Snow Day 1

We have already had a couple snow days here in Portland, before Winter even started. Charlie has missed 2 days of preschool this month (3 if you count the day he seemed sick which was also the day the snow started) He hasn't really decided if he likes snow or Preschool better, he really loves them both. the first one wasn't a ton of snow but it was enough to cause a panic here.The snow started in the early afternoon so we went out to enjoy it before the sun went down.  It is quite the ordeal to get everyone in their snow gear, and a whole different challenge reaching my feet well enough to get my snow boots on. Luckily Max was home to go out and play with us. because bending over to make a snowman or snowball was a little challenging. We searched our garage to find our inner-tubes to sled with but we couldn't find them anywhere. we decided to bring our metal fire-pit bowl for sledding and walk to the church by us. There really wasn't even much snow, but we were hoping the hills by the church were a little slippery.

 

Miles tried out his bike in the snow and made up a new game pushing the basketball around on his bike. 

When we went towards the church, we found our neighbor Nevaeh who had a real sled. She was happy to share it with my boys.

 
It turned out that the sledding still wasn't that great by the church and the grass barely had snow on it. We still had fun though.

trying out the fire pit sled.  It didn't really work.

 

Then Miles decided it was time to go inside and have hot cocoa so that is exactly what we did. Nevaeh came with us and we had a good time!

There was still enough ice on the road the next morning that Charlie missed his preschool field trip to pizzacato (to make pizza!) Stay tuned because we got more snow the following week and had some more snow adventures.

Festival of Nativities

At the beginning of December we attended the Festival of Nativities. This happens every year but Max hadn't ever seen it and I had only seen it briefly when I was playing the piano for our choir. We put it on the calendar as a Christmas event we wanted to make happen. I had lent my Armenian nativity to the display so when I dropped it off I got so excited to see the main event. 

When we arrived, we first went into the gym which was full and beautifully decorated with Nativity sets from all over then world. It was really incredible. We didn't even see half of them before the boys were done. But there were 2 rooms set up just for kids. One of them had a dress up area, a place to get your picture taken, children's nativity sets (unbreakable ones) and a table with foods of Bethlehem. Here are our photos from the photographer.

Complete with Eeyore, giraffes, and a Davy Crockett angel.

The boys loved playing well past their bedtime. In the other children's room there were Christmas games and crafts and music and stories. It was really thorough and so much fun. It was a beautiful way to start out the season with the Christmas Spirit. I was able to view the remaining nativity sets a couple days later when I went to pick mine up. 

Christmas tree hunt!

So a little history on our Christmas Trees...I grew up always getting a fresh Christmas tree. We had some family friends with a huge farm and we always got cider and candy canes with our tree. Once Max and I were married, we were off in Utah and it didn't make sense for us to get a tree, when we were going to be going back to Oregon for Christmas. We still wanted to decorate our house so we got an amazing black Friday deal on a pre-lit tree. We decorated our Utah homes with it then enjoyed the tree wherever we were staying in Oregon while there for the holidays. I figured once we moved back to Oregon we would start getting real trees. (it is a little blasphemous to have a fake one here) Once we moved back, it didn't make sense to buy a tree when we had been storing our fake one all year.  We continued using it for a couple years. (It fits well in our little living room) But last year the strings of lights started burning out and I just decided to get rid of it right after Christmas so I wouldn't have to store it. We still took our kids to the Christmas tree farm a couple times when my mom went to get a tree so they have had the experience but we still had a fake tree. Anyway, this year we got our first real tree in our 7.5 years of marriage and we love it. We went to our friends' Christmas tree farm. (Marissa's parents) We were sad to find out that this was going to be their last year selling trees. It had been a business that their kids mostly ran to save up for missions but their youngest child graduated this year and their kids have all moved away. They had sold a huge chunk of their trees to a whole-seller, so they were a little picked over but we were happy to visit with Marissa's parents and we found a great tree. (I know you all wanted to know that history...) Anyway, it was a beautiful Saturday and only started raining when we were tying the tree to the car.

Mushroom stomping!

 The boys were SO SO EXCITED to use the saw! Such great helpers.

Taking a little photo break to rest their backs.

And back at the sawing...you can tell by Max's face how "helpful" the boys were being. 

And then distracted by a branch!

 And we thought it would be easier to tie up the tree on Max's little car so that is what we did!

It was a fun little outing and a great memory for the boys. We ended up decorating it the next day after church since Max and I had a Christmas party date that evening. As we were decorating, Charlie couldn't stop smiling and kept saying "It feels like Christmas, I love Christmas!"

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with some of our usual traditions. And I slacked on photos as usual! On Thanksgiving day it was pouring rain but we still ventured out for Max to do some mud football while I went walking/biking with the boys on the track surrounding the football field.  It turned out that only one other person showed up to play football in the downpour so he and Max played for a bit and we stayed until the boys decided they were soaked and freezing. It was their fault though as they thought it was the best to go through the huge puddles and soak their feet.

We got home and all took warm showers and drank hot cocoa. We decided we all needed naps so that is what happened then we got up and finished our food prep to take to my Red grandma's house. I didn't take one picture but we enjoyed time with cousins and good food and pies! We stayed until it was late then brought the boys home to sleep.

The next day we went to celebrate Thanksgiving with Max's side of the family at his uncle's house. Max took Miles to do some work in the morning while Charlie stayed home and helped me cook.

When it was time to go, Max picked up his sister and niece and I loaded up our car and we went over to Uncle Jay's house.

Their Thanksgiving (or any holiday for that matter) always ends in a big wrestling match, which was a huge hit for my boys. 

The champions...oh yeah...Miles' clothes gradually came off.

 

I was super surprised that old-man Jay could keep up with these wild boys. They must have wrestled for over an hour. And there were only minor injuries. We made our way home and the boys had no problem falling asleep!

All day date!

My mom let us know that she was available and wanting to take the boys all day the Saturday following Charlie's birthday so we took her up on that offer. I had a photo shoot in the morning so while I went and did that, Max took the boys up to my moms house. (about an hour drive, one-way) We both got back to the house at the exact same time. We then left right away to start our date at the temple. We were able to do some temple work for some deceased family members on both mine and Max's side of the family. It was a great way to start our date together. We ate lunch at the temple then made way to use our Christmas gift from my mom (from last year) which was a movie theater gift card. We saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We don't do movie theater dates very often, I don't like to go unless it's a movie I'm super excited about, and Harry Potter movies fit that qualification. I was able to sit through the whole movie without getting up for any bathroom breaks and we enjoyed holding hands, and eating popcorn and peanut M&Ms. We enjoyed the movie too. After that we still had time before the boys got home. My mom was going to bring the boys back to us but in the drop off, somehow the car seats were forgotten so we had to go back to get the boys. Nevertheless, we still had a little time so Max called a couple places and found somewhere that would take us as walk-ins and give us pedicures. We ended up trying a new place (I say this like I've had more than 3 pedicures in my life...I haven't) It was an enjoyable experience and my feet felt great since it is getting especially hard to reach them these days. After that, we made our way to grab some food then drive up to get the boys. It ended up being nice to have a drive with Max since most of the other parts of our date were somewhat anti social. haha! We stayed and played at Grandma's house for awhile, then got the boys in their pajamas and brushed their teeth and made our way back home. Miles was asleep before we got out of Grandma's neighborhood. I didn't take many pictures of our date but it was perfect and it seemed that it needed to be documented on the blog since who knows when the next time we will get to have a big long date!

So here are some temple selfies! Look at our cute eye wrinkles, we're getting old, but I like it!

and a Pedicure Mirror Selfie