Merry Christmas!

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...

and I'm sure we're going to have one! We've had more snow and cold weather than I can ever remember...it's snowing as I type this and it is beautiful. (Don't tell my family--they have to feed lots of cows, break ice, shovel bunks, and the snow only creates more work for them!!) It sure gets me into the Christmas spirit though. Living on a hill has shown it's perks too...lots of fun sledding for the boys. Yes, we're enjoying this winter wonderland!

"kissmas time"

I love seeing Christmas through a child's eyes. Maddie is loving this time of year...she's referring to it as "kissmas time" and admires each decoration, tv commercial and Christmas card with lots of oooh's & ahhh's and then remarks with how cute, beautiful, coldy or "windy" (aka snowy) it is. She's got Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town down and sings throughout our days, although she's a bit afraid of Santa and kindly says, "No Santa, no Ho, Ho, Ho" when we speak of him. No offense Santa, she's just not keen on the mascot types. She loved decorating along with me and has really spread the Christmas spirit around here. But I did have to invest in more super glue since some of the more breakable decorations magically found themselves on the wood floor. I guess this pretty girl adores pretty things!

thanksgiving

We enjoyed having Thanksgiving this year in our new home. It was my family's year and my mom had already done all of the grocery shopping, so she just brought everything up and we prepared the meal together. It was lots of fun and the turkey turned out great. She gave me some "lessons" on cooking a Thanksgiving meal, I really enjoyed the time we had together. I especially loved setting & decorating the table. (This has always been my job).

I made Maddie's dress and headband, she looked so cute in it and it reminded me of a calico dress I wore as a little girl. The boys enjoyed sledding with cousin Jett after our big meal....I can't recall having this much snow on Thanksgiving! Wished I'd gotten a picture of them.




We finished off the weekend with an overnight stay in Portland for the Duke vs. Oregon basketball game with Bryan's sister and husband. So we braved the roads with Mike & Lesa (only took us 7 hours) and enjoyed some great shopping too! We stayed at the historic Benson Hotel, which was so beautiful. We were fortunate to have missed the "near bombing" at the Xmas tree lighting in Pioneer Square...while walking through there, we kept wondering why there were so many reporters. Good thing the FBI was on the case and busted it far before it was planned to happen and lucky us. It was a fun weekend and we got most of our Christmas shopping done, with no tax! Yay :)