Christmas Day

We finally had Christmas morning together and at our own house. Michael has had to work I think all but one Christmas Day since Makayla has been born and a number of Christmas Eve's too. This year he had them both off thanks to a guy who was willing to do a shift trade with him for Christmas Day. And to top it all off, we spent it at our own house!!! We started off the morning by coming out to see what Santa had left behind. We heard his bells ring as he was pulling the sleigh away. . . he's lucky we didn't see him because Makayla heard him talking!!! He left some great stuff behind.

After spending Christmas Morning at home we headed out to Mema and Papa's house for Christmas dinner. We had a wonderful dinner prepared by all who were there. After dinner we hung out with family and friends the kids exchanged presents and we played some games.

My little cookie monster!! He kept stealing them off the table. He even crawled up onto the dining room table and ate Makayla's christmas tree cookie!!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at Sarah and Tim's this year. There was too much snow and the roads were too bad for all of us to go to Mom and Dad's (Nana and Papa's) this year and since all of us kids live in Newberg now we just moved Christmas Eve down to Sarah and Tim's. It was hard at first to change tradition but I think we all had a great time. The kids will continue to have Christmas this coming week since UPS/FedEx and USPS didn't hold true to the rain/sleet/or snow we will get your package to you promise. We are still waiting for some gifts to arrive. But we had a great time of games, food and family time.

I have so much new to add. . . and so many pictures. Christmas was busy as always this year, and we had to change many plans due to the weather but we really enjoyed our WHITE Christmas. How often can you say that in Portland, Oregon?? We felt like we were at a resort or something all week and every morning when you woke up there was still snow outside. Makayla really enjoyed it. It has been hard for her to watch the snow melt. She was pretty bummed to look out this morning before church and see that the grass was showing.

We made good use of our snow days though. Michael was off for five days during the snow blast so we had a really good week doing family stuff and getting ready for Christmas. We of course did a lot of sledding but we also made some cookies. . . .

Kaden is quite the cookie monster. After a coulple days of the cookie "Tree's" sat on the table he couldn't handle it. . . he crawled up into the middle of the table and started eating them. I unfortunately didn't have my camera, but did get this last shot after he had been put in his highchair.

Wow, what a BLAST. . . Arctic Blast!!!

We are just in awe. Who would have thought that we would be sitting inside by the warm fire while there is 10 inches of snow outside. I just sat down to take a break after putting the kids to bed and just can't believe what a crazy week we have had. We have had snow now for a week. And the storm that came in yesterday brought 8-9 inches to our house!!

We have been sledding fools. We tried to make a snowman but the snow is so light and fluffy it just wouldn't pack. Last night we got a nasty layer of ice on top of that snow so today was a little weird. We had to break up all the ice to be able to sled down the hill but it was worth it.

We headed for the local park last night to play in the snow. It was such a blast. The slides were very fast!!! We got some good video.

Santa's Helper

She's so beautiful I just had to post this photo.

Snow dayz!!

Makayla and cousin Zac

Enjoying the snow that was sent our way for the last few days. What a treat to actually have it stick around for more than a day. We are loving it. And the best part of all is that Michael's Kelly day (a scheduled day off) fell on right in the middle. So we have had four wonderful family days with snow. What a treat!!

Michael's birthday was on Tuesday, the 16th so we spent the day playing in the snow. We went to Nana's so that we could have a bigger hill to sled down. The kids have had a wonderful time.