The Holidays are over!!

So finally I have had a second to get my act together and put up our holiday pictures. I have been putting them together when I thought I may as well just do it after the New year's eve pictures could go into the mix.

To those of you that were playing the home game, we went to my in-laws for Christmas eve and had a great time as usual. It was just our family pounding down beer dogs and fondue as is our traditional Christmas eve meal in our family.

We then spent Christmas day here at home playing with our new toys. The kids got webkins and spent the day playing online with their new friends as this is a world we have managed to avoid until now. It seems to have quickly turned into an addiction with them.

Then the day after Christmas, we packed it up and went down to the southern Oregon coast to spend Christmas with my mom who is working as a state park camp host down there. So we braved it and went camping in a yurt on the coast in late December. It was something that we could honestly say that we have never done :) It was actually a lot of fun and the yurts were nice and heated. The weather was nice (nice for the coast anyway) and my Mom, Peanut and I were even able to go out for a walk on the beach. It was chilly, but bearable. Rockstar took the older kids over to a skate park in Reedsport which was the closest town. We really did have a great time.

New Year's eve sort of crept up on us. We aren't really big party folk anymore and finding babysitting on a night like New years is near impossible. Luckily most of our friends are in the same boat so we all just got together and let the kids run wild together. We had 3 families and a total of 11 kids running wild. We all had a lot of fun playing video games and just hanging out.

So there you have it. I compiled all of our Holiday adventures into one slide show and threw in my favorite version of my favorite Christmas song of all time and voila, the Holidays are finally over!!

So let me bring you up to speed.

Alright I am aware that the past several months I have gotten behind on all my blogs. I am a bad blogger. My life the past couple months has been crazy to say the least. I know a lot of you follow me on Facebook so you are aware of the drama, but for those of you that don't, I will give you a play by play of the past several months and get you up to speed.

September....

I realize I have blogged since then, but I know I left out a lot of things that we did.

Such as...fruit harvest. This fall we harvested a ton of apples that were juiced and made into applesauce. Sunshine loved climbing up the tree to pick the apples out of Grandma's tree.

We also ended up with lots of plums that ended up as plum sauce, jam , dried plums and fruit leather (which I documented here) . Then I had a friend of mine get hold of 3 boxes of concord grapes that were made into juice and now reside in my freezer. Also we got a hold of a box of figs from a friend's tree and made several things.
Also with fall comes all sorts of activities starting up. Bug has been busy with twice a week swimming lessons and Sunshine started ballet. They both love doing these and have really been thriving.
Then in October we had Halloween. I had every intention to post pictures of the kids carving pumpkins and in their costumes, but time just got away from me. So better late than never.They were not nearly as enthusiastic about pumpkin guts as we were.Then came the costumes. Bug was Batman, Peanut was the boy wonder sidekick Robin and Sunshine was a cat. NOT CAT WOMAN!!! She yelled at more than one person on Halloween for making that mistake. We went over to my in laws house to go trick or treating but not before stopping off at my aunt Donna's house. Also my mom was able to go with us this year so that was cool.


Then believe it or not, the majority of the month of November was mostly quiet. Hard to imagine I know. But the weekend before Thanksgiving is when my side of the family does Thanksgiving. So we all met the Saturday before and had a nice Thanksgiving with family and also celebrated my Grandma's 90th birthday.
As soon as we got done with our Thanksgiving dinner we came home to find that Bug was not feeling so chipper. He started running a fever and had an upset stomach that soon came to be known in our family as "flupocalypse '09" in our house. After 5 days of fever I took him in to be seen and he was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus or the swine flu. He sort of got better, but then Sunshine got it. She had it worse with more unpleasant symptoms. She soon got over it after about a week, then Peanut got it. his was the worse of all. Just when it seemed that Peanut was getting over it, Bug got it again.....then Sunshine got it again.....then Peanut got it again. It cycled through our house relentlessly keeping us quarantined for a full month. It was horrible. We were advised to stay home at all costs and if we did leave we had to wear these dumb masks by request from the health department. We were like social lepers. So we just stayed home. For a long , long month.
But once it passed, we were able to get back out in the real world.

