More December Festivities

I can't believe Christmas is in 4 days!!!  We haven't had too many extracurricular things going on this December, but we have tried to do a few festive things.

Last weekend we had our Ward Christmas Party in the morning, and then that night, Jeremy and I went to his work party at his boss's house.  It was nice to meet some of the people he's been talking about and of course it's always nice to have a night out!

This week we made some Christmas goodies and then took them around to our neighbors.  We have some really sweet neighbors (all of them at least our parents' ages or older), and they are always happy to see the kids.  We don't know them super well, so I think they were pleasantly surprised we would bring them something. :)

 Licking the beaters from the snowball cookie dough.  No, Anna didn't have one - I have no idea what she's putting in her mouth!

Then last night we drove around our neighborhood and looked at Christmas lights.  It was so fun!  We were amazed by how many of the houses were super decked out.  We didn't have to go far to see some impressive displays.  After we drove around for 20 minutes or so, we came home and watched Rudolph.  It was the kids' first time seeing it, and our first time in a long time.  It seemed so old!  Haha, but it was fun.  Then after the kids went to bed, Jeremy and I finishes wrapping a few presents while watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on NBC.  It's such a good one!

Anna before we went out last night, she was giving Jeremy the cutest snuggles!

 She opens her mouth like this all the time...

 Hehe, and she does this super cheesy grin all the time now too.  I love it!  It makes me laugh every time.

Boys ready to drive around and see the lights!

Anna also had her 9-mo. checkup last week, so I found the boys playing "doctor" later that night:

Okay, no idea why that is loading sideways.  Sorry.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, Anna still tops the charts on height and weight (20lbs 15oz & 29.5 in.).  AND she has now taken a step twice.  Ahh!

So anyway, the kids are very excited for Christmas.  I had them do some jobs around the house to earn some money so they could get each other some Christmas presents, and they've also been working on some homemade art and cards for loved ones too.  I've been trying to really stress the giving part of Christmas, since the excitement of getting presents doesn't really need any extra emphasis for kids to be excited about it!  It's been nice to see them get into it though.  They helped me wrap presents for people and they wrapped each other's gifts too.  Eli keeps telling me "We can't fit any more presents under the tree!  It's full!"  We've also had a lot of family night lessons about what Christmas is really about, so I hope that's sinking in.

Eli emptying the silverware - he did such a good job, it's becoming a regular job for him. :)

We have our church Christmas program tomorrow that we're all participating in (except Connor and Anna), and we're last-minute putting together a caroling thing with the missionaries for Monday night, and then it's vacation time!  So if I don't blog again before Christmas, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!  Love you all!

[Faux] Gingerbread Houses

We decided to decorate gingerbread houses this year.  We did it at my parents' house 2 years ago (thanks to my sister Amy!) and even though Eli was only 2, he really liked it.  I knew he and Connor would love it and we all had a great time being creative.  I went the lazy route and just used graham crackers, but do I feel bad about that?  Not at all. :)  And thanks to Winco's bulk bins we were able to get a large variety of candy without breaking the bank.  It was hard for me to buy all that candy!  But I sucked it up and did it.  As it turns out, the kids ate way more of the pretzels than they did of the candy (by choice) as we were making them.  Happy day.

Here are our masterpieces:

 I helped Connor do his and he just told me where to put the "glue" as they called it, and then he went to town.  I was pretty impressed!  He really liked the jelly beans, can you tell? :)

 And Eli's...I think he added a few more things after I took these pictures.

 Can you guess Eli's favorite color?

 And Jeremy's...he was helping Eli and only finished half of his, but he was okay with that.

 And mine.

 And the whole village...

We had a fun time!  I think we'll definitely do it again next year.

Just a little Elf fun...

(I don't know why they all start playing immediately, just pause them to play one at a time)

And some hip-hop, yo:

Those are some mad dance skillz.

And one last one for the whole family. This is way too much fun...

Enjoy your day!

6 Months and 9 Months

We have officially been in Portland for 6 months.  Crazy!  We moved in 6 months ago today.  It's weird to think we are halfway through our time here.  In another 6 months we will be packing up and heading somewhere else!  But I try not to think about that...

We actually got a little dusting of snow here yesterday.  Apparently a lot of places are experiencing this "major" cold front and our parents in California may even actually get snow today.  Eli was really excited and kept asking when we could go out and make a snowman.  Uh...sorry buddy, there's not that much snow.

