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Hello, hello! It's a few days after Valentines Day and I guess I need to catch up in here, huh?
It's been a mellow Winter so far. Nothing too exciting is going on, other than the kids are growing like weeds and getting too old, too fast. We're all just truckin' along.
MiNiMa just left after a V-Day visit, and that was fun. We kept her busy with the kids' Soccer classes, the Zoo, the Wildlife Refuge, and various errands. She also babysat for us so Jerome and I could have a date night on Valentines Day! It was great - we got to have a few hours to ourselves, and went to our fave place - Benihana. YUM.
Let's see if I can post a few pictures of the past month and a half without going overboard ;)
Since we were stuck inside a lot, we had to get creative. Here are the kiddos "going fishing". They needed a map to find the fishin spot, and Jason apparently needed some heels to make the trip (?)
Playing Dora games
and on a lazy day, catch a movie with some popcorn
Scootin around the 'hood
all the way to the playground!
We caught a gorgeous sunrise one morning while taking J to work
my sweeties
my fashion model
And on another rainy day - we had a dress up day!
Our lady friends joined us for tea...
And the kids got all ready to "go to preschool". Jason was so excited to be doing a big kid trip to school like his sister Nina (he calls her Nina - isn't that cute?!)
apparently this preschool requires you to dress up in costume as you sit in the playroom and wait for the bus
another snow day came upon us, but this was only an inch or so, and melted within the day :(
We made it down to the childrens Museum with some friends and they had a ball
brushing the alligator teeth
A cold day at the lake - there is still ice on the water! We went with a friend and walked around for a bit.
Still with me? I am totally overloading on pictures, I know this. But it's been a month and a half, so I'm catching you up :) Bear with me!
Miss Makenna had her very first sleepover! Her friend Teagan was turning 4 (M is 4 3/4), and wanted a sleepover. I fully anticipated a crying call at bedtime, or even leg clinging when I was dropping her off. But nope, she was a champ! She gave me a hug, said she loved me, and ran off to play! She did call twice - once to ask if she could put nail polish on (since we don't do that normally. I said yes though, since it was a special occasion), and another time to ask if she could have orange juice (we don't normally do juice, especially late at night). She had a ball! The rest of us arrived the next day at 12, for the official party, and she wanted to stay - ha ha ha! So did Jason!
Another dress up day. 
Like I said before, this past weekend was V-Day weekend and MiNiMa was here. She treated the kids to soccer lessons, and it was their first day on Saturday. They had so much fun! They are in two different classes, so I was bouncing back and forth, trying to watch them both :)
Jason had so much fun - he was super excited!
Makenna loves it too, she did great although she kept looking at MiNiMa and I to wave instead of paying attention. 
We came home to open our Valentines! 
Even pancake got a couple cards ;)
Makenna dolled up MiNiMa
and we hit up the Zoo on Monday as well. We love the Zoo! It was slightly chilly, but not too bad at all.
And that's it! I will let you take a break now! I'll try and keep more up to date, so I don't need to do these big ol' updates all at once :) I hope everyone is well
It's Christmas morning and I'm posting on here... hmmm... what's wrong with this picture? Oh yeah, it's because the Portland area got so much snow that my Mom's flight got canceled on Monday, and they couldn't rebook her until today - Christmas!! So we shifted "Christmas" to Saturday, so everyone can be here, and be ready to go :) The kids don't know the difference, so thank goodness for that!
Speaking of snowed in, I wanted to take this chance to post some more snow pictures! We have had about a foot or so of snow here, which is unusual for the Portland Area. It definitely slowed things down, and we've been housebound for the most part for the past week. Our car actually does great in the snow, and we ventured out a couple times for food, etc, but everyone else was slipping and sliding and we figured there was no need to get ourselves hit, so we just hunkered down, did tons of crafts, baked tons of cookies, watched lots of Christmas movies and played in the snow. Sounds like fun, huh? Other than the fact that we need a full finished basement with a play structure so the kids can burn some energy, and a Wii for J and I to burn some as well, we did pretty well. Cabin Fever never quite got to the level of the Overlook Hotel, so that's a good thing.
Some snow pictures!
Our house
our sled ride down the street to Albertson's for supplies. The kids thought it was so fun to be sledding in the street! That's our house right behind J's head
This was on the bigger street... NO sign of a plow anywhere! Not even on Main Street or the Freeways!
icicles on our icicles
On Tuesday we ventured out and this was Hwy 502, getting to the freeway. It was absolutely gorgeous - a total Winter Wonderland!
