CHRISTMAS 2008

Woke up Christmas morning and both Matt and Jonathan had terrible colds.. can you tell?? But that didn't stop Jon from being excited to open up his gifts from Santa. He asked for ball-balls this year (big surprise) and was thrilled that he got them! Alissa asked for Scooby Doo Haunted House game... I wish you could have seen the look on Santa's face. He said, "Really? That's what you want? That's ALL you want??" To which Alissa replied, "YES!" Hehe.. love my girl. So, here it is! Jonathan enjoyed holding every single present high in the air to show it off. And my patriotic little girl got the self waving flag that plays patriotic songs that she wanted. Every morning we play the Start Spangled Banner and she puts her hand on her heart all serious until the song ends. You go girl! Jonathan found his two favorite things in his stocking - Tic tacs and ball-balls! :)

And I got an extra special gift from Santa this year -- My own LAPTOP!!! Words cannot express how excited I was!!! I must have been a real good girl this year!

It was a fantastic Christmas morning.

We ended the day at Grandma Davis' house with the best Christmas dinner EVER! And of course yet again I did not have my camera. Oops. Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve morning we headed to Grandma Adams' house for yummy breakfast burritos and of course..presents!!!

The kids sat on the floor and opened their presents together. It was very cute and they were all on cloud nine.

Alissa even played us some Christmas tunes.
It was a wonderful morning! Full of laughter and family..nothing better.

Then we went home for Jon's nap and when he woke up the kids got to open their presents from mom, dad, and GG! Jonathan's favorite present was the bubble wrap (surprise surprise) followed by a very cute dump truck from GG! Mostly he was content to sit and pop the bubble wrap.

Alissa's favorite was her very own "My Pet Monster" that mommy found for her new in box on ebay!! Mommy had one as a kid..and since Alissa LOVES monsters, well it was the perfect gift!!

I had to get one for Jon too..so he got the original 1986 (the one I had located on the left) and Alissa got the 1991 version (it talks!) Where would I be without Ebay???
After we opened presents it was off the Grandma Davis house for..you guessed it..MORE PRESENTS! Unfortunately I left daddy in charge of taking pictures.. sooo.. this was all I could scrounge up. I will have to get more pictures from someone elses camera!! Although, Grandpa does look thrilled to get his new hat. Hehe.

Adventures in Freezing Rain

Note the ice coated basketball hoop and branches... It was a great adventure for the kidlets. Their snowman had a two inch coating of ice on him. Pretty cool stuff. :)

The Nutcracker Ballet

Alissa was so excited on performance day! Her first time on stage!! Mommy got to put big girl makeup on her and everything!! Here is mommy putting on the foundation - Then the finished product!! One girl ready for the stage!
Here is Alissa backstage all dressed in her costume and ready to hit the stage.
And a picture with all of the baby soldiers! :)

The performance was wonderful and the kids all did great. Alissa was a champ because it was a LONG day. We showed up at the theatre at 1pm for dress rehearsal and didn't leave there until 9pm after the show. I was so proud of my little Alissa. She was so confident and remembered all of her moves. She was beaming at the end of the show when she got flowers from family...she was a real star.

Mr. Winter

Wow has it been fun this last couple weeks. We have had snow, freezing rain, sleet.. everything in between. The kids have been in heaven!
Triton is getting huge and is just a big dorky sweetheart.

And on these winter days what could be better than cuddling up in a basket with your sibling? Nothing I can think of.

Alissa had her Nutcracker ballet performance Saturday, it was great! I'll post on that after I upload the photos. Until then...playing catch up with the blog! :)

Adventures in Tie Dye

Just a quick post... I took all the kids stained t-shirts and we had a tie dye party. Too much fun! The kids did a great job and the shirts all turned out fabulous.

A Spiderman Christmas?

