Christmas

Our Christmas festivities mostly went off without a hitch. Our Christmas day with my family was postponed until New Year's day due to the snow and difficult driving conditions. My Grandma would be coming from The Dalles and the freeway was closed for most of the week, so nobody was even able to get up and get her down here.
But we still had our Christmas eve with my mom here at our house. Then we went over to my husband's folk's house. We had a nice time visiting with family and eating things we should only eat once a year.
Once we got home, we got the kids to bed and set out our cookies for Santa. He was nice enough to come and leave our presents under the tree. The kids were really worried that they wouldn't make it to the "nice list" due to a few incidents over the past month involving snooping and arguing. (long story) But miraculously they DID make it to the nice list after all.
We had an awesome Christmas day opening presents and spending the whole day in our pajamas, eating Christmas sticky buns (a favorite for as long as I can remember). It was really nice.

Plus as always, we got some great pictures.

Now is the winter of my discontent!!

Seriously!! This snow! It warmed up to about 35 today. So all that 12 feet of snow I have out in my front yard....still here. Not going anywhere. I am so sick to death of this. We almost considered canceling our Christmas eve festivities tomorrow night. But decided that we could make it work. Christmas day at my family's house was canceled. We hope to have it on New years day instead. I am beginning to fear where all that snow will melt off and go to. We could have ourselves a pretty gnarly flood on our hands.

I blame Al Gore for all of this. In case you were wondering.

Enough with the snow already!

Ok I am all for snow and all. Don't get me wrong. It is beautiful and fun to play in. That said.......enough is enough!!! It has been snowing for a week straight. All last week of school was canceled. Not that I don't love my kids, but I was in no way prepared for an extra week of kids under my feet. We had made the decision that everyone on our Christmas list (except the kids who are getting gifts from Santa) would be getting homemade presents. We have been pounding away making our gifts for the past several weeks. We were mostly on schedule. Until.....the great white menace came upon us. And when I say menace, I mean snow. And when I say snow, I don't mean just a light dusting like we normally get here in Portland. I mean it has dumped non stop for the past week. Then there is the freezing rain. A pleasant addition to an already annoying situation.
As of right now, we have been completly stuck in the house. The kids have been out and playing in it, but I can't exactly get out and get anything done. I myself have not left the house for 5 days. As I write this, I am looking out at my van. The snow is up to the bottom bumper. I would literally have to dig the car out to even go anywhere. It is a big mess. It wouldn't be so bad if our street got plowed, but no such luck. I am going to attempt to make it out to Costco this afternoon. Mostly because I am in desperate need to see another person outside of my immediate family. Cabin fever is driving me nuts. My kids are driving me nuts. But mostly the pile of wet clothes by my front door and the trail of ice chunks through the house (because nobody seems to understand that you can't walk through the house in your snow boots) are driving me nuts.

In short, it's pretty and all but I'm ready for spring. By the way...welcome to the official 2nd day of winter. This is going to be a long winter.

We did get some cool pictures though.

Snow day!!

We woke up this morning to the snow coming down fast and furious, so we got some breakfast and headed out to play in it before it was gone. The kids had a blast playing in the field across the street. We got some great pictures along the way too.