3rd Week of Christmas

Snow friends!

Me and the girls sledding...the view from the back....

Our country snowman

Our country snowman 2 hours later

Fun with friends having dinner and making snowman cupcakes
WAY more marshmellows and candies got eaten than onto a cupcake!


Not exciting to you, I know, I'm sorry. But really I'm cataloguing it for my brain and for the future scrapping I need to do!

Dec. 15th~
2 hours late to school by choice because of icy roads
Dec. 16th~
The Lord answered my prayers and MOPS is on! The theme was "The Lost & Found". Our pastor's wife, Virginia Tiefenthaler spoke on the gift of Forgiveness. She was talking to me and I cried the whole day long. Great message! Thank you Lord for speaking to me today.
Dec. 17th~
School cancelled. Shopping errands with the kids. Pumpkin broke out in hives on his face, went to doctors, got a shot. Ouch. AWANA cancelled.
Dec. 18th~
School cancelled although I had snowflake popcorn snacks ready! Made pancakes shaped with cookie cutters and snowed with powdered sugar and whip cream! Sledding and made a big country snowman. Jacob's came over for dinner and snowmen cupcakes!
Dec. 19th~
Cancelled everything. More snow! More sledding!
Dec. 20th~
More snow! More sledding! Dick drove the "chair lift" taking all the kids to the top of the hill over and over, while Hubby and I sipped hot tatties (sp?) with the neighbors. LOL
Dec. 21st~
Hubby off to the Seahawks game. Good luck driving! Off to the mall with the kiddos. Dinner at the new Ram. TONS OF SNOW!

I just don't remember this much snow here ever before. I'm taking lots of photos....

2nd Week of Christmas

I guess I should title it "Week of December" but anyways. . . .

Dec. 8th~
School 2 hours late by our choice because of icy roads
Dec. 9th~
MOPS Leadership meeting. We played a hilarious Christmas carol pictionary game. I LOVE games
Dec. 10th~
Preschool and nothing exciting....
Dec. 11th~
School, preschool, Pumpkin's Christmas program, then Dairy Queen of course!
Dec. 12th~
Daddy and pumpkin off for a hunting trip (skipping school)
Dec. 13th~
Peanut to grandma's, Princess and I to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Pantages Theater with friends. Then home to meet the babysitter and off with Kelsy to the Olive Garden and to see "4 Christmas." (hilarious)
Dec. 14th~
Church with the girls, baked molasses cookies and snowballs, daddy and pumpkin made it home safely through the thick snow and ice from Eastern Washington, annual family cookie exchange at grandma's

First Week of Christmas

I thought about how much we do in the month of December (and the last week of November) and how interesting it would be to document it all. Just for fun, ya know. Ok really because I have THE worst memory on the planet. My sister once gave me a magnet that says "If it's not in the scrapbook, it didn't happen." That just spells it out for me....

So here it is, our December in a nutshell (is it just me or when you say that phrase do you also think of Mike Meyers saying it too?). . . .

Dec. 1st ~
Mother in law's birthday, payroll at the office, errands, and preparing & setting up for MOPS
Dec. 2nd ~
Preschool, MOPS....The theme was "The Hobby Hall" and we did a Christmas frame craft, purchase Christmas tree
Dec. 3rd ~
Preschool, shopping, errands, begin decorating the house
Dec. 4th ~
Bible study, preschool, keep decorating the house
Dec. 5th ~
Work day, Zoo Lights with grandpa & grandma, Frisco Freeze dinner!
Dec. 6th ~
Put up tree, finish decorating, Christmas parade, pizza & late night games with friends
Dec. 7th ~
Seahawks game (we went down onto the field through kickoff), shopping

Official Christmas Card Photo

I'm having a hard time deciding which of these should be our official Christmas card photo.

Please vote for your favorite. . . . .

I'm partial to the first one.
We could start the new year off with a buzz. . . . .
We'd have something to talk about besides the economy. . . . .

Cabin Retreat!

Playing doctor of course

Late night movies!

Me & Kelsy

The little girls have kisses for Josh

We were so priviledged to spend the weeked after Thanksgiving at our friend's cabin. There was plenty of relaxing to be done, games to play, and 4-wheelin' fun! Our kids and theirs play so well together, in fact we're suspicious both our 2-year old girls might be twins. . . . .

Black Friday

I've never shopped on Black Friday, with good reason, right? This year my friend Kelsy talked me into it, so Thanksgiving night I gathered all the ads and made my plan of attack. We met at Wal-Mart at 4:30 a.m. and clutching our freezing shopping carts and huge Starbucks, entered the store along with hundreds of others to position ourselves closest to our most desired item. For me, it was a pink ride-on Jeep for Peanut, which was stacked at the very far corner of the store, with too many people already lined up waiting for the clock to strike 5 a.m.

Now mind you, I'm using the term "lined-up" very losely, as there was a posse of 5 already formed there, so never you mind the rest of us who ridiculously wished of getting our hands on a Jeep. And the posse wasn't ashamed of giving the run down of which box was going to whom and how long they've been standing there and there is obviously too few boxes and too many people.

This is when I began to get a little shaky. I blame the coffee. Secretly I thought this would actually become ugly. Over a Jeep. A toy. At Christmas. Seriously? And so I just stood there "in line" chatting with another mom dreaming of getting 2 Jeeps, while we stared nervously at the posse and the clock.



At 4:45 the Wal-Mart bouncers arrived, cut the black plastic covering all the pallets of loss-leaders in the entire store, and positioned themselves for the rioting. At 5 a.m. the Jeeps (and EVERYTHING else in the entire store) were grabbed and loaded into carts in less than 60 seconds. I'm happy to report Peanut will be getting one for Christmas! (Ok with help from a friend who happened to be standing there also and could see that I was about to get trampled and have my box stolen.)

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

Thanksgiving was spent with our families, which is such a blessing. I have a hard time imagining people who don't have family around, especially during the holidays. God has most certainly richly blessed us in that aspect of our lives. But this year, we mixed it up a bit. . . . .

We had breakfast with my family, which would have turned out to be much better time spent had we ourselves not run out of propane. Taking showers at her house consumed most of our time, we ate a delicious breakfast, then they headed out to do a service project, while we went home to put our kids down for naps. . . . .

BREAKFAST EVERYONE!

Then we were off to my sister-in-laws home for dinner. Thanksgiving is always at my mother-in-laws, same time, same food, same company, so I can't lie -- it was different. Not in a bad way, just different.

Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law making REAL whipped cream!

The Thanksgiving journal was presented to both families but didn't seem to go over too well, (although the entry from my husband's parents made me cry). Maybe I didn't present it right or give everyone enough time, but I'll bring it out next year and the next and the next, and we'll gather some memories for prosperity along the way. . . . .