And it just keeps on comin'...

Well, on Saturday they said we were going to get a big storm and it snowed, on Sunday they said it was going to just be cloudy, and it snowed, on Monday majority of Western Washington shut down and we got to stay home, oh, and did I mention it snowed. I believe tonight will be our first night of no snow in almost a week. But we have another system on Christmas Eve, and quite frankly I'm looking forward to that White Christmas. I can't say, I personally, have ever had one.

Steve got to build his snowman. Actually, this is the 2nd time he has built his snowman as we apparently have snowmen haters out there, and the 1st one he built yesterday was taken down. So, attempt #2. At least this time the kids got to take a picture with Frosty.

Steve got to enjoy 2 snow days, and starting tomorrow is off until the 2nd. I too had two days, but have a work laptop and actually diligently worked from home. My vacation officially starts on Wednesday and I'm going to completely unplug from work. Really looking forward to spending time with the kids and Steve and getting in some real quality family time during our vacation.

Merry Elfing Christmas!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Another great snow day!

Well, we got blasted with snow yesterday. It made the roads snarly and Steve and I got to drive home in it. It took almost 1.5 hrs to drive what would have normally taken 10 minutes. Incredible!! While Washington is known to be a bunch of snow weenies, it was actually warranted yesterday.
Steve went into work - on time - to find out that work was on delayed start time... 10am. Then around 10:30, come to find work was canceled. So, Steve took that opportunity to eat a burger and have some beers! Then set forth on coming home on the bus where he had to stand for an hour. It was a long day for not doing very much.

The kids are loving it! All this outside play time. And I love it because they are outside. :)

Unfortunately, it won't be a white Christmas because our rain is due to set in on Christmas Eve. That's okay. We've enjoyed what we got thus far!!

Winter Storm 2008....

It snowed today and it snowed a bit more than what these areas typically get. So, all the news channels have labeled it WINTER STORM 2008. It snows here and there around these parts, but nothing that really sticks. However, with today's snow shower and tomorrow's freezing temps, looks like we'll have icy roads. We went out today and enjoyed ourselves in the snow. We all got bundled up and what else do you you do in the snow? A snow fight! So, we played with the neighborhood kids for a while and let Andy get the excitement of the snow out of his system. It was a great day and we were glad it happened on the weekend, so we could enjoy ourselves with the kids.

Andy just go this this hat last night and loves it. Really, it's very fitting for his personality. The snow amount you see in the picture was just when it was starting, within an hour you couldn't see the road and foot prints were covered up very quickly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!

For Steve's birthday, the boys and I got dad a I Joy 130 message chairs. Dad deserves all the pampering he can get whenever he wants. What's the best way to get it? Have a chair at your convenience. Steve spends his time car pooling the boys around, running errands, taking care of the boys, and lately being a stand in Mr. Mom because I have been working ridiculous hours. It was the best way we can say Thank You and Happy Birthday.

He loves his chair. This sucker reclines all the way back and you can get a nice relaxing message.

On 12/6/2008, Jake graduated to be a yellow belt in martial arts. Pictured is Jake bowing to Sifu (Master of the House) Lenderman. During the actual testing, Jake did his demonstration and the feedback we received was Jake did a flawless job. To leave the testing with no critiques is quite an accomplishment in itself. Through all his practicing, Jake has proven to be worthy of the next belt.

We are so proud of Jakob as he did this all by himself. Sure we drove him to practice, but Jake does a fair share of practicing on his own and he got this belt through his hard work and dedication!

GOOD JOB, JAKE!! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Ice Skating

We attended an ice skating birthday party for one of our friends. What a great idea! It's all of 5 minutes away from our house and I have never thought of holding a birthday party there. Ice skating is great for all ages. While Steve and Jake skate on a pretty regular basis (Sunday is cheap skate for $4 including the rentals), this was Andy's first go at the whole "walking on ice" thing. True to Andy's personality, Mr. Independent, after one lap with dad he was ready to do this on his own. The kid has no fear... any takers on who that reminds you of??
Andy loved the skating did. For his first time, he didn't do too shabby. However, Steve's back was killing him and he could only do a couple of laps at a time before taking a rest. I think he's going to be feeling it tomorrow. I think it'll be another year before Steve ventures to take Andy back out on the ice on a regular basis.

