Happy 2008!!

For Christmas, Andy bought me a new scanner/printer/photo-printer. I have never owned a scanner! (yes I am living in the dark ages!!) anyway, I wanted to test it out so here is a picture of Matthew at I think around 4 months old taken at Picture People. It was the first thing I could quickly find to scan....and it worked. Now I must go find something of Andy....... Happy New Year to everyone!!!

oh and as a side note....this was my 100th post! :)

Happy Birthday Andy

Happy 36th Birthday Andy! I will find more embarrassing photo's later, in the meantime the pics of the new wii will have to work. ;) Love you!

Seeing Santa

We have actually been going to the same "Santa" at Pioneer Place ever since Matthew was a 1. We finally saw Santa about a week before Christmas and let me just say, I was beginning to stress about it since time was flying by! If I could have skipped it, I would have but the kids kept at me so of course we had to go see him! The boys totally loved it (of course) and it was actually good for me too since it forced me to slow down for a short time during such a busy holiday season.

And just as an "after Christmas note"....(and I will still post a few more Christmas pics soon) Mason loves his slippers from Grandma Georgia and Grandpa Tim. See???

Merry (White!) Christmas!!

A very Merry Christmas to everyone!!! Amazingly, it is snowing in Portland right now...and we never have snow on Christmas. Pictures to follow shortly... :)




Very wet snow but still a thrill for the boys anyway!!!

I Love Lucy

2 weeks ago in Mason's preschool class he got to take home a "animal" to care for over the weekend. His turn was with "Lucy" the pig and he thought this was the best experience!! To say that he had a total blast with Lucy is putting it mildly. Lucy got to do all sorts of things with Mason, including staying the night at grandma and grandpa's and helping Mason make Christmas cards. And guess what? Lucy likes french fries....Mason told me so!

Meet Dracula and The Skeleton

The making of Dracula and the Skeleton.......

Louise made the costumes and treat bags (which turned out very cool) and of course the kids loved them. They even got to wear the costumes for a second time after Halloween since Matthew's school's harvest festival was after and the kids got to come in costume.

Poor Mason's skeleton make-up actually made him look more like a puppy dog but oh well.

I think the scariest part was at the end of the night and what the boys looked like after trying to get the make-up and hair color off!

And now we are off to see Santa!!!! :)

Bits and Pieces

ok....so back a holiday or two......the day before Halloween in Mason's preschool class there was plenty of face painting and a bit of pre-Halloween celebration. And at the end of the day, Teacher Amy gave them treats! In other words, a lovely little bag of goodies....Halloween pencils, stickers etc. Mason totally loved it...Thanks Amy!

Of course that day we still needed to carve pumpkins. It was amazing we managed to do anything at all since Matthew and I were both sick. Fevers, chills, and general nastiness. Quite a miserable experience and Matthew missed four days of school. He actually missed Halloween day and there was a party in his class but even that didn't remotely convince him to go. Which was fine since I didn't want to take him because I felt just as awful. So while Andy and Mason started carving pumpkins, Matthew attempted to take part. It didn't last long and he had been wearing shorts earlier because it had gotten hot in the house (the weather was unbelievably beautiful) but just after the carving started, so did the chills again for Matthew!

So the sweatshirt went on and pretty soon there was no more carving for Matthew. I don't think he even picked out a face for the pumpkin. And this is how he spent the rest of his time......

Which by the way, Hi Betsy if you are reading!! :) You should recognize the blanket and it's still his favorite....he sleeps with it every night! ;)

Enough about Halloween! Actually, I will have to do one more post on it to show the costume pics but not tonight. Christmas is coming and I am so not ready. I have not even baked one Christmas goodie. However, I just found a remedy for that! My darling hubby was introduced to these wonderful cookies and now I am addicted too. If you have a Trader Joes near you and you like peppermint, you must go now and buy the Peppermint Joe Joe's. They are basically like a peppermint oreo. But so much better!!! Nice chocolate cookies with creamy oreo like filling that is peppermint flavored with candies in it. Way better than an oreo since the filling doesn't line the roof of your mouth with fat/grease/whatever the hell it is. I love these cookies but it's a good thing you can't eat too many at a time. So good after dinner too, and the very best part is my kids don't like peppermint!!! ;)

It's Time to Celebrate the Upcoming Holiday!

In light of Christmas coming......











I love the vintage photos with the laugh out loud captions!!!! I have been getting quite a collection!!

Z is for "Zipped Up Ziti With Zucchini"

Zipped up Ziti with Zucchini! So the phrase comes from one of my children's favorite books titled

"I Stink" . My kids adore this book! They love it when Andy reads it out loud with plenty of sound effects and there tends to be a lot of hollering during the story. It's about a garbage truck and his job/all that he does but it's done in a very funny way. I was reading a review of it on Amazon.com and somebody compared the garbage truck with Oscar the Grouch. If Oscar were a garbage truck, this would be him and I have to agree. In the middle of the story is a alphabet soup of garbage....It goes something like this:

Apple Cores

Banana Peels

Candy Wrappers

Dirty Diapers

Eggshells

Fish Heads

Gobs and Gobs of Gum

Half-Eaten Hot Dogs

Icky Ice Cream Cartons

Jam Jars

Kitty Litter

Lobster Claws

Moldy Meatballs

Nasty Neckties

Orange Peels

Puppy Poo

Quail Bones

Rotten Radishes

Smelly Sneakers

Toothpaste Tubes

Ugly Underpants

Watermelon Rinds

XL T-Shirts

Year-Old Yams

and Zipped Up Ziti with Zucchini!!

The kids totally yell the alphabet soup and one time (during the summer and the windows were all open!) the neighbor lady across the street could hear my kids screaming this alphabet and I wasn't sure if she was laughing in amusement or fear. Poor gal is pregnant too! Bet she is relieved to be having a girl!!! The really scary part of this alphabet?? I only had to check the book on I, J, and M! I have most of it memorized....along with the rest of the book and it is one of those that we have multiple copies. So Yay!!! I finished the alphabet....I wasn't sure I could/would but now I will be happy to be back to just regular blogging. For the rest of this evening I need to go work on some Christmas Cards.......