClellan. Bethany and Em played for an afternoon at the Hospice House during the Holidays.

Merry Merry Christmas

This has really been a crazy week for me. The days til Christmas are just coming faster and faster...my to do list is long...College girls are coming home tomorrow, yeah! I warned them today that Mom doesn't exactly have it all together right now and I'm hoping they will come rescue me. One pile in my kitchen is the Christmas cards that need to be addressed and sent out. Here is a brief Bateman 2009 update since there is no letter in our Christmas card this year...And if you want some of the major detail from this year just keep on scrolling down.

Marie: I feel very blessed and thankful for so many things. Having a blog has been great. You are all welcome to take a look, but I'm purely doing it for my own benefit and for my kids. What a great way to record our family memories with our digital pictures--I'm loving it. Here's a picture of me and Preston...pretty typical as we have lots of late night concerts, plays, sporting events and if Preston has my lap, he can pretty much fall asleep anywhere. It is also apparent that our baby is growing up.

Mike: Has had some fun times with the Young Men in our ward over the past few years--April Conference road trip with the priests, rafting down the Deschutes river and Biking on the Oregon Coast. Christian was truly impressed with his Dad's ability to bike long distances, up and down impressively big hills, and keep up with the teenage boys. Goal for 2010 is to bike in the STP (Seattle to Portland) this summer. Mike is also known as the super-chaperone--over the past 5 years he has accompanied choir/orchestra trips every year--last year it was San Francisco with Christian's acappella choir.

Preston(5): kindergarten, soccer, basketball, loves math and numbers, loves to cozy up with mom, loved learning about the US presidents at grandma's summer school, best friend: Jacob White.

Hannah(10): 5th grader in Middle School, loves to sing, playing piano, cello and guitar, friend to all, loved grandma's summer school, donated 10 inches of beautiful red curly hair to Locks of Love.

Katie(14): A few of my favorite things from 09....Curtis soccer team last year, EFY!, playing Jon Schmidt on the piano, voice lessons in the summer, Sunriver(ran the half marathon), swim team, leadership, bowling :) water polo, having fun, making many friends....

Christian(17): living it up as a HS senior, college aps, eagle project completed--sigh of relief, ASB treasurer, all state water polo player, now it is swim season and he's working on getting his 100 free under 48 sec, trying to decide where he'll go to college--possibly BYU-Hawaii?, new hobby--biking.

Emily (20): 2009 highlights: Study abroad trip to Vienna Austria for three months with other BYU music students, teaching voice lessons, learning how to cook, assistant directing BYU's fall opera The Tales of Hoffmann (and being in it too!), gearing up for a Junior Recital for next April. kissthecamera.blogspot.com

Bethany (22): This year was one big huge growing experience. I spent four months in the Holy Land and the rest working towards my nursing degree! And the time in between with my family making memories. :) Life is good. Traveling in the Holy Land was an incredible experience I'll never forget. nethaby.blogspot.com

Christmas Memories

In 2008 Preston was sooo excited to give a gift to his big sisters who are in college. He just knew the perfect gift for them and had so much fun picking them out--Barbies! He thinks they are Barbies in real life.

Christmas Eve 2008--our family is in our UPS shirts this year.

Some precious pictures from Christmas Eve 2006. Preston took his part as a shepherd very seriously and really loved dressing up this year. Preston-almost 3, Hannah-almost 8 and Caleb-6.

Hailey as Mary and Hannah as an angel, Christmas 2008.

I'm Thankful

I have a lot to be thankful for. Here are tops on my list...

Beautiful Sunsets!

An amazing, devoted and hardworking husband who gives so much to our family and to others! I truly couldn't ask for a better person to be the father to my children. He is so good to all of us.

A wonderful mother who lives next door and who I was able to travel with this year and who I see everyday. She has a wonderful listening ear and lots of wisdom. I love you Mom!

I am so thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the positive influence it is in my life! Mike recently baptized our friend Juan and now Juan is preparing to marry Rose. They are so excited to raise their family in the gospel. The gospel has such power to transform lives!

I am so thankful for my children. They are all happy, healthy and working hard in everything they do. I am so proud of each one of them!

Thanksgiving 2009 has been great...an afternoon in Seattle and A Christmas Carol at the IMAX, sewing aprons with Bethany, bowling, Beatles rock band sessions, Thanksgiving dinner with Juan and Rose and the Horaks, movie Fantastic Mr. Fox and an evening with the Turners. Tomorrow we will attend church together and have a quiet family dinner and send Beth and Em back to BYU to finish off their semester.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

No Shave November

Never heard of this event before but I guess it is a tradition for some of the guys at Curtis High School. With still a week left in the month, Christian says he is one of the top beard growers. I think he even surprised himself.

