Christmas 2008

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Our Christmas was a lot of fun and tasty food, and our New Years eve was a quiet one spent at home watching movies and blogging.

We started getting Pippa and William hyped up about the idea of Christmas for the last month, with Advent calendars, Christmas trees and decorations and the special Christmas WordWorld and Super Why! They knew something fun was up.

On Christmas eve William was especially tired, so he needed to go to bed extra early leaving Pippa to prepare for the arrival of Santa. He did, however, get to enjoy opening and playing with all the gifts the next day! Here are some photos from our very white snowy Christmas...

We decorated the cookies and left them out for Santa with a little Whiskey

An Eden tradition, reading "The Night Before Christmas" the night before Christmas

After Santa came, but before the kids woke up

William checking out some gifts

The aftermath

Then there was the snow to deal with...

8" or so on Christmas eve, on top of the other 8". Lots of shoveling for Nick to do!

Making snow angels

Coming to throw snow at Will behind the sliding glass door. He gets too cold and miserable in that much snow.

Snow days in Bend

It has been snowing. A lot. A whole lot. Today (Christmas Eve), it has been snowing non-stop since we woke up and now it's just about bedtime. We have maybe 6-8" of new snow on top of the 6-8" we already had from the last week of storms. Our Christmas is certainly a white one. Here are a few pictures of the kids playing in the first snow of the season, before it got deep!

Oh, Christmas Tree

This post is a little delayed, however I had to show you where we got our Christmas tree. It was a really fun day and Pippa still talks about it nearly 3 weeks later! In Oregon in November and December you can go buy a permit for $5 which allows you to go into the Deschutes forest, select a tree shorter than 12 feet, cut it down and take it home. This is what we did. It was so much fun, and not only did we get a $5 tree out of it, but it was a very impressionable fun day out for Pippa. Our tree is 9' high and the freshest tree we've ever had. Pippa is very proud of it, and surprisingly they are both very good at not knocking it down. Here are the photos from our day out...

Auntie Jess carried Will, Pippa was strapped to Daddy's back (she wanted to be carried, and it was best because of the uneven ground), and I got the backpack with the saw. We went with our friends, the Johnsons.

Jess carrying William

Pippa helping Daddy with the chop

The tree is ours now. Muwhhhh, ha, ha!

Tying the tree to the car for the 30 minute drive home

The tree is up. Notice how all the ornaments are higher than a toddlers reach?

I was guessing a girl!

However, it looks like my guess was wrong. The ultrasound shows what looks like boy parts, so Pippa and William will have a baby brother to love and cuddle. Yay! We are all very excited and are working on the baby bracket as you read this. Everything else in the ultrasound looks structurally sound and the baby is measuring right on target and is estimated to weigh about 13 oz. Here are the pictures for ya (click on them for the really BIG version)...

Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we went down to the Bay Area to visit with all the Reese family. This was first road trip in our new car and it held up great for the 9 hour drive each direction, as did the kids. They are super-good travellers.

On Thanksgiving day we ate the traditional turkey, which happened to weigh about the same as William...

...and we ate stuffing, mashed potato, gravy, pie, cookies and (the kids favorite) fruit! It was all delicious.

While in California we also visited Great Grandma Tavares, who turns 91 in February. She is fabulous and you wouldn't believe how she is able to take care of herself. We also spent lots of time with Pappy, checked out his house and visited Muir Beach. It was so much fun and the kids had a wonderful time.

William riding Gypsy Tavares!

Pippa walking Gypsy Tavares!

Pappy's Apartment (Left of Pippa, plus the windows below)

Muir Beach

Finally, the Trapps, who let us stay at their house and put up with our mess and noise for 5 nights. Thank you so much! (Sorry GrAuntie Michele and GrUncle Dale, I don't have pictures of you and the kids :( )

On the trip home the toddles caught up on some well-needed rest.