Happy Anniversary

Lucky number 13 this year. I guess if the snow storm had hit this week they could have blamed us for staying in town based off of our anniversary weather history. From day 1's storm that wiped out the road from Crescent City to Eureka to the infamous hurricane, I guess you can't say that it has been boring. Happy Anniversary.

Earrings for Mal and Al

Mallory decided to get her ears pierced because Allie was going to. She had been saying she didn't want them but I thought (mothers intuition and all that she was just scared of the ouch factor). My mom's birthday gift to the girls when they were turning 8 was getting their ears done if they wanted. So with Allie wanting hers done it was enough to give Mal the confidence she needed. The following is the sequence of events.....

Mal and Al before the earringsMallory getting ready
Mallory getting nervous


Mal surviving the pain, although she did look as if she were ready to bolt at any moment


the finished product....

Getting instructions and a good shot of all the girls. We were sadly missing Jess and Anna. If you guys were here would Anna have earrings now?

After the ordeal was over. Aunt Kim took us out for Ice cream. It certainly helped Mallory forget the ouch and enjoy herself with her sister and cousin. Good idea Kim!

I thought Mal looked cute...

The cousins goofing around.

What a fun night to remember.

Wii!!!

So the Wii has made it into our home. That means that my already early risers were rising even earlier to play it! I finally said no Wii until 10am in the hopes it would put an end to the 6am play time. I think it may have helped a little. It has been fun though to see the family play together and get along. Well, at least when they're playing on a team! Here's a clip of what I get to enjoy each night. (Even if it is a bit more subdued than usual.)

I need to add that the rain came last night and we're getting clear sidewalks, clearer roads, green grass, and we even found the pieces to our snowman that had been buried under the second onslaught of snow. I'm glad it's clearing up! Good bye snow. (At least for now)

Christmas Morning Videos

Here are some videos for the grandparents...
Connor's video wouldn't load sorry!

Christmas Morning

Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning. Merry Christmas to everyone.

Christmas Parties

We had a White Elephant gift exchange and had a blast. I walked away with a winner. The Avenging Unicorn. Yes you got that right. This unicorn has an impaled mime on it's horn and a couple more figures to do the same with. It's Pete's favorite present ever. It even knocked out the Brady Christmas CD.

The kids had a friend party. I'm so glad we were able to still have it. Pete shoveled the walk and a path down the driveway so they could get to the door. The snow had it's layer of ice that he had to break through first.

This was our frozen waterfall.

Mallory helped us get ready for the party. This was the gift unwrap relay race. The kids had to walk down blindfolded, unwrap a gift, throw away the trash and make it back to the next in line.
The next game that we played was Barefoot Bocce. I have to say that this was my favorite game that they played. They had to kick a sock into or closest to the hat. They were pretty good.
After decorating sugar cookies, they had a Dance, Dance Revolution tournament. Connor gets into it pretty good. We had our Champs. It was fun to watch the kids.
Here's our house all covered in snow.

Still snowing... Will it stop.... PLEASE!

So you can compare this picture to the one in the last blog. Yep, we ended up with 71/2 inches yesterday. Today it didn't go anywhere. The top bit was frozen and Mallory and Hershey had fun breaking through it this morning. The snow has started again today, along with the freezing rain and now ice. The trees do look pretty with the ice.

Hershey's dogloo really looks like the real thing. She has gotten into it once this whole time!

This is a picture of the deck. For Oregon this kindof snowfall doen't usually happen.

Once there was a snowman....

Our snowman had a short life. It melted and then today we have more snow. Better luck next time I suppose. The snow has continued falling today with out stopping. The news has said we're in for a deep freeze. We'll see. As Pete and I ventured out this morning before it got too bad (it was alrerady bad enough) the Christmas songs took on a whole new meaning for those of us who don't usually see it. Titles such as, It's beginning to look alot like Christmas, and There's no place like home for the holiday's. We made our outing quick (but safe) so that we could get home. It's funny to us how much of a quandry snow is for Oregon. When we lived in Utah this was an expected way of life. Here it turns everything into chaos. After being here for as long as we have been, we don't get too panicky over the snow but have learned that Oregon snow doesn't equate to Utah snow. Ours is usually wet. Then it melts just enough to cover the ground with a lovely coat of ice. Sometimes we get more snow, then ice ect. ect. This my friends is what freaks out Oregonians and rightly so.
P.S. for all of you that our last blog background bugged I hope this is better for you!

