Christmas Morning

So Christmas morning went kinda like this....Zach woke up at 7:00, ran out to the tree, then I think must have gotten a little freaked out at the notion that Santa really did come and eat the cookies, drink the milk, and leave lots of presents, because he stared at everything for about 30 seconds, then ran back to his room and into his bed! He's the type that really has to think about things before he decides how he feels about them. Then when Andy and I got up and asked Zach if Santa came, he got a big grin on his face and said, "yes!" Then he was gung-ho about everything! It was a fun morning. I got Andy a new razor and a new Oregon Ducks coat. I made him strike this pose with his new stuff. Andy got me the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook all about how to sneak veggies into your kids food. I'm pretty excited to try it. He got me other good stuff too, but I don't have pictures. Z and A sitting in front of the tree and Zach tearing into his much requested car wash! Yeah, Santa's so smart he got just what Zach asked him for. Just looking happy! Abby learing how to drum with her Bee Bop Band.
Zach was the accompanist on his new piano. It's pretty cool how it just rolls up for easy storage. Easy storage in a small living space is ALWAYS appreciated. :)
She's just so darn cute!
Zach rocking out on his Sit and Spin. Those things are pretty funny. Abby and her new barn and animals. I think Zach liked this better than she did though!

Giving her new friends some love.

Dec. 22nd with my mom's family

We had an early Christmas celebration with my mom's side of the family up in Portland. It's just getting to be too hard to get everyone together on Christmas day anymore, what with grandkids getting married and needing to spend time with their in-laws too, so we do it early and it's been working out well. Now that I look back at the pictures I have, I see that I'm pretty limited in my shots to those of just my own kids and not much of other people! Is that normal? Oh well....here they are, having fun. Such a ham!
A happy girl!
Having fun with daddy.
My mom with her grandkids that we could get rounded up for a picture.
I just think he looks so handsome in the picture. He is such a little man!And, eating her shoe. Of course!

Gingerbread House Fun

Ok, so everyone knows I don't update very often, but now I feel totally overwhelmed with all of the pictures and Christmas happenings that I need to talk about here. I just uploaded the pictures to our computer from the last week and a half or so, and there were 155 pictures on there! Whoa! So, this is going to be gradual....I'll start with Andy and Zach making our Gingerbread house. Enjoy and check back in a couple days for another update. Seriously, my goal is to have all of the Christmas stuff on here before New Years! Ha....would only make sense, right? :)

Getting all organized and ready to start....
Glue, glue, glue...
Start adding some color...
Almost there....
Ta-da!! So cute!

What's new with us?

Not much. I figured you were all getting pretty sick of my Thanksgiving post though, so I thought it would be a good idea to give you something new to look at. So these are just some pictures of the kids and our Christmas decorations. Yes, they're finally up! We're usually much more prompt about decorating, but it just wasn't happening this year for some reason. We found a great sale on a kitchen nook, so we treated ourselves to one! Andy had to assemble it, and Abby was his little helper. She mostly just wanted to dig through his tool bag though...
I forget how long her arms are, but she reminded me when she was able to reach over to the table and get her applesauce cup. She was so excited and having so much fun making a mess I just decided to go with it!
Abby, who is definitely into EVERYTHING, found one of Zach's art projects from school and proceeded to tear off the reindeers bow and nose. Poor Zach...nothing is safe anymore!

In front of our tree. Zach, trying to hang an ornament. Christmas is so much more fun with him this year because he really gets it now. It's so fun to see the excitement and wonder in his eyes! (and yes, his shirt is on backwards!) Our tree! I love it, and it smells so good!
Our Christmas stockings. Zach doesn't quite understand why there's a train on his. He says, "So I'm going to be a train for Christmas?" (like we're going to dress up like we did for Halloween or something) It's funny. Although I wouldn't mind seeing Andy try to dress up like a Christmas tree! ha! :)
And, my new pride and joy. My Willow Tree Nativity. Isn't it pretty? I have to admit that I didn't even know it existed until I saw Brenley's on her blog. Hope you don't mind that I copied you Brenley! You have such good taste, and I just love my new Nativity! Aahhhh......