Anna is also over 9 months old now!  She's been out longer than she was in.  Here is what she's up to right now:

• She has figured out how to pull the plug protectors out of all the outlets and she goes around taking them out and putting them in her mouth.  The other day I came into the living room to see the boys pretty much wrestling her to get one out of her mouth - they were trying to "protect" her.  Awesome.
• She has figured out how to open drawers and cupboards and now loves taking everything out in the kitchen.
• She also has successfully taken off about half of the bows on our presents under the tree and she gazes at the lights with intense fascination.
• Her favorite spot to hang out is under the kitchen table - she's like a puppy waiting for someone to drop something (it doesn't take long).  
• Anna has been cruising around the furniture for a long time and recently started letting go and standing for a few seconds at a time!  We're afraid she may be walking by Christmas. 
• She smiles with her tongue out constantly.
• She sort of waves sometimes now.  She'll at least hold her hand out when you wave to her.  It's very cute.
• She loves to eat everything - food and non-food.
• She loves her brothers and loves to play with them.  She gets so sad when they go in their room and close the door to play legos.  She sits in the hallway and hits the door and cries. :(

She really is a happy baby and we all love her so much!  She is wearing me out a little bit lately with everything she's into, but she is also getting to be so much fun.  Her little personality is coming out and it's fun to see.  I can't believe she'll be one in less than 3 months!

And here are a few more pictures from Jeremy's phone taken over Thanksgiving...

 Beautiful sunrise as we left Portland Wednesday morning

 Mmmm....pie....

 Grandpa time.

 Grant and Anna.

Thanksgiving! And adventures upon returning home...

We went to my sister Amy's house for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful!  We spent Thanksgiving with them 4 years ago (when Eli was just a baby!) and it was delicious and this year lived up to our memories and expectations. :)

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and were there until Saturday morning.  I felt like I hardly even saw the boys, especially Eli, the whole time we were there.  They were in cousin heaven.  Amy has 6 kids ranging from ages 4 months to 12 yrs, so there were lots of people to help entertain them.  Besides the fact that we were exhausted from staying up too late combined with babies sleeping terribly, we had a really nice time.

Here are some pics:

Thanksgiving breakfast - Russell, Connor, Sydney, and Eli

 Grant with his newest baby sister Elise.  She is a cutie!!

 The kids anxiously awaiting the feast!

 My parents came from California too, so that was nice to see them again!

Jeremy resting after the big meal:

Mmm, pie.  Here's one of SIX pies that were made (2 pumpkin, pecan, apple, berry, and lemon cream).  I know Jeremy got more pictures on his phone, so I'll have to get those later...

On Friday afternoon, Jeremy had some dental work done.  When he was a kid, his older brother Jared shot his tooth out with a BB gun (thanks Jared!) and so he has had an implant in for a long time.  Well, a couple months ago, he bit into a bagel at work and his [fake] tooth fell out.  He knew he would need to get a new one eventually, and we were glad it happened now instead of when we were in school with no dental insurance!  He went to our dentist here and he was able to cement it back in, but he knew he'd need to get it taken care of.

Luckily our wonderful brother-in-law Rob is a dentist who also does implants (ours here doesn't), and so we got the family hook-up and Rob started the process of putting in a new implant.  So he pulled out Jeremy's fake tooth and all that remained of his original tooth, then he drilled in a titanium post I believe.  That has to heal for 4-6 months before he can finish it and attach the post and the new fake tooth, so in the meantime Jeremy gets to wear a "flipper", which is basically a retainer without the metal and with a tooth.  Fun stuff!  It's quite the process, but it will be nice when it's all done.  Thank you Rob!

Then on Saturday, we drove home.  Unfortunately Eli and Connor started getting sick before we left, and then Anna had it while we were there, and I started getting it on Saturday, and poor Jeremy had a bad headache from his tooth ordeal.  So we really all just wanted to be in bed all day, but we made it home in good time and got everyone to bed early, including ourselves.

Then Sunday night around 9pm, the fire alarm went off in the house.  We walked over to the hallway where we heard it and we smelled smoke.  Not good.  Of course we started to panic, especially when we felt the ceiling, which was very warm.  Yikes!  So we ran around the house, trying to find what was burning, making sure the kids were okay, and then Jeremy ran over to our neighbor's house to borrow their ladder so he could get up into our attic, but we still couldn't figure it out!  Finally, we realized something was wrong with the furnace and our heater wasn't working.  We tried to reset it, but when it switched back on the smoke came back, the ceiling heated up again, and the fire alarms went off again.  Our landlord was out of town, so we just shut off the furnace and bundled up for the night.  Then Anna was up coughing at 1am, then two of the smoke detectors were chirping (dying) at 3am, and Jeremy left for a business trip around 5 am this morning, so we'll just say it was a rough night!  Luckily, our landlord sent a guy over today and he was able to fix the furnace.  Hooray!  That is a relief.

So the plans for the rest of the week include staying alive, not burning the house down, getting lots of rest, and laying low until Jeremy gets home.  Sounds good to me!