J worked hard to shovel our walk. It was funny, we were the only people in the 'hood that did so. I thought we had to, but maybe that's just Portland. Plus it was nice to just be out there, moving around
My little snow bunny
Yesterday it snowed more, and we played in the backyard. J and the kids were having a blast tackling each other and having snowball fights (or as Jason says, "no-ball hits" )
my plant has a hat
Poor J's hard work shoveling the walk was wasted :(
the park across the street from our front porch
December is always full of fun things to do. This year we finally made it to the Grotto, went to Zoo Lights which is a favorite, made gingerbread cookies, sat with Santa a few times (and even ran into him shopping at Safeway one evening! Did you know Santa wears a leather jacket over his suit and buys frozen lasagna for one? He must be in trouble with the Missus), drove around our town to look at the impressive lights, and still plan to hopefully squeeze in a few more things although the snow might be stopping us this year.
The Grotto (choirs sing in that little church, and there is a petting zoo, and amazing lights on the grounds)
One nice Saturday, Jerome took the kids to the park while I went to a couple local bazaars
LOL - she's not too sure of the monkey bars
we also decorated a small random tree in the park across the street - they are saying "ta-da!"
Oh by the way... this is a sure fire way to piss off a cat in about 5 seconds flat...
Zoo Lights! This is so fun. The Oregon Zoo goes a little crazy with the lights, and it is like walking around in a fairytale.
Kenna standing with the turkey by the petting zoom (Makenna is the turkey on your right)
M watching the swans swimming
the family (minus me!) under the snake
Jason loved this alligator
M taking time to smell the roses
a quickie one with me (amazing, I know!)
one of my faves... the dragon breathing smoke rings
Of course we had several episodes of cookie making. Once with our playgroup friends, and several times with just us.
we went to Jerome's Office party last weekend - how cute are they?
J got a soccer ball from Santa... he was in heaven and kicking it all over the party!
Makenna the other day... she looks like she was doing the worm
So I guess it's been a couple weeks again. MAN I suck.
The weekend after Thanksgiving, we drove up to the Mt St Helens area to cut down our Christmas tree. For only the cost of the gas to get there (only an hour or two), and a $5 tree cutting permit, you can find your perfect tree :) We usually go to a Tree Farm near us, which is fun as well as they have a petting zoo, hay ride, hot chocolate, etc, but it's usually about $50 for a tree. Plus, this way we got to tramp all over a volcano for our tree... how fun is that??
the ride up there
the volcano!
I brought the tripod to try and get some pictures to use for our Christmas card. You may recognize these :)
what a pretty girl
sillies
and I liked this one, but it didn't make the cut for the card this year ;)
Jerome cut this one for our playroom tree (tabletop one)
and this awesome one for our living room
The kids did great decorating the tree
And they did the playroom tree the next day
So it's the day after Thanksgiving and bellies are full. Jerome made a fabulous Thanksgiving meal for us, and although we were lonely without any family visiting, we had a very pleasant day. Poor Jerome had to work today, so he's sad, and I'm sad I'm not at any Black Friday sales. But other than those minor things, we have a lot to be Thankful for. Healthy and smart kiddos tops the list, for sure.
Because we didn't have company yesterday, it was very mellow and very lazy. We had a jammie-jam day, and the kids and I made crafts while Jerome cooked and prepared. We watched the parade while lazing around, too. Someday we hope to make it to New York to take the kids to see the parade in person. I did it as a child and LOVED it, and judging from their excitement and animation yesterday from watching it on TV, I'm sure they'd have a blast! Makenna about fainted when she saw a princess castle float - lmao.
We made a family turkey with all of our hand prints
and we updated our annual handprint/leaf with what the kids are Thankful for this year
We had made turkey hats at playgroup on Wed, but Jerome wasn't there so he didn't have a hat. He wore my hat, and I wore a pilgrim bonnet Makenna had made in preschool. It's a good thing we can laugh at ourselves! LOL
I have a couple random pictures from the past week for ya, as well.
Makenna cheezin in the front yard while scooting and watching Daddy put up Christmas lights
We went to the duckpond across the street the other day - those poor ducks were STARVING! They followed us around after we were done, and I felt bad we didn't have more. We like to get a bag of duck/chicken food, but we've run out so all I had were cheerios.
Our house is right over M's head :)
M sneaking cheerios away from those poor hungry ducks
pretty girl
handsome boy
