What a fun Christmas...

It seems that this year was a little bit of a different Christmas...

The weather played a huge part in it for all of us. I loved it when the snow came. Our whole family enjoyed the weather, then as it dragged on, it became very clear that it was causing major issues and we may not all be getting together with our extended family for the big day. The weather was just too unpredictable! Did you know that the last time we had a white Christmas was in 1938 and it was only 3 inches, we had like 12-14 inches this year!

Our tradition is that Christmas morning we open our gifts, do the Santa thing, have a scrumptous breakfast as a family and then get all ready for the day and head to my parents house, where we do more of the same. Open gifts, eat, be merry all day long. As the day approached though we were getting the idea that it may not happen. Sure enough Christmas Eve was pretty hectic. We live in Clatskanie, over a major hill, and the freezing rain and snow cleary were working against us and our desire to travel. No one was going to cross over the hill! My sis wasn't able to even pick her baby up from his daddy until later that day cause of the weather. It was enough to kind of get you down.

Christmas Eve, I woke up and was like, ok, we cannot be with family this holiday, I will make the best of it. My mom gave me a pep talk to get me going and I was ready to go shop for food, here in town. I picked up all of our meal fixings, for a Christmas day feast, turkey and all, and then also the fixings for homemade pizza and salad for that evening. As the day wore on, the weather just continued to be treacherous, it was stormy out. 2:00p.m. came and as we were all finishing Quiet time, the electricity went out. Now, here in our town, this a pretty common and typical thing to happen, it actually occurs quite often. Suprisingly it hadn't gone out the entire storm, but sure enough, it did it that day. I really had a time, when it came dinner time, cause I had major plans, hello! I needed an attitude adjustment for sure. I was sad, overwhelmed, frustrated, just not happy and joyful. It took awhile but after I got an adustment, we sat down to cold ham sandwhiches and chips, dips, and we had a great time. The evening was fun, running around with their flashlights and stuff. We decided to open a few gifts, cause, what else were we gonna do. We were all bundled up, freezing cold, hanging out with no electricity. It was fun. We decided to open our gift from our neighbors, they are so sweet! Get this, we opened it up and it was like a set of a whole bunch of candles... we needed them! Thank you God. We let Daniel open his keyboard, cause we knew it would provide lots of entertainment, and we were right. It was a fun evening! The electricity came on just before we all laid down to bed, all bundled up together, to keep warm, choosing the warmest room, which was Matthew's. It came on and it was weird, it was like, oh, we adjusted to all that and now it's all good, no problem.

I was learning. God was teaching. He knew that this outage was gonna cause lots of problems, but he allowed it the same. I hear of people who were right in the middle of cooking thier Christmas meal, turkey in oven and all. A friend was baking her daughters birthday cake, it is her birthday on Christmas Eve. Oh boy. God wants to grow us all. He wants to stretch us. He wants to teach us. It took an hour or two for me to get my attitude adjustment, believe me I was to a real point of frustration. But then I took it to the Lord. And then this joy came over me, not from me, it was HIS joy, his contentment. I didn't have it in me. I was actually ticked. But as soon as I just gave it over, he turned it into something beautiful! It was fun, it was bonding with my family and it was perfect. :)

Freezing cold!

Christmas Day was fun. We had our feast. Which I might add, was cooked entirely by myself. Now if you know how our house runs that is an unusual occurance. Steve was banned from the kitchen, I was determine to cook the entire thing by myself! It was great! I missed my other family, we haven't ever been without them on the holidays, we've always been with others, our families. But again, God is teaching us, he has a reason. We had a great time, just our family, just our boys, our first Christmas together as just us, and it was perfect!

I let him carve the turkey though! :)

Our rocker dude!

What a mohawk! Daniel is for sure our rocker child! His passion for music, instruments, anything that makes you shake your booty, is pretty hilarious! He has such a love for guitars, drums, singing, clapping his hands. It is just ingrained in this little dude!

Here he is playing his mini guitar hero!

Ok, he so looks like his momma there!

He is channeling his grandfather, Shawn Ryan, in this pic... go baby!

