Christmas 2008

Christmas morning started earlier than usual this year. Adam was up at 5 and had the restraint to wait till 6 to wake Will up. Then, since they were told not to wake us up till it was light out, they occupied themselves in their room till 7 when Nedra(who was sleeping over) took pity on them and offered to read them a story.

The big excitement when they first came down were the Pokemon cards in their stockings and the candy. I think everything was downhill after that. My highlight was of course the surprise Bosch mixer. It was a pretty civilized present opening- not too overwhelming or chaotic. Lots to keep them busy for awhile.

After a breakfast of waffles and sausage we got into gear getting ready for Brad's sister Karen's family who where flying in that afternoon. They arrived around 4:30 and all eleven of us(including Brad's mom and dad) sat down to a yummy meal of ham mashed potatoes and rolls and various appetizers- cheese, cut veggies and dip, shrimp and cocktail sauce, olives. It was good to visit with all of them and reconnect.

At the end of the evening, we pushed Lyle's car out of the snow where it was stuck and drove Karen's family to the nearby bank where they had parked when they got stuck trying to come down our street. It was really a white Christmas.

Snowy Scenes

Will is pulling the sled up the hill after a solo ride down.

Brad is pulling the kids to the 5th hole on the golf course for sledding.Our very snowed in house.
Trudging back up the hill after sledding down.

Adam sleds down

the hill lying on top of Brad.

Finally, yesterday, the snow started melting. It's been above freezing for more than 24 hours and the rain has moved in. We reached some new records here in Portland- more than a foot of snow on the ground Christmas Day and at least 13 consecutive days with snow on the ground. It's been a lot of fun- despite the inconveniences of trying to finish Christmas shopping with limited driving ability.

Our best discovery was the hill on the 5th hole of the nearby Eastmoreland golf course. We went sledding there at least three times with friends joining us two of the times. The toboggan we retrieved from Brad's Dad's attic made it all the more fun. All four of us can fit on it at once and it goes farther than anything else we saw. Now we have to wait another 40 years for another shot at sledding on the golf course. And of course, we'll be too old at that point. Oh well- I think we got maximum enjoyment out of it while it lasted.

Snowy Garage

It's been snowing since early this morning. We've had an unusual combination of events for Portland- very cold weather and moisture. Usually it's one or the other. Only a couple inches fell, but it's been super cold and windy. Will tried to make a snowman but it's very powdery snow and doesn't stick together well. Try telling that to Will though. He spent at least a half hour rolling the same ball of snow around the yard without it getting any bigger before he gave up.

We took a long walk this morning up to a bakery to get some treats. Brad pulled the kids on a long plastic toboggan and they had a great time pretending to be snowplows with their hands creating tracks in the snow. Will stockpiled the snow on the toboggan and kept throwing falling apart snowballs at Brad's back. The kids tried sledding down our driveway but it just wasn't very satisfying- too slow. School is already cancelled for tomorrow though, so they'll get another try.

Sunny Garage

The garage is done! They finished painting about a week ago. Here's a sunny shot of how it looks.

Will Sings a Song

Will has been working on learning one of the songs Adam did for a musical presentation at school. He listens to it over and over again and has some great moves he's developed. I know the in and out blurriness is annoying-but I think it's still worth watching.

Pokemon Power

Adam had his 8th birthday party on Saturday with all the Pokemon fun you could ask for. There was Pokemon Bingo, a Throw the pokeball in the bucket and win a card game, a Pokemon trivia game, a scavenger hunt, a Team Rocket balloon blast and last but not least, a Pokemon Pinata game.

Brad had the idea to make a pokeball pinata- also referred to as a pokeata. They actually made two which worked out well because two kids could swing at once. He and Adam came up with a fun game to go with it. Instead of just whacking the pokeata, they had to draw a slip of paper indicating how many whacks they could take and whether they were "confused"(spin around and blindfolded), "paralyzed"(blindfolded and only move one arm) or had vision(no restrictions). At first we thought it wasn't going to break. Everyone got at least two whacks and finally a crack developed in the first one and then it was all downhill.

BROKEN

Adam's arm is broken. Or, more precisely, his left radius bone has a fracture up near the elbow. Yesterday he was playing tag after school. He somehow tripped as he was running and fell with most of his weight on his left forearm. I was skeptical that he was seriously hurt, but another parent who saw it happen said she thought it was broken and proceeded to regale me with her own experiences of broken bones. Not having ever broken anything myself, I guess I wasn't a very good judge. There were no visible marks on his arm- no bruising or swelling.