Thanksgiving Weekend

We hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! Ours was great, but I think Zach, Abby and I were all spoiled by having Andy home with us for 4 whole days! It was so nice, and made it hard to give him up on Monday morning when he had to go back to work. Oh well, we'll take what we can get! Here are some pictures of our weekend. We spent the day at my sister, Alice's beautiful home. It was special this year because both of my brothers and their families were with us too, so the whole family was together. Here are the grandkids at the kids table....oh how I remember the days of sitting at the kids table! Abby, who was very excited about the stairs! We don't have stairs at our house, so she was having fun trying to crawl up them. She did pretty good too!

Zach and his cousins, Elena, Jasmine, and Sarah, relaxing after dinner.
This was the football-watching crowd....my brother Mark, my brother-in-law Brad, dad and Andy.
The completely adorable turkey cupcakes that my sister-in-law made! Aren't they cute???

Just a little family shot!

The next day Andy decided to do our outdoor lights. He really went all out this year and even got one of the scissor-lifts from work so he could get way up high in our tree. Cracks me up! All of the neighbors were calling him Clark Griswald!
A little higher!
The final effect...although it's hard to tell how they really look in this picture. You'll have to take my word for it that it looks awesome! He did a great job! What a guy! :)

On Sunday we went out to tag our Christmas tree. It's our little family tradition to tag our tree every year on Thanksgiving weekend. My mom joins us too to make it even more special. Here's Zach taking off on his tree quest.
My sweet little man!
Ok, you may think this is a weird shot, but I thought it was so pretty! We were walking along and I saw all of these tomatoes, rotting on the ground. They were still so colorful though. Such a pretty color-spot among what can be a bleak time of year.
Grandma, hiding in the trees!

And, one more family pic. We took a few and I think one of them is going to end up being our Christmas card picture. Seems to be another tradition that we have....the last three years our Christmas card picture has been from the Christmas tree farm. Andy and I joke about dragging the kids out 15 years from now for our traditional picture! Oh well....a tradition is a tradition, right? :)

And that about sums up our weekend! Hope yours was wonderful too!

GOBBLE GOBBLE!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE! We hope you all have a blessed day filled with love, family, friends, and everything GOOD!

Nothing much to report...

Man, I have been needing to update for awhile now, but there just hasn't been much going on in our lives that seemed very blog-worthy. Guess we're kinda boring lately! However, I decided I could at least put on a couple of pictures to show off my little cuties! :) Abby, working on brushing her teeth. We haven't been very good about regularily brushing them, so that's my new goal. It would be a good thing, right?
Two almost naked kids, fresh from the bath. Cracks me up how much they look alike! They sure enjoy each other's company though....it's so nice when your kids grow up being friends. Well, at least for now they're friends. Ask me again in 10 years!
Don't worry, these aren't his real teeth! (as if you thought they were!) Andy had these lovely fake teeth that he wore for Halloween awhile ago, and Zach just thinks they are the funniest things! Ahhh, my handsome little boy. ;-)
Sweet little Abby......what more can I say?
Abby posing for me on her (well it's actually Zach's but we won't tell him) little chair. I had to snap the picture quickly before she fell off!

Halloween and Pumpkin Patches!

Zach's Halloween parade at his preschool.....he's towards the back of the line....the Pirate picking his nose. (lovely!) Can you find him?
Zach the Pirate, and his little girlfriend, Rylee the Elephant. Everyday they hold hands as we walk to our cars from school. They're so cute together!
Ready for trick-or-treating! My sister Alice, holding Abby, our nieces Emily and Jasmine, and Zach.
Abby wearing a funny pumpkin hat toward the end of our evening. She sure made a cute lion, but she kept tearing the mane off, so we took her costume off and gave her some better moving freedom. Thanks to Brynne for the adorable costume though! Everybody loved it!! :)

Z and A at Johnson's Farm. This was before the crazy tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. It was very fun!
Still at Johnson's. Zach and Abby enjoying the company of their cousins. These 4 handsome guys are the sons of Andy's sister, Colleen and her husband, Mike. (notice Abby eating a handful of hay!)
Earlier the same day we went out to Thistledown. That has got to be my favorite farm. Just so old-fashioned and un-pretentious.
Abby's first pumpkin experience!
Me and my cute kids!