In December we had ballet recitals.....

My perfect ballerina was the one closest to the teacher that actually followed her. She is the oldest in the class and you can really tell by her attention span and the fact that she is so much taller than everyone else. Did did great though.Then we were desperately trying to get into the Christmas spirit. We put a tree up for the kids and decorated the house.
And I did my usual holiday bake-a-thon. This year Sunshine helped as much as she could.
Then we rounded out the holiday season with the magnificent zoo lights. For those of you that are not in the Portland area and have no idea what the zoo lights are, it is the Oregon Zoo, but much like the Disneyland's electrical light parade but not moving. It is hard to explain so Rockstar made a cool video to give you a glimpse. You do see some of the animals at the zoo, but it is mostly about the thousands of twinkling lights.


I am still trying to compile our pictures from Christmas eve and our day after Christmas camping trip. But this about brings you up to speed from the past couple months.

So there you go.

Nice day for the beach

So after the week we had, what with school starting and me (sort of) going back to work, our week has just been brutal.

Wouldn't you know I would take it upon myself to get some yard work done along with draining the pool this week. I mean hey, school is back , that means it's fall right? Wrong! I chose poorly. Had I looked at the upcoming weather forecast I would have noted that 90 degree weather was coming this weekend. But I didn't. So with this crazy freak heat on the way and no way to cool our self off, I made the split second decision this morning to head for the beach where it is always cooler than it is here. The Oregon coast is notorious for being cooler than any scorching temperature we have here.

Today was no exception. It was perfect weather. Not too cool but warm enough to play in the normally icy waters.

It was a great day.

Now we are off to start another week, refreshed.....Mostly.

The Coston's cabin

So we have this cabin that we go to every summer. It is in remote central Oregon. It's a little log cabin with no electricity and a propane powered water heater. The whole place is wired for propane so we do have lights but it is pretty primitive. My in laws have been going since their kids were knee high and I have been going since I married in so this is something that we do every year without fail.

It is nestled along side a little lake stocked with tons of trout. There are also several osprey nests along the lake. The whole place is teaming with wildlife but not a lot of people. Some years we have been up there and not seen another person aside from our own family for the whole week.

The kids had a blast fishing and swimming and canoeing. We saw tons of deer and went on nature walks. All in all we had a great time.

camping

This past weekend we went camping at Fort Stevens outside of Astoria on the coast. My mom joined us in her trailer. We were in our 3 room tent. We had a blast. We stayed 2 nights and the campground was really nice. It was loaded with bike trails so we all loaded up , (Nana too) and hit the trails. We went on a 5 mile ride to the beach and a cool shipwreck and then on to the abandoned battery.

The kids had a blast all weekend making friends at the campground and riding their bikes all over the place. They had a great time. We will definitely be visiting again this summer.

Finally some Alaska pictures

I know it only took me a week to get these up here but hey, I don't jet set like I used to. Bouncing back after even a mini vacation takes a little bit of effort.

Really I told you everything that we did mostly. We went up for my grandpa's birthday and got to visit with my family which I very rarely get to see. Mostly because they live in Anchorage and I live here.

Also we drove out to Portage glacier, Whittier and went on a cool bike ride through the city.

Really, that about sums up our weekend.

But here are some cool pictures.

:)

We always forget just how pretty Alaska really is until we leave and come back. Around every corner was a "beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here" moment.

On holiday in the Great white north

So I know I have been sort of vague with details of what I was going to be doing this weekend. Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't . I don't know. But here's the scoop.

