White Christmas

In Oregon:

Alot to write but more pictures to show...
The rest stop was our first sight of white:

Our first stop in Oregon was to visit our good friends Paul and Amber in Sandy while the kids spent some quality time together. I guess being apart makes them act crazy when their together


Back on the road to my brothers house to spend our first Christmas together. It was only about 20 min. but the snow caused us to drive very cautiously slow and we got there about 45 min. later. Felt longer than the two day trip.

Christmas morning

(Isn't it the cutest thing to have all your kids matching?)

Jodi's awesome creations She made one for each of the kids.

Paris and my brother Jonathon

Our truck that sat for a week had collected enough snow for an entire year, not including that there was an inch thick of ice underneath the snow.

We had plans to go sledding at Mt. Hood, but there was no need since my brother lived on a hill and there was tons of snow. We also had plans to do other things like visit Seattle, but the snow storm kept us from doing anything. It was still a great visit.

This is Paris not being able to move.

Daddy and Khalia enjoying the weather.

We stayed for almost two weeks and when we got back, we celebrated our 3rd and 4th Christmas's at home with our families.

Jack recieved tons of batman gear, skateboarders, and too much else to list.
Khalia and Paris recieved their IpodsOur big gift to Khalia was a motorscooter.Our big gift to Jack was a new skateboard.and a new scooter.and Paris 's big gifts from us were a new scooter and a Nintendo DS, along with tons of other goodies. Didn't have a picture.

All around, it was a wonderful, unforgetable Christmas shared with many.

Rewind to NOVEMBER

I have been slacking in the blogging world, but here I am trying to play catch-up.

Jackson started preschool twice a week through the speech program. He doesn't like to go or even talk about it. And when the bus pulls up to drop him off, he struggles not being able to unbuckle his seatbelt fast enough to get off with such a serious look. By then he's happy to tell me about his day.










My Birthday, we celebrated with dinner, and this is what I got

Cannon Rebel XSI

(not a great picture with the old camera)

Matthew's 30th Birthday

I planned a car rally/ scavenger hunt that went great. Six places that meant something from his past and ended up at his favorite pizza place. I also bought him 3o gifts to open. He's loved!!!

Thanksgiving

We went to his parents house during the day, My parents house by night. Left the kids to stay the night and went Black Friday shopping with friends for his actual birthday. Fun stuff.

Puzzles

So what can I say, my son is a little puzzle genious. He's always been creative and able to put things together well. He got bored after mastering all of the wooden puzzles he got as a baby. Then he starting doing his sisters 24 piece puzzles so we bought him a few boy puzzles as requested. Day after day, he would pull every puzzle out and line them up along the hallway or in the dining room. Soon he conquered every single one and was putting them together in about 5 minutes. So Daddy took him to the store and he picked out a big 48 piece solar system floor puzzle. He was soo excited, his cheeks grew even bigger than usual. It didn't last long before he was asking for other puzzles he had seen. The requests were star wars, spongebob, the hulk, and mickey mouse of course. So this time my mom an I took him to the dollar store, but all they had was 64 and 100. But hey, whats a dollar, so we upgraded him to both. He was able to do the 64 piece and a 70 piece, but not the 100 quite yet. He spends half the day everyday doing them over and over. It's soo exciting, and the amazing part is :
1. He does not start with the border. (unlike myself)
2. He does not ever look at the box. (unlike myself again)
3. He does it all by himself.

And this is a bit of his creative building (A skate ramp built out of legos for his skater)

He makes me one proud Mama.

HALLOWEEN a little late...

This was Matt's first year doing a haunted house after years of talking about it and it turned out awesome, despite all the gruesome details. No pictures since my page is far too to cute, but it kept the men happy and showed their creativeness, and believe it or not they had many returning guests. The kids on the other hand had a great time doing the usual trick-or-treating without the haunted house.

The Pumpkin Patch

The pumpkin patch is always a great photo opportunity so here it goes:

My favorite

silly kids

cute

Kathy and Gage

The girls


Jack trying to squeeze in...

My gorgeous bunch

Having fun

and then serious

Its hard to get a decent family picture. geez


Dancing the night away

Their pick of the bunch

Daddys girls



They are too darn cute

Love


Leaving at last

Soccer

Their first season of soccer was expected to be entertaining, and that it was, just not much about the game. Of course it was exciting to see them keeping up and running along side their teammates hoping that our child might be a natural and quite possibly score a goal, especially with the odds of having two on the same team. But is that really realistic and what every parent dreams of? It was fun though and predictable seeing how Paris would react to the game. Everytime the ball came her way, she was looking down and facing the other direction, and of course got hit a few times by the ball because of those reasons. Khalia loved it , but wanted to play with her new friends and was not very aggressive when kicking the ball. She would just wait for a teammate to run in front of her to kick it so she could follow. She loved throwing the ball in from the sidelines though. Paris was opposite and when paying attention, was not afraid to be aggressive. She is the daring one after all. Put the two together, any maybe, just maybe it could equal one good soccer player some day.... They had a lot of fun, met new friends that happen to go to the school I work at, and gained some knowledge about the game. Not bad for the first time. Khalia wants to play again, but Paris wants to do dance, gymnastics, and art, wich totally suites her well. Sports is definately not for everyone as we have learned through the years of Paris playing t-ball, and soccer. We have learned to laugh and enjoy who each of them have become............ ( Khalia blocking the ball )

(Being silly like always)

(Paris wondering where the ball went)

(Paris wondering how they drew the lines)

( And, again)

( Khalia and her friend Emily)

(Jack on the sidelines)

( The Handsome Duo)