Fall Sports!

We have had a busy fall attending all the kids sports activities. We have spent a lot of time at the Curtis Pool! Now that the seasons are winding down, I thought I would share a few pictures.

PRESTON: Soccer has become a new love for Preston. He works hard every game and kicks the ball in the right direction most of the time! His soccer dribbling skills are improving and at the game last night he dribbled around about 5 opponents and took it in for a goal! He didn't know anyone on the team before but has made new friends and his coach Andrew Torres is wonderful! The other day when we were flipping through the TV channels he said STOP! when he saw a soccer game--he sat and watched the college game intently for a long time and would comment on the different techniques and running and kicking styles.

HANNAH: Is going strong with her Ladybug Soccer team. This year she is coached by Titus and she is having some hardcore practices. She comes home from practice exhausted from all the running and conditioning exercises. She nearly always play defense in the games and loves being with all her friends on the team--Abby Garlock, Natalie Smith, Hannah Fitzsimmons, Annie Kelley and Madison Wells to name just a few.

KATIE: Jumped into high school swimming this year! She really loved making friends on the team and working hard in every practice. It was so fun to see her times shrink as the season progressed. She realized toward the end of the season that her strong stroke may be back stroke--she has a powerful dolphin kick and she was just shy of a varsity time by the final meet. She hopes to get some off season technique coaching and continue to improve. She always was smiling and having fun with her friends during the meets. Molly and Sarah Berger were her new junior friends who would take her to get ice cream after the meets sometimes.

CHRISTIAN: Water polo has been awesome this year. Mr. Pic is one of the most demanding coaches around but he definitely gets results with an excellent Curtis Team. The State Water Polo tournament is coming this weekend and so we will see if they can win it 4 years in a row. Christian has some amazing stats this year and has been a great leader on the team. A couple times a week, a few of the boys have been coming over to watch the videos that Mike has taken during the games.

Addendum: Curtis lost to Wilson in a heartbreaking championship game Saturday night. We won the first 2 tournament games easily against Auburn Mountain View and Rogers. The final game was a tough fight. But we are so proud of the team--they are an awesome group of boys and that is the most important thing! So, we were 2nd in state this year and Christian was named to the 1st team All-state Water polo team. Great job Christian! After the game we had a huge party at our home with the parents, polo players and some fans. We had a great time talking, watching video and pictures from the season and the kids had a marathon game of psychology.

2009-2010 CHS Varsity Men's Polo Team

During one of the polo games, Preston was a bit wiggly and so I gave him my camera and told him to go ahead and take some pictures to help keep him entertained. So a few days later I was looking through the 20 or so pictures that he took and I thought this one was pretty funny. He said he was trying to get a good shot of their swimsuits!

Halloween!

Soundview Ward had a fun Halloween Party after Trunk or Treat. We had chili, hot dogs and cobbler, costume parade and some simple carnival games for the kids. From Adults to teenagers to little ones, everyone dressed up and had a good time. (I'm just glad it is over since I am the Ward Activities Chairman!)

Hannah and Hailey

It took Preston a full 15 minutes to get this donut eaten!

Kelsey and Katie as Salem Witch girls.

October Fun

How do you summarize a month in the life of a busy family? After looking over recent pictures I realized that it is amazing to see all we have done during the month--can't even include everything (in particular all the kids sports activities!) but here's a quickie overview of the October miscellaneous stuff...

Soundview ward youth temple trip

I have no idea why we took this picture outside of Target when we were on a weekend trip to Newberg Oregon for Christian's Water polo tournament....but it looks like we were having fun!
Curtis High School Daffodil Princess Selection night
Christian is the escort for Sara Davis and she was selected as the Curtis 2010 Daffodil Princess! There will be more fun events later this year. Sara has the bulk of the busy-ness and all of the pressure and Christian kinda just goes along for the ride-lucky guy!

PUMPKIN PATCH field trip with Prestons Kindergarten class. He has such fun with his buddies Jacob and Carson.

NEON day for Curtis Junior High Spirit week...Katie with friends Madison and Sarah.
We took a quick weekend to Utah to see Emily in the BYU opera Tales of Hoffman...wonderful music and wonderfully fun times with our college girls!
Grandma and Grandpa Bateman drove all the way from Arizona to see the production. Grandma Betteridge was also in Utah to attend as well as sweet cousins Adam and Crystal.
Hannah and her activity day girls and her wonderful leaders, Jennifer Farnes and Barbara Brown. They have such fun together and at this special recognition night they each performed or shared something they have learned. Hannah played Star light Star bright on the piano and sang sweetly while she played.