So I get this email from my aunt Sue that my Grandpa has a big birthday and party coming up. Now this entire family (save for a small hand full) all live in Anchorage Alaska. They are throwing him (my grandpa) a huge birthday party and everybody else in the family ( which consists of 20 or so people) was going to be up here for the party. She asks if there is any way that we could swing a trip up here. Luckily we just happened to be in the right place with the right connections and were able to pull it all together in about a week. We couldn't afford to bring the kids, but Rockstar and I could just take a long weekend and come up.

But here's the catch. Because it came together so fast, my Dad and step mom didn't know we were coming. So for the first time ever I was able to sneek up on my Dad and surprise him at work. What is funny is he didn't even recognize me at first. He had a hard time placing me.

Thus far we have had a great time. We flew in this morning and have just spent the day having lunch with my aunts and uncles and then having dinner with my dad and step mom. We are staying in a hotel and have the freedom to just chill out and do as little or as much as we want.

Tomorrow we are going to go out for a nice drive and see some glaciers. Alaska is really pretty this time of year but the constant daylight takes a bit to get used to. By the time we get a handle on it, it will be time to go home. Like now for example, it is after 11 at night and it looks like it is dinnertime. The street lights have not even been triggered.

So I will get some more interesting details of our lovely weekend getaway and some pictures too. But for now I have got to get to bed.

I am starting to fall apart.

At long last

So I know my last post was a sad excuse, but like I said I have been busy. So without further delay I give you my photo diary of what we did this weekend. Which as you can see it was a whole lot of beach combing. But to us, that is really relaxing. It was a great weekend.

My in laws rented out a big beach house on the coast. My sister , mother, and father in law plus my family all fit nicely. We split up the meals and just enjoyed each others company. We had phenomenal weather. It was clear as a bell and in the 60's. Sometimes we don't get that lucky in the middle of summer. So for January it was really rare. We spent most of the time on the beach in just light jackets or t shirts.
This is something we look foreword to every year and once again we had a great time.

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.

A night at the ballet

Last night we took Bug and Sunshine to see the Nutcracker downtown. We have been looking foreword to this for a long time. The kids are classical music junkies and I don't just mean they like little Einsteins either. I mean that's all they listen to on the radios in their rooms. I have switched stations several times, but they change it back to the classical station. I am thrilled with that, being a former band nerd, I can appreciate classical music too.

Rockstar and I used to go see The Nutcracker every year at Christmas and had stopped when we had kids, mostly because they weren't quite ready to go yet. It's sort of a big kid thing.

We have been preparing for weeks by watching the dvd's of the Nutcracker (to understand the story) and get familiar with the music.

We got all gussied up and had ourselves a nice night out. I don't think they could have enjoyed it any more. They sat spell bound for the 2 1/2 it ran. They each had a pair of binoculars and just had a great time. I could hear Sunshine humming along with the music through a couple of the songs. They really loved it. It just filled me with such warm fuzzy happiness that they loved it as much as I knew they would.

It was a great night.

They kids and I checking out the orchestra pit and seeing all the musicians that make up the orchestra.

Playing in the stairs during intermission.

Volume 3 ...candy making

My family has this tradition of making hard candy at Christmas time. It started with my Grandma making it years ago and has been a tradition that we are trying to resurrect. We have been doing it the past 7 or 8 years traditionally. It's just something that is so much more fun with a big mess (figuratively and literally) of people to help with all the jobs involved. It even has jobs that the littlest kids can help with. It is very messy though.

We all got together on Sunday afternoon to make some up. A good time was had by all. Of course with all the nutty activities this weekend, we sort of spent our time and dashed out of there with a cloud of powdered sugar in our wake. We got some great pictures though. I love that my kids will have the same fun memories of this that I had growing up.

Weekend marathon volume 1...Cutting down our tree

I know I have been behind on putting up pictures here. But I have been so busy lately, that I have barely had time to even get the pictures off the camera . Let alone write a little something about them.

