Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas with all of our families, the only one that couldn't be here was my brother, Doug. We are so lucky to have wonderful families that we are able to spend time with.

We started off our Christmas Eve day with Ethan taking a ride with Papa Steve on the 4wheeler and reading some books with Grammie, while Mommy made the sugar cookies for our annual tradition of Taco dinner and then decorated cookies for Santa. My mom had surgery on her good-bad foot the Friday before Christmas so she has had to stay off her foot the whole time we have been here.



Eating some cookies with Daddy.

Decorating cookies (SIL's Dad, SIL's Mom, my SIL Kristina, my nephew Jacob and neice Ellie).

Ethan then got to open his Monkey PJ's and a few small presents from Grammie & Papa. He wanted to take a picture with Uncle Newell and his cool plastic hat he made out of the plate packaging.


Christmas was a busy day....we woke up and tried to keep Ethan entertained until the rest of Jeff's family all got to G&G Hadley's house. We finally let him open his train set from Santa while we were waiting.


Grammie Hadley got Ethan these Lightening McQueen slippers...he has not taken them off since he opened the package, even sleeping with them on.

Grammie Hadley got a new car because her's was totaled a couple of weeks ago.

Aunt Lori made Ethan a new quilt for his bed, Mater and Lightening are always a big hit with Ethan.


G&G Hadley and aunt Lori gave Ethan this awesome tool bench, it came with an engine block that you can take apart as well as a car that you can take apart...Ethan saw the car first, ignoring the tools but has since figured out how to take it all apart and test it out.

We then headed over to my parents house to open presents with my parents and brother & family.

Uncle Doug gave Ethan a road rug from IKEA and gave Jacob a compass, both boys were very happy with their gifts. Ethan also got a Tag Junior from G&G Berg with some new books to help him learn his shapes, colors and numbers.

Here is Bell with the eisle that we gave her.

Christmas vacation - Part 1

Well we made it to Hurricane after a fairly good 12.5 hours the first day and 5 hour drive the second day. Ethan and Copper were both very good but by 9 hours we all were ready to get out of the car. We stayed with my brother Doug that evening in Salt Lake and got to check out his new condo.

One of Jeff, Ethan & my traditions each year is to get a Christmas tree from the tree farm, however, since we were coming to Hurricane this year we asked Papa Hadley to get a tree permit and we went and got a tree the first full day we were here. There is massive difference in getting a tree from an Oregon tree farm and getting one from the Utah/Arizona desert, but we had a good time nonetheless. Jeff and I had to keep a close eye on Ethan to make sure he didn't trip and fall in any cactus and they had a snowball fight while we waited for Papa Hadley to bring the truck up to get the tree.



While Ethan and I decorated the tree, Uncle George and Avery were playing with one of the beautiful wood bowls that Papa Hadley make.


A few minutes later I looked down at Avery and she smiled back with blue slobber. Papa Hadley signs his name on the bottom of all his projects and apparently it comes off with baby slobber. George and I had a good laugh while trying to get it off Avery's face before her mommy came home from work.




Ethan has had a good time playing with Avery, she is 7 months old. He has been trying to play ball with her, but she hasn't quite caught on...an neither has he.

Playdate and Christmas present exchange

This morning we went to Peyton's house for a playdate/Christmas gift exchange with Peyton and Hunter. My camera is packed for our trip so...Thanks Nic for sending me some pics. The boys always have a great time playing, although Ethan usually wants to play with whatever someone else is so sharing is really hard but we are working on it. Hunter and Ethan both were enamored by Peyton's train set and both will be so excited on Christmas morning. Ethan also really was intrigued with the snow globe that Peyton had (plastic of course) so I will have to keep my eyes out for one.




It is also a great time for me to have some adult/girl time with my girls...I love hanging out with Amy and Nicole.

Ethan gave his buddies some sticker books. Peyton gave him a battery powered skil saw and Hunter gave him a stuffed puppy, a book, and a Cars stamp set. Thanks Peyton and Hunter.

Yummy!

Tonight I made my first Risotto, not too complicated just patience and time. It was supposed to be mushroom and asparagus risotto, however, I forgot that I needed the mushrooms for this and used them all in the spaghetti instead. I also made a lime pork tenderloin to go with it....very tasty!

Santa visit

Today Ethan and I went to see Santa at Mall 205. We have visited Santa here for the last three years and he is so very nice and looks just like the real one. Ethan was really excited to see Santa, until Santa started talking to him. He sat on Santa's lap for several minutes eating the candy cane Santa gave him while the lady was getting the camera ready to take his picture. Ethan did great, no crying but no smiling either. He did whisper that he would like a tar-tar for Christmas but not sure that Santa knows what that is...or maybe he does.

