Snow Much Fun

The day after Christmas we had lots and lots of snow.

Luckily, Bryant received a new sled as a Christmas gift and he could hardly wait to break it in!

So, we called our neighbor and friends, Jen, Karsyn and Cooper to come sledding with us.

Cooper, Karsyn, Bryant

Me and Jen

The kids had lots and lots of fun. Is there anything better than snow when you're 6 years old?

Bryant and I even took a few runs together down the hill.

Before long, Bryant decided he needed to be his normal dare-devil self...

so he started surfing (or snowboarding) his sled down the hill.

He got some serious air!

Watch this video of Bryant surfing down the hill...

And if that wasn't enough to give his mother a heart attack, Bryant and Cooper started sledding down some deck stairs and onto the snow hill.

Watch this video for some fun....

I hope you're having fun in the snow too!

Christmas Morning

We have several family traditions for Christmas Morning...

#1 We always spend the night with the WHOLE extended family.

One giant sleep over!

#2 Santa's Helper (my dad) always meets us at the end of the hallway to lead us to Santa's gifts.

This year he wore an "interesting" Santa's Helper costume :)...

#3 Bryant checks out what Santa brought and left in front of the tree.

This year it was a motorized scooter that goes 10 MPH!

#4 We check our Stockings. Santa brings everyone something in their stockings. Usually the adult stockings have "gag" gifts. Of course, Santa is to blame... so nobody can get mad :)

This year my dad's stocking contained some "Bitch Be Gone"... Fast Relief from a Bitching Wife!

Many other stockings contained worse... which I won't post on here. But needless to say, we got some fine fine laughs out of the gag gifts.

#5 We start opening gifts.
Only one gift per person at a time. We take turns going around the room from youngest to oldest. This year it took us 3 1/2 hours to open presents... but it's sooo fun. I love to see what everyone is getting. Plus, it keeps Bryant from getting too wild.

Highlight from the first hour and a half...

Bryant got a MP3 player that he just loved (downloaded with 100 of his favorite songs)

Zac received a special tie that Bryant made for him.

I received the fabulous Toro Leaf Blower from my mom and dad (I asked for one).

Here we are about half way though Christmas morning....

Then the second half of opening...

Austin and Travis opened "A Curious Case of Holiday Ales" which had naught holiday beer names.

Austin opened the awesome Guitar Hero World Tour for the Xbox 360

Zac received his favorite gift... a gift card to Barnes and Noble (it's not Powells Books in Portland... but it will have to do).

Suzi got some awesome high heeled shoes...

There were many great and generous gifts given. Too many to name.


#6 We always give each other lots and lots of board games.

We are board game lovin' family of fools.

#7 We always have a wonderful Christmas breakfast after we're done opening gifts.

This year Sasha decided to try one of the Christmas Ales for her breakfast!

#8 We pose for lots of fun Christmas day photos...

#9 We spend the rest of the day trying out our Christmas gifts!

Here's Bryant getting a pedicure in my new foot spa.

And of course we spend much of the day and night playing "Rock Band." Even Bryant rocked out on the drums and guitar. Rock on!

We are so blessed to have family we love to spend time with. It sure does make the holidays extra special.

I hope each and every one of you had a great Christmas too.

No Christmas Cards from us...

We've had multiple attempts to get a decent family picture for a Christmas card... but everything has been a bust so far.

The most recent set of pictures looked like this:

I keep trying to think of a great caption for the above photo...

Do you have any ideas?

I have no idea what Bryant saw that made him look so surprised... but I do love his face... just not for our Christmas card!

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On the another Christmas card attempt we were looking so cute... but later realized that our goofy child had a HUGE wad of gum in his mouth in all the pictures.

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On the other hand, I recently took a great picture (not a Christmas card photo... but a great photo nonetheless) of Sasha and Suzi:

School is out and Zac, Bryant and I have the next two and a half weeks of work.

Can I get a Wooo Hoooo?

I'm finally getting in the mood for Christmas

I'm usually one of those people who puts up their Christmas decorations Thanksgiving weekend. But this year, I've had a hard time getting in the mood. I don't know why... but I just keep putting it off! Every day I say I'm going to get the stuff out of the garage (we're talking lots of storage totes) and every day I end up doing something else (usually something senseless like watching reality TV).

So today when we woke up and found the first SNOW of the season, it was like someone hit me in the ass with a snowball and said "get those decorations up." All of a sudden I was motivated!

Bryant went outside to play with Karson in the snow...

Then Bryant and Cooper spent hours sitting in the back of the truck trying to look cool for all the people walking by...

And by the time Bryant came inside, the tree was up.

I can't say this is a "good looking" tree... it's fake. It's only the second time in my life I've had a fake tree... but I couldn't justify the cost of buying a real tree this late in December (shame on me for waiting this long to get the tree up... I know).

As if I wasn't already feeling like shit for waiting so long to get the decorations up, my lovely son came inside and said, "Oh mom, I love it. I love Christmas. I wish we could have Christmas for a whole month not just one or two weeks. I want Christmas forever. "

Yeah, so I feel like a giant ball of crap. Taking away the excitement of Christmas for a little boy for the last 3 weeks...

Bryant was so excited about the decorations, we went around the living room with my camera and took pictures.

He took over 25 pictures... and I'll save you from viewing all of them. But these are the three he says are his favorite. Enjoy!

By the way, I have a 4 week break from my Master's program and a 3 week break from teaching coming up... so I promise to be a better blogger starting this week.