This past weekend we had a marathon of events, one after the other. On Saturday morning we went out and cut down our Christmas tree. Our friends from church, The Austins, have some property that they have been growing Christmas trees on. They let us come up and pick ourselves out a tree. I have decided that I was going to put the tree in the middle of our living room that has 14 foot vaulted ceilings, so I wanted to do a tall one. The dang thing took 3 men and a boy to take down. (Not really, but it IS big) Rockstar just sort of rolled his eyes but cut it down anyways. He thinks it's a little too "Griswald" and that there may be a family of squirrels living in it.

The kids had a blast running around and weaving in and out of the trees. As you can see, the older kids barely stood still long enough to get a picture that wasn't blurry.

We got it cut down and loaded up in my father in laws truck. My in laws asked if they could take the kids for the afternoon so they got the kids loaded up and off they went.

We then had the afternoon to ourselves and off we went to have lunch all by ourselves.

Or so I though......


to be continued....

Gobble Gobble!!

So I know I have been sort of letting my blog slide lately. This time of year is just so stinking busy I can barely find the time. But tonight I figured it was well overdue to put up some holiday pictures of our Thanksgiving.

My family always celebrates Thanksgiving on the Saturday before the actual holiday. It started many years ago when my Mom used to work a retail job and just couldn't do both the holiday and get in enough sleep to brace herself for black Friday too. Plus it has always worked nicely so there was no competition with in laws wanting that Holiday too. There has never been an issue of having to make several stops at different Thanksgiving dinners.

We had it over at my Mom's house in Battleground, Wa. The entire family came out and we even celebrated my Grandma's 89th birthday. We all made her something to commemorate the event. My mom and I worked together to make her a scrapbook chronicling her life. She was really tickled with it.

We ate, the kids had a great time playing with their cousins which are pretty close in age to them and we had a great day.

Then came the big day.

We did what we do every year. We all gather around the television in our Pj's and watch the Macy's parade.

Have I mentioned my utter annoyance with my furniture situation. We do not have enough seating in our family room, so everyone just piles on me in the chair.


Then we made up our vegetarian dressing and side dishes and headed over to my in laws in West Linn.


It was another great day. We visited and ate and I planned out my attack plan for black Friday. Also Bug got turned on to guitar hero. We all but had to pry it out of his hands.

This is the worst possible picture ever taken of my husband. Although he assures me he has worse. Here are some of the real pictures of our family Thanksgiving dinners.

Why -O Why -O Why -O did I ever leave Ohio?!

So if you notice the time stamp on this here post, you will notice that it is ridiculously early. Just a little after 6 AM to be exact. Why am I up and blogging this early you may ask. Because I am apparently a glutton for punishment. Here's my dilemma.

Last week Peanut discovered how to climb out of his crib. Something they all eventually figure out how to do. Once this skill comes into play, it time to get them out of the crib and into a real bed. I learned this lesson when Bug first learned how to climb out because it almost always invites an injury. The rail to the crib is chest high on me. So they have to be able to swing their pudgy little leg over that and jump (from chest high) to the floor. And pray that there are no sharp or pokey toys in their landing area. (Which is hardly ever the case) It usually ends badly.

So when Peanut hit this milestone, I thought "great time to ditch the crib and make the transition". So taking baby steps into this transition I took the front part of his crib off. So basically he just had a toddler bed that he could get in and out of. Then we put a little rail up so that he does not just fall out in the night. There was about 6 inches at the foot of his bed that he could get in and out of. This seemed like a great plan.... in theory.

Boy was I wrong.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!!!

We have had this set up for 3 nights now. He manages to still fall out of bed 3 or 4 times a night. Then wakes up confused as to how he ended up on the floor.

But the biggest flaw in this great plan is that he now has the freedom to get in and out of bed at will. This means when it's time to go to bed he needs to know it is bedtime time and that he needs to be quiet and go to bed. Unfortunately I am expecting rational logic from a 2 year old. That's my problem. Another flaw in this plan....he shares a room with Bug. So between the two of them they sit up and chatter like a couple of sorority sisters half the night.