That's what we almost had...
See it all began with a harmless school field trip to a cute little tree farm. The owner of the tree farm invites the preschoolers to come to his farm and pick out a tree for their school. He also allows parents to pick and tree on his lot no matter the size for $10. What a deal!! Every year we get a Noble, but this year with money being tight we couldn't pass up such a great offer. So we bundled the kids and headed out for the field trip. Alissa was so very excited to pick our family tree. She immediately latched on the the tree you see her standing by in the picture below.
Lucky for us it wasn't huge or we were heading for a Griswold Christmas. It was the perfect size and cute as can be...we found our tree!!! The nice tree farmer cut it down for us and Matt strapped it on the van. Mission accomplished!! Until we got it home.. that's when the fun began.
So Matt trimmed up the tree and got it in its stand and we put it in a place of honor in our living room. I went out to the garage and got our ornament box and the lights and we all gathered round the tree for the best part - decorations!
This is when I stared lovingly at the tree and noticed something was amiss. As in.. the tree was moving. Weird. I got a little closer and saw a pretty good size black spider had crawled to the edge of a branch. MATT! I called.. SPIDER!! In comes daddy my spider mooshing hero to save the day. But wait, come back! Another one!! It all goes downhill from here. You see.. after he mooshed the first 3, the rest of them came out of hiding. As soon as I lost count I told Matt to put the tree outside...QUICK. And he did.
Ok...time to regroup.. Alissa is in a bit of a panic -- MY TREE MY TREE! Why is it outside? I try to explain that there were a few spiders and we didn't want them getting all over the house so we put it outside. At this point what does any good mom do?? I hit the internet! I needed some serious advice... how do you rid a Christmas tree of spiders? Now let me explain something.. these spiders were not all of the same species.. we had big ones, little ones, red ones, black ones, tiny baby ones..getting the picture? Yep..it was a Spiderman Christmas tree.
So the net.. not at all useful. Basically the only advice was to use a vacuum if you found a spider or two..well, we did NOT have a spider or two...we had an infestation. But again, I'm a good mommy so I lug the tree back inside and plop it on the kitchen floor. No spiders in sight...but I have learned from this experience that the spiders do not crawl out to the edge of the branches until they warm up a bit. Lovely. About 15 minutes later out come my spidy friends and I start suckin them up. After a few, I decide this is just too creepy and put the tree back outside. It is getting late and getting cold, I know it will be well under freezing that night so I have a brilliant (haha) idea..I hose down the tree and let it freeze! That'll teach those spiders who's boss!!
The next morning I shake the now melted water off the tree and drag it inside. 15 minutes later...no spiders. I feel triumphant for the next 5 minutes until the little buggers start to creep out again. Ok..plan A and B didn't work. Time for plan C - the tree went back into the backyard, I bundled up the kids.. and headed for a different tree farm. Problem solved.
And that my dear friends and family.. is the story of how we almost had a Spiderman Christmas. There is a moral here - Always check your tree for spiders before putting on your decorations.. you just never know when you too might have a Spiderman Christmas.
The End.

Fieldtrips and dreams..

This is Alissa and Jon with their buddies.. went on a field trip to Roth's with Alissa's class. It was a hoot! Alissa and Jon got to make and decorate their own cupcakes and pizza. They got to tour the giant refrigerator and discuss apples. It was a great time.

On the dreams...
Matt and I found the perfect house. It is HUGE and beautiful... two story 3000 squ ft with a play room and office and three bedroom. The owner is desperate and going into foreclosure so lowered the price 75k!! But alas, with everything going as it is going with the economy I doubt we are going to be able to get a loan. It is really kind of depressing to have this unbelievable deal and a house I could finally be comfortable in and proud of at our fingertips but the ever important money issue stands in our way. The family across the street is even friends of ours! It would be just perfect, next to a park.. I am 90% sure we will not get the loan, but it is so hard not to dream the what-ifs you know? So we will try, and try not to be too bummed if we don't get to move in. Did I mention there is even a 50's front porch? With the little fence.. it is SCREAMING for a rocking chair and lots of lazy evenings chatting with neighbors sipping lemonade. Sigh..

GG's House and the pumpkin patch.

Forgive me, but these pictures are all from October :) I need to catch up!! First off, Alissa went on her first school field trip to Bauman Farm for the pumpkin patch. She loved feeding and petting all the animals, watching them made apple cider, picking a pumpkin a gourd and an Indian corn, and riding the hay wagon. A good friend asked me to watch her two kids that day so it was a bit of a handful - luckily Matt was off work and came with us! We have also been spending a lot of time at GG's house. She is getting ready to disappear for the winter to sunny Arizona. This lovely picture was taken by Alissa - my budding photographer.

We spend a lot of time at the park enjoying the last few sunny days before the clouds roll in. Alissa likes to put bread on the end of a stick and go fishing for minnows! Jonathan just likes to throw rocks in the water.