Dancing skils and jiber-jaber

Here are some videos of Ethan goofing off...he cracks me up.

Zoo lights

Tonight we ventured out to see the zoo lights since it didn't rain today and wow was it packed. Ethan really liked the "tar tar" and the monkey's, which are always his favorites.

Happy Turkey Day!!

This morning Ethan and I have been getting ready for tomorrows dinner while listening/dancing to Christmas music. Ethan helped me with the dessert (rice krispy treats with M's and chocolate cream pie) and he had so much fun stiring up the mixture as well as eating it off his hands. We have invited our friend Chiyo to join us for Thanksgiving and are looking forward to having a nice, relaxing day together. I don't think Jeff and I have ever been home for Thanksgiving, as we usually go home every other Christmas instead (24 days until we leave), but we do prepare quite a dinner of our own with all the trimmings and we went to RedBox early this morning to get our movie selections.

We hope everyone has a wonderful, safe holiday weekend!!

Well it has been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything, apparently we haven't done much. It has been raining on-and-off for many days, of which I am already tired of and it is just getting started. I really miss Utah rain and the smell of rain (you know what I mean if you live or have lived there)...there is no smell with Oregon rain. With all the rain we are doing a lot of playing indoors with movies, DVR catch up and lots of toy cleanup, but Ethan is excited about starting his second swim class with Peyton on the 1st of December.


Ethan has really become quite a talker, (HA-who would have guessed that) although we can only understand about half of what he is saying. I know he gets that skills from me, as well as his talking with his hands. Some things he says are quite cute though, such as he calls a train a "tar-tar"and it says "too-too" and "hi kawer" for Hi Copper.

I have been working for the past several weeks at getting us ready for Christmas and I am almost done, YAY!. This year we are going home to Hurricane so there is a lot to get bought, wrapped, packed and taken care of with us leaving one month from today. We are always excited about seeing both our families as well as catching up with old friends.

Happy Halloween

Last night we took Ethan to the Lloyd Center Mall to Trick-or-Treat. He was so excited about wearing his Shrek costume. He wasn't sure what to do with his candy bucket Grandma Hadley gave him but he really like to end result. We didn't even buy any candy to hand out this year so no left overs for mommy sweet tooth.

Here to stay

We'll it is now official...we will be staying in Portland, Oregon, at least for a few more years. After a great effort over the last 14 months by our Realtor, Carol Froeber, we have decided to pull our house out of the For Sale arena. If you call me in the next week or so and I don't answer your call, apparently you are not listed in my contacts and I am assuming that you are a realtor calling to get me to relist my house with you....they are vultures and I hate those calls, hence why they go to voicemail.

Jeff has a new opportunity coming up (which we will devulge details at a later time) and so we have decided for now to stay here and put our house back in order. It is really hard to try and sell your house. My house is generally pretty clean but when someone calls to show the house I feel as though I have to go the extra cleaning mile, sometimes within a few minutes, and then they walk through in 5 minutes, it really gets frustrating. For the last week or so I have been going through all the rooms and made a GoodWill run, fall cleaning instead of spring cleaning. We have had at least half of our house boxed up in the attic of the garage and I am looking forward to going through those boxes and finding all the things that I have been missing as well as another GoodWill run I am sure.

Pumpkin carving

Last night we carved up Ethan's "kins". He had a great time and really like to play with the seed mush, even eating a pumpkin seed.

Mommy finally decided to break down and get some rain/mud boots. Ethan decided to test them out to give his approval. They have rubber duckies on them and he really likes them.

It has been raining for most of the week, so yesterday we decided to make some cupcakes. Ethan was a great helper.


This morning Ethan and I took advantage of the only dry day for this week and went to the Pumpkin Patch at Sauvie Island. Ethan is really liking the pumpkins and has been carrying around his little pumpkin everywhere. We are planning to carve up our pumpkins tonight when Daddy gets home so more pictures to come later this week.

Pumpkin Patch #3 - Liepold Farms

This morning Ethan and I met Nicole and Peyton at Liepold Farms in Boring, Oregon...yes, that's right, Boring, Oregon. The boys had all kinds of fun climbing on all the "tar tars" (as Ethan calls them) as well as many other activities including picking out a baby pumpkin. We are hoping for one more dry day before Halloween so that we can make it to Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch but we have had a lot of fun so far.



Peyton and Ethan playing in the corn kernal box.


Ethan attempting to ride a John Deer bike, but his legs are no where long enough.

He picked out his own baby pumpkin after climbing through all of them.