Andy's birthday bash...

in short was awesome. Aside from being overly tired from all the cooking and cleaning the night before and morning of, Andy had a pretty fantastic party. We had a great turn out for the party at Pump It Up. I had co-workers with smaller children that came and had a lot of fun. I think I have turned their parents off of Chuck E Cheese and onto Pump It Up. Once you go there, you don't go back. It's pretty cool! Afterwards it was off to home we went where Andy went down diligently for a nap (good boy!). And about 5pm (and much sweat equity in between), other folks arrived from party #2. Steve and I made 3 lasagnas, 3 pasta sauces, 2 salads, garlic bread, a fabulous artichoke parmesan dip... you get the point. All home made! It was good eating. Did I mention we also had more cake? :)

Another year older... I hate seeing my babies get older.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Andy-Drew!!

Middle of November... already??

I'm not sure where the time is going and why it's going so fast. Feels like Halloween was yesterday, not 2 weeks ago! I would love to say I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving because of the family and the dinner and so on and so forth. What I'm really looking forward to is rest from work and the daily grind.

Not to help matters, but we are planning Mr. Andrew's big 3 birthday party coming up this Saturday. And it can't be a simple, "come over have some cake"... nope a typical Michelle production. We are starting the afternoon off at Pump It Up an indoor inflatable jumping castle, slide, obstacle course, etc place. A wonderful thing to have here in Washington as our rain has set in for the year. Followed by that 2 hour of absolute joy is a pasta dinner (not the same people) here at the house. Which means/requires a tremendous amount of repair and cleaning. Andy has taken our towel racks as either a monkey bar or rock climbing device... I can't determine which. Either way, they are no longer hanging completely on the wall. And really, no matter what the week is the days between Sunday and Saturday (yep, the working days) our house looks completely ransacked by sticky finger bandits.

We'll be blogging it up come Sunday (or whenever we recover) to give you guys a glimpse of Andy's birthday.

Halloween wrapup

Happy Halloween! The boys got all dressed up tonight and hit the town. Andy was the only Iron Man we saw running around and everybody thought he look really cute. Jake's costume came out pretty good and he even ended up scaring a couple of his friends.

Pumpkin carving

We have a love hate relationship with pumpkin carving. We love the idea of picking out our pumpkins, we love picking out our pumpkin design, and we even love the idea of carving our pumpkins. Each year we try to involve the kids. This was Andy's first year of actually being allowed to be awake while we carved... his contribution in the past was sleeping. Well, while he didn't help per say, he did take great joy stabbing the tops of the pumpkins with the little saw. Jake did his very best to clean out his pumpkin, but really when all was said and done he ended up watching Andy while Steve and I cleaned and carved. And four pumpkins later, we loathe pumpkin carving and we're glad that it's over. Steve's got a sore forearm from cleaning the insides and I've got friction burn between my thumb and finger from the saw. Alas, it's done and we have the evidence to prove it.

Another year, another set of pumpkins.

Us staying in touch with you

We are horrendous with staying in touch with everyone. This is our attempt to stay in touch with you to stay in touch with us... see where this is going. :)

I can't believe we are in the final stretch of 2008 and I can't tell you what we did the first three quarters of the year. I can tell you we have some fun stuff coming up that makes this our favorite time of the year. Starting with Halloween. We went to the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago with our good friends, the Blankenship's. And we are gearing up for Halloween. Andy is going to be Iron Man while Jake is venturing out of doing cartoon characters and is going to be a scary clown.

More to come later...