Much much more to come! I need to catch up! But for now the kiddos are awake and hungry..priorities!

Happy (late) Halloween!

From a couple of pirates and their dog. Yes, I am still alive. I will update this very soon. I am WAY behind and it will be a long post. Tonight I need some sleep!!

Jonathan's first day of school.

Third post of the night!! WOOHOO I'm on a roll! Hehe..

So Monday Jonathan started Toddler Time class.. it's a mommy & me class where we are together the whole time and it is semi-structured but lots and lots of fun. Jon was so excited to finally get to go to school and carry his own backpack!!

The class is in the same building as Ali's preschool so we are literally right across the hall every Monday morning. Oh! And the best part -- it is free!! They waived all fees for Jonathan because I am also the ASL interpreter in class for a deaf momma.. it's my first paid interpreting job!! The class is 9am to 11am and fun fun fun.. the kids get a chance to be creative and interact. Jonathan fit right in.
Ok, I have more to post about but I am pooped. I will try and get on here more often.. if I can pry myself away from that darn game.. Aarrrrr

Graduation Celebration!! Post #2

So after graduation Matt and I headed to Keizer to take care of some serious family business.............. and the next day we headed to the coast. We stayed in a condo in Newport and it was GREAT! I had never stayed in a condo before and found it to be.. well, just lots of fun. Our first surprise upon arrival was a basketball hoop upstairs! Jonathan was beside himself. Here he is again on the deck.. just being Jon.
Alissa was thrilled because one of the bedrooms had a toy kitchen with play food and all kinds of goodies to play with. She roped GG into playing house. Of course Alissa plays house differently then a lot of 4 year olds.. GG had to be the police officer and save the baby (the horse) and.. well... I lost track at that point.
Jonathan also tried his hand at air hockey upstairs.
Overall we just relaxed and had fun hanging out.

The Graduation

So much to update so little time. Sorry I have taking a small blogging vacation. Truth be told it is all the fault of an online game.. a game so seriously addictive that I won't even tell you what it is for fear that you will be sucked in as well. It all began with a commercial, some pirates, and a little girl named Alissa. But I digress.. so much has happened I will try and get it all in here but will separate posts just because.

So first I must write about Matt's graduation from DPSST. It was a very very long 16 weeks but he survived. When we arrived I parked three miles away (ok, not really but it sure felt like it) and was preparing to walk by myself with two kids in tow (not fun when they both get tired of walking) when we ran into Justin and Lisa! Yeah! Justin was kind enough to carry Alissa the remaining two miles to the ceremony. I should mention that Alissa is totally and completely enamored with Justin. Thinks he is just the coolest thing since home-made playdoh. So to say the least she was thrilled when she got to sit with him before the graduation ceremony started.

Matt happily excepted his certificate...
And Alissa got to hang with him after the ceremony.
Of course he was up-staged by a frog she found outside.. sorry Daddy.
Here is the whole family that showed up for the big "G".
It was a wonderful ceremony and a huge relief as we are one step further in this year long journey to get Matt on the road.

AC GILBERT House.

So Tuesday I took the kiddos to AC Gilbert house museum for play and story time. When we first arrived Jonathan enjoyed being a big boy pushing a shopping cart.. speaking of big boy it has been one week since I have nursed him. That's right..it's official.. I finally let go. That made it a grand total of 5 years and 2 months STRAIGHT of either being pregnant or nursing babies.. I finally have my body back and now I miss it. Sigh.. thus is life. If you say to Jon, "Are you a big boy now?" he responds with a high pitched voice, "No more momma milk, I big boy now". Too too cute. Ok.. back to AC Gilbert.. Alissa enjoyed painting with water in the China room...
And of course a tea party!
At 11 o'clock we headed to the story room where we heard "The Little Red Hen" and the kiddos made a rock mouse, a clucking cup hen, and a finger puppet piggy after the story.
We went home and the boys took a nap. After nap I had three kids in a tiny plastic kiddy pool!! It was too funny. It has been in the 90's so we are enjoying it while we can before fall creeps up on us and it gets chilly. Here's the three kiddos drying off after the pool. The little guy on the right is Porter who I babysit Tuesday through Thursday.
It was a fun day.. but very exhausting.