Snowman Update

Snow again is falling in the valley. The kids (with some Julie help) have been working all morning on our new neighbor.

Snowing inside and out!

We woke up this morning to slight flutters of snow. The T.V. stations were all reporting on it. On the other side of Portland there was snow to report but for us not so much. Within a half an hour snow had dusted the rooftops and ground and it hasn't stopped much. There's still not much out there, but church was cancelled. So, we bussied ourselves with a waffle breakfast and then Pete hung our snowflakes in the front room. The kids played outside in the real ones and our puppy enjoyed herself as well. Now, we were under the impression that we had gotten a water dog. Today she is showing us that snow may be her strong suit. Winter has arrived.

The kids had a good time today. Pete found a Monopoly game online and the kids had fun trying to beat the computer. Mallory played Dance Dance Revolution and had me try it. I did fine on the easy ones but any harder and I was not good. I'll have to work on that. School was canceled for tomorrow so we'll have plenty of time for improving our moves! Our 7 day forecast said we won't be seeing anything above 30 degrees. COLD!! I'm sure the kids will be trying to build a snowman tomorrow.

Obedience class for Hershey

Hershey has finnished her 6 weeks of obedience training. She made some friends along with getting much better at walking on a leash and behaving. She is such a good dog. I don't think we could have asked for a better personality for our family dog. She is fun loving and very good with the kids. She loves people and other dogs. If she's this good as a puppy she should be excelent as an older dog. Anyway, her favorite friend from class was Sebastian. He is a 5 month old St. Bernard. They play really well together. Hershey always wanted to know where he was. Her other friend was Rosa. She is a short haired German Pointer. They got along well also. So classes are over but training continues. Good job Hershey!

Girls will be Girls

So a new era has arrived to our house hold. The girls have discovered shoes. Not just any shoes mind you but mom's shoes. I had to take a picture because they've been walking around the house in my shoes for a few days and I still am finding that my shoes are not where I expect them to be because they've been borrowed at some earlier time. The girls would now like a pair of their own boots with high heels. Oh, we've only just begun!

In August while setting up for Emily's reception, I realized that my center stone had disapeared from my ring. Two of my prongs had broken and so I have been without my ring since. We didn't want to replace the center stone because no one would cover it if this happened again. So Pete took me ring shopping and we found a new ring. It is nothing like the original but it was beautiful and we both liked it alot. So thank you Pete for my early Christmas gift. I love it!!! Sorry about the movie of it. I haven't been able to take a good picture.

So the last little lady in this blog is sweet Hershey. We had her spayed on Friday. She was really out of it that night and the next couple of days she was doing okay but on the third day she was having some difficulty. She was dehydrated and hadn't eaten much and was sick to her tummy (we wont go into details). I took her in for her check up and they gave her some fluids and some very bland food to try. She got sicker later that day and so we kept an eye on her. This morning we came downstairs to find some not so lovely surprises. She seems to be doing better though and we hope to see her recover quickly!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was hosted by Bob and Kim. Thanks for having us! I forgot my camera and so we get to see things from the girls perspective. I have enjoyed Courtney's pictures. It is fun to see the things she see's. Pete's mom and dad came up for the holiday and his brother Mike and Kim came too. The cousins had a great time together at the dinner table as well as on the wii. Friday I did one quick run to an early bird special and came home all ready to go back to sleep. Alas sleep evaded me and everyone else was still asleep. I decided it was a great time to give Hershey her shower. After everyone woke up and had their breakfast we started to decorate for Christmas. We got the house all done on Friday except for the ornaments. Saturday we went to see a friend who hosted a "get your tree" gathering. We have an artificial tree I admit but we were able to get this pretty Holly wreath. Thank you Vickie. Courtney took pictures of our decorating (no I did not prompt her) and so I have fruits of our labors! The girls were a huge help with getting things up. Thank you girls for your help. I do have to mention that Connor was not feeling well so that's why he didn't participate much. Hershey wanted to be wherever we were and is happiest if we let her stay close. I still don't want her on the carpet! Christmas is coming fast and I hope we can enjoy this season and remember what it's all about!!