I have asked, I have pleaded, I have threatened, I have begged...."please ,please be quiet and go to sleep!!!" (insert your own "or ______ will happen/you won't be able to do __/___will end up at the Goodwill/there will be no birthday this year!")

Over the years this issue has never really given me a lot grief. Bedtime has always been strictly enforced. There has never been wiggle room. It was absolute. But then came Peanut and the need to share a room. Bedtime is still enforced, but with him contained in the crib it really was not all that big of an issue. He and Bug would chatter and talk for about a half an hour and then crash. But now he has the freedom to get out and play. Which keeps Bug up far longer than he likes. Bug wants to quiet down and go to sleep and Peanut is not letting him. This is a major problem. Bug does not have to luxury to take a nap in the middle of the day like Peanut. So he is starting to act up in school mainly because he's not getting enough sleep at night.

But the biggest problem as of recent is not getting to bed. It's getting up at freakish hours and playing. Kids by nature are early risers. I am fine with that (mostly) as I am a morning person myself. But this morning Peanut woke up at 4:30 (yes AM) and decided he was bored so he woke up Bug to have someone to play with. Poor Bug just can't fall back asleep. Once he is up, he's up. I was able to shut their door and try to get back and catch just a couple more ZZZ's myself. But no go. Somewhere around 5, an argument broke out over a toy dispute (which in turn woke Sunshine up) so in order to save face (and at least let my husband sleep) I had to take everyone downstairs. Not happy.

So now I am faced with a dilemma.......How do other people do this whole room sharing thing? I feel terrible for Bug that he can never get to sleep through the night without being pestered by his siblings. I know each child having their own room is a luxury many kids don't know. Do you just put up with a couple years of sleep deprivation (by the whole family) and motor through it much like the newborn phase?

Also should I put the crib back together and hope Peanut has a major injury climbing in and out? I know that seems odd to take away a freedom that has been granted, but for the sanity of the rest of the family.

Any thoughts? Suggestion? Mind numbing drugs?

So for now I am just going to get the kids off to school and spend the rest of my day (drinking) beating my head against the wall.

The company picnic

So today we went to my husband's company picnic. He works for a local utility company that has a lot of employees that also once included my father in law and now currently includes my mother in law. We are just one big PGE family. (Portland general electric)

So with a big company and a lot of employees, you need a big place to have said company picnic. This year they held it at Oaks park. It is our local amusement park. We had all access passes through the park which meant unlimited rides and roller skating. With our big family , we took advantage of every inch of that place.

Bug was not feeling it for any of the rides. He's not much of a ride kid. He likes to be in control of his surroundings at all times and nutty rides play no part in that. He's just like his Dad. My poor husband and Bug were getting anxious just watching some of these rides.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sunshine and I were dying to get on them. My father in law wanted to go on them too, so between the three of us, I think we about hit every ride in the place. There were a handful that we didn't make it on, but I will save them for next time.

We also went roller skating for about an hour. I always forget how much fun it is and how much work it is. You use muscles that you use nowhere else but in roller skating. We had a good time.

We got some great pictures of the day. My personal favorites are the action shots in the rides.

Like here we have Sunshine the fearless on the roller coaster with Grandpa.


This one was taken as I was cruising top speed spinning through the air on this thing .




This is My father in law with me going upside down on the roller coaster.



Then here is just a sideshow of the whole day as there were too many cool shots to put them up individually.



Needless to say we had a great day.

Peanut turns 2!!

Well today was my little Peanut's second birthday. It really feels like he's still a newborn. These past 2 years have flown by. But at the same time , I can't remember what it was like not to have him. Weird how that works. Even weirder , I have a really hard time trying to remember what my life was like before I had kids. Quieter and less sticky I would imagine. I don't know. My brain sort of fold in on itself if I think about it too much.