I wrapped his sweatshirt around his neck to make a sling so he could ride his bike home one-handed. He complained the rest of the evening that it hurt and couldn't straighten out his arm. It was still the same in the morning, so off to the doctor we went. Three x-rays later they confirmed the fracture. In less than three hours, we saw the pediatrician, walked up to the hospital for x-rays, came back to the pediatrician's office to await results, walked next door to the orthopedist and left with a cast. Very efficient. We were home in time for lunch.

Good thing we didn't plan a swimming party for Adam's birthday party this Saturday. The cast should be off in four weeks.

Bangs

This is what my hair stylist did when I told her I was tired of all one length. I must trust her a lot. I haven't had bangs since high school. It's taking some getting used to. The feel of hair on my forehead is a bit odd. I think I like it. We'll see if I change my mind when I have to style it myself.

Adam LV.X

Following in Will's footsteps, Adam has decided he would lalso ike to have a Pokemon birthday party. I was trying to come up with a different idea for an invitation when I found a great website- http://www.mypokecard.com/. It lets you make your own custom Pokemon card. So, that's what I used for Adam's invitation. I also included a separate sheet of paper with the location of the party since we're not having it at our house. To make it more realistic, I cut out the faux card and glued it onto a real Pokemon card so it has the same back as a real card.

The Serious Soccer Player

This was Adam's second year of soccer. Brad was his coach and both of them took it very seriously. Brad had never coached before but really put a lot of effort into it. He had a great assistant coach who took on an equal share of the work. The kids all improved a lot over the season. By the end of the season they were learning how to play positions and hold their positions. At this level there aren't any goalies yet and there are four kids on a side. Adam especially improved. He went from being more of a spectator to an active participant. He's not the fastest or most agile but he's smart about the game. He figures out where he needs to be to get the ball. He even scored a few goals.

More Halloween

One of the parents in Adam's class is a professional photographer. During his class Halloween party he took pictures of the kids in costume and sent them home. This is Adam's. Apparently, the pose was all his idea. He wanted to "look scary".

House Progress

Bushes gone, paint still there:

Bushes gone, paint trim gone:

Bushes gone:

The trim paint being applied to the garage:

The pruner's revenge:

Brad removing the camellias:

We're finally making progress on the outside of our house. A few weeks ago Brad pulled out all the rest of the plants except for one hedge out front. He got all 1000 pounds of the yard debris loaded on a rented trailer and hauled off in one go.

About a week ago, we had some paint removal people out to remove all the trim paint. And two days ago, the painters came to start painting the garage and the house trim.

The rest of the house will have to wait till spring because we are considering tearing off some of the siding and replacing it instead of having to prep it. Now, we're running up against the rainy season so the painter has covered all the windows on the street facing sides of the house to keep them from getting too soaked. That way, when there's a break in the weather, he can supposedly come out and paint the trim without having to wait for it to dry out.

I can't wait to see the finished look. It's so hard to imagine how paint will look on a big scale like a house.

Will's 5th Birthday

Sneaking up to steal Pikachu:
Blowing out the candles:

The gang(with Infernape masks)

The cake:

Will turned five on Saturday, October 25th. He wanted a Pokemon party so that's what he got! Adam helped a lot with the planning of it and enjoyed choosing Pokemon to hide for the scavenger hunt. His friend Colter came to the party as well and helped with the games. Will's friends Jack, Keller, Lucas and Teague came, but Luke was sick at the last minute.

We played five games: Sneak up on Team Rocket and try to steal Pikachu, Team Rocket Ballon Blast(blow up balloons and let them go and see whose lands closest to a target), a Pokemon Bingo, Pass the Pikachu(person in middle of circle tries to guess who has the Pikachu as it's passed under people's legs), Meowth Gold Coin Treasure Hunt and a Pokemon Scavenger hunt. The kids loved all the activities, especially the scavenger hunt and balloon blast.

I made a Pokeball cake and Pokeball and Pikachu cupcakes. Some of the cake was strawberry and some was vanilla. The strawberry cake recipe was from my favorite cooking blog, http://www.smittenkitchen.com/ and was as good as it looked.

Halloween

Before:

After:

This year Halloween was a lot more low key than usual- and also a lot more condensed. Adam wanted to be a Glow in the Dark Skeleton and Will wanted to be Pikachu. Both those concepts went beyond my non-sewing skills and given my limited time I opted for ordering both costumes off the internet. It was almost too easy. I compensated however by spending the extra time on getting ready for Will's birthday the week before.

About three weeks ahead of time I got all the Halloween decorations up, but then the paint removal people came and I had to take everything down as it was showered with lead based paint dust. I didn't get everything back up until the day of Halloween. That's also when we carved our pumpkins and I bought the candy. The kids got in about an hour of trick or treating and the day was over.