My sis Tiel...

My sister Tiel had a procedure done on Wednesday to treat an irregular blood vessel in the outer layer of her brain. This is related to her hereditary disease which her and Nick have. The disease is Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiactasia (HHT). This irregular blood vessel has been bothering her for a few years, hearing it swish through her ear.... At the diagnosis years ago, she was told it was safe for then. But it now has gotten larger and louder and needed correction. The procedure went really well, thank you God..... The physicians decided to use the catheter procedure which went through her femoral artery in her groin, and insert glue to stop the irregular flow. She was scheduled for two hours to perform the procedure and after 1 1/2, it was complete, so thankful! She came home this morning and is just very tired and with a moderate head ache, and needing a good long nap to recover from 'hospital sleep', (which is pretty much none....) Her Dr. said the side of her head will hurt for a while, due to the catheter and insertion of the substance, 'onyx,' but should be feeling better soon & able to go back to work on Mon. For the first time in years, she doesn’t hear the swishing in her ear, also not able to manually feel the pulsating on the outside of her head. These are great reports and she and we are so appreciative of your prayers, and care... I have told her about each of your e-mails and calls & given her your love ~ thank you for your prayers, we know they are powerful. God bless you!

Excersize equipment uses

Now this is a boy after his momma's own heart. I use this ball as much as I can to do excersizes, so it gets left out quite a bit. I walked into the room the other day and found Matthew watching his cartoons, just chillin' on the ball and his lounge chair. :)

Pirate's Booty, what a treat!

One of most favorite snack/treats in our house is Pirate's Booty! It is soooo good! I have to just brag it up! Matthew will go get the bag and him and Daniel just munch out of it! So yummy, and it is healthy, not all fatty and greasy. I highly recomend it, it is in the health food section, we get it at the Longview Freddie's, they rock!

Let it snow, let it snow~

This is the hill next to our house, just screaming for those kids to come and dare to go down! Ha! It is really a steep hill, it is impassible if you don't have 4 wheel drive... yesterday I "guided" half a dozen honda's down the hill! It hasn't stopped snowing, literally. Clatskanie is covered in about 7 inches right now. The Clatskanie hill, hwy 30 between here and Rainier is impassible without 4 wheel drive or chains, they have a road block! Steve has 4 wheel drive so he can manage to get to work right now! The snow is fun! Matthew spent most of the day outside! And when he comes in for a break, meal, Quiet time, etc... I pop the clothes in the dryer and then he's ready to go again! Today Daniel acutally wanted to go out more, that was fun, we built this really tiny snow man together, then he proceeded to stomp it out right after I took a picture of it!

What a little tornado he is!

This is our house, in all it's glory, made beautiful with the white stuff!

The hill is literally right out our door!

Is that beautiful or what?!

Our little tiny snow man!

Loving the snow! He wanted to cover his face with it!

Whoa!

All the neighborhood kids having fun together!

These are all of Matthew and Daniel's buddies,

(left to right) Kenny, Mary, Hannah, Rebecca, Sarah,

Josh, and Roni.

They are all great kids, they all just look out for

each other and have a blast,

what a gift that is, a true blessing!

Winter Wonderland~

Let it snow! Woo hoo! I woke up this morning at like 5... couldn't sleep well. I walk out and look outside... oh, how exciting, it was a blanket of snow everywhere! The boys woke up later and we went directly out! It was so fun! The hill that we live on is the most popular hill to sled, snowboard, ski! Everybody comes to go down in the snow and ice! We see all the kids in town, parents, it is so fun. We started to have a snow fight with all the kids in the neighborhood! It has been a spectacle all day, usually it continues until late into the night, like 1 or 2! I did it when I was a teenager here too! Ha! Love it! We had to go buy a sled, I cannot believe that the store here even had any... so fun! Hope you are all enjoying this winter treat. :) well, unless you have to drive too much in it. Steve thankfully has 4 wheel drive and made it to work today, after some fun outside of course, the snow brings out the kid in ya!

Check him out! HA!

At first Daniel didn't know what to think... then he got into it!

Going down the hill, careful honey! :) How fun!