But anyhoo, back to Peanut. We had pizza and ate out back in the gazebo. We had the grandparents over and just had a mellow low key party. We ate cake and opened presents. Nothing fancy. It was nice having everyone over though.

The state fair !!

So my husband got home last night safe and sound from Chicago. He had promised the kids that if they helped me out and were good while he was gone then he would take them to the state fair when he got home. Funny thing about kids is they never remember things like put up the toilet seat before you pee, but they do remember promises like that.

So as promised, we went to the fair this afternoon. We do this every year and always have a great time. My mom went with us too. Her and Sunshine ohhed and ahhed at the cool horses. We spent a lot of time in the livestock area and horse arena. We saw sheep, goats and pigs. We even saw a litter of piglets. Peanut loved that. We also got to see some (horse) riding demos with groups of women all dressed in sparkly clothes rode around and did a sort of dance (set to music) while riding in formations. It was really cool and I think Sunshine has found her calling.

But everyone's favorite part of the day was a pen with baby chicks in it. Sunshine was convinced that she was the pied piper of the chicks as they would follow her around anywhere she went. We even got a video of it. It was pretty cute. She was trying to outrun them and they would haul and try to catch up. You know, as fast as their little chicky legs would carry them.


Although I have to say, my favorite part of the day is always the ice cream. There is something indulgently grand about fair food. It's only once a year :)

Bigfoot Lives!!!

Ok if you know me at all, you know that I am a total bigfoot freak. (Hey, I never claimed to be cool) I have always had a weird fascination with it. Why you ask? Well because I am a big fat dork. Thats why.

A couple years ago I stumbled onto this Bigfoot museum up by Mt. St. Helens. So naturally now every time I'm up in that area I have to stop in and see if there is anything new. Not to mention get our picture taken with the big stupid statue out front.

Super cool stuff that they have gotten in this area.

Believe it or not....there is a big market for bigfoot merchandise. Who knew? Now if only we could come up with a legit animal we'd be set.

A day at Mt.St Helens

So we finally got another streak of decent weather and thought we had better jump at the chance to get out and have a nice family day. So we decided we were going to pack a picnic lunch and head up to Mt. St. Helens. It is a couple hours from us, but really a pretty drive. We grabbed my Mom along for the ride because she likes to get out and enjoy days like this too.

Our first stop was a place called "Ape cave". It is a huge cave that runs several miles underground. There was really nowhere to have a picnic, so we just laid out our blanket in the parking lot. Which was fine until a huge caravan of cars came in and we needed to move. So we ate it on the tailgate like true white trash :)

We trekked to the cave all excited to do this and both my mom and I took one look at it and decided that we really weren't cave type people after all. Way too dark and closed in. I'm not sure what exactly we expected here, but it turns out all the caves with skylights were not available. Oh and did I mention bats and mice? Yeah....no. Not gonna happen. Rockstar and the kids went in a little bit. They had fun.

So we moved along to our next stop along the way...we stopped at the Mt. St. Helens museum. Turns out everything was a pay to see kind of thing. You couldn't just go in and wander. So that was sort of a bummer. But we just sort of let the kids run around out front and blow off some stink. They had been cooped up in the car most of the day and needed to get out and shake off the wiggles.

We got some good pictures out of the mix.

All in all we had a fun day and went on a nice drive up to the mountain.

It's berry pickin time!!

I love this time of year because all the berries come into season. We went out and picked a flat of raspberries this afternoon. I almost made the fatal error of just buying a flat (mostly because it's just easier) but to buy a flat is $27. To pick your own is $14. Gee I wonder what I ended up doing. I am just that cheap.

Luckily I found a great reason for having a ton of kids. You can get your picking done pretty fast. Between the 5 of us (well, really only 4) we got a whole flat picked in less than an hour. Not too bad. I was a little surprised how eager the kids were to make it a contest to see who could pick the most the fastest. Although I think more eating was going on than picking.

But all in all we had a fun afternoon.

Tomorrow it will all be made up into jam and in jars.