Christmas Day

Christmas Day was very quiet and relaxing this year. After the opening of Santa's gifts, Matt went to get my mom and dad who haven't been able to drive off of their hill for 2 weeks. When they got back to our house, we had our traditional egg casserole and cinnamon roll brunch. It was yummy! Then we opened presents because if we didn't the boys' heads were going to explode! Luke was our Santa...handing out the presents with his brother's help. They were delighted with their Nintendo DS gifts because we didn't see them the rest of the day!!! We saved some of the presents for Saturday when we will celebrate with Kiki and Scott, who couldn't make it down due to the weather. After the presents, we cleaned up and then the adults took a nap. I wish someone could have taken a picture of all 4 of us asleep on the couch. The boys probably didn't notice the sleepfest because they were so preoccupied with their new toys but they were definitely on their own for awhile. :-) We ended the day by watching several basketball games including the Blazer game. In many ways it was a wonderful day...food, naps, basketball, family time. We are thankful for so many things at this time of year and this quiet Christmas helped us reflect on all of them. Happy Holidays to all of you...our friends and family who we love!!!

Santa made it!

Of course we prepared cookies and milk for Santa. Luke ate more of the cookies and frosting than he prepared but....that's Luke. Ryan was determined to put out an apple for Rudolph because "he needs energy". When all things were prepared, the boys settled in to bed and amazingly did not wake up until 8:45. The shout..."SANTA MADE IT" came from Ryan first. Luke probably would have slept another hour but Ryan would not have it. They opened their presents from Santa...the favorite being remote control helicopters. Ryan is ready to bring on the rest of the presents. Luke opens everything and says ..."it's what I always wanted". Even the underwear made his morning. So, Santa made it to the Paschalls. Now, Matt is going to sled on over to Grandma and Grandpa Swanson's house to pick them up and bring them back to our house for the day.

Christmas Eve

After a day of baking and last minute preparing, the boys and I headed to Amy and Gary's house. Matt had to work until 11:00 but he actually ended getting off a little early so he could see the family. We had a great time visiting with the Slagle family and was amazed at how much everyone is growing up. The cousins that were Ryan and Luke's age when I joined the family are now 20-25 years old...WOW. We didn't get home until 11:15 so Mom made sure that the boys knew that Santa needed extra time to come so they better sleep in. :-)

Cool Icicles--the melt begins!

When we got home from our excursion I noticed several large icicles hanging from our house. I thought they were definitely worth capturing since it is not something we see often.

Usually, we head to Cinnabon every Christmas Eve. We started this when Ryan was 1 year old...mostly because Matt needed to finish his shopping. It has become a tradition we look forward to (and Matt still does his shopping). This year, Matt has to work on Christmas Eve so we went to the mall on the 23rd. It was also a nice chance to get out of the house and rescue the Grandparents from their hill. We shopped, walked and wandered just to enjoy a change of scenery. The yucky part was getting home. Everyone and their mother was out yesterday afternoon, probably for the same reason we were. However, ODOT decided to bring the scrapers down from Mt. Hood and totally scrape I-5 and I-205. A good idea that turned in to a disaster. This big idea caused traffic back ups everywhere. We were stuck in it and took about close to an hour to get home. Some people heading to the Blazer game from Salem, Woodburn, etc were stuck in traffic for 3-4 hours! Oh...the joys of snow in OREGON.

Professional Driver

A funny story from today. Thankfully, Matt has no qualms in driving in snow, ice, sleet or all of the above. Our truck is 4 wheel drive and has been great to have through all of this. After our sledding excursion this morning, we decided to head down the road just a bit to see about picking up a gift card for a present. On the way back, a bunch of snow slid down on to the windshield blocking Matt's view so he pulled over....unfortunately, in to a snow bank. Well, when we tried to get back on to the road our handy truck just slid and spun it's tires going nowhere! My professional driver husband was stuck! A very nice man in a REALLY BIG truck stopped and pulled us out with a tow line. Wheewww! I had visions of having to ration our granola bar and cuddle up for warmth....just kidding. It was about 1/2 mile from our house so we would have walked home. :-) I just like to add the drama. Anyway, we came straight home and Matt was throwing the chains on because in 10 minutes, he was out the door to the store and to visit various neighborhood friends. No stopping my professional driver, highly active husband. In all fun, I won't be teasing him tomorrow when I want to get to the mall!

More sledding...keeping busy

We have never been sledding until this year. Today we hit the "slopes" for the 4th time in a week! The soft snow helped cover up the ice layer from yesterday so it was safe sledding again. Since I am in to my vacation schedule again, I was up way too late last night with Matt. We were still sleeping at 9:30 when our friends knocked on the door asking us to sled with them. Well, it took us a little while to get moving and to get the snow gear on Luke, who throws a fit EVERY time about how fat he looks in his snow pants. I swear sometimes I wonder if it is worth the effort to get him bundled up. He is always a blubbering blob on the floor and I am sweating to death by the time we are done... BUT we made it for another hour and a half of fun. Of course, I had to test the sleds out with the boys. This time I remembered to grab the camera to catch some more of the action and the scenery. It is a beautiful view of the snowy trees along the river.

Santa update...where did he go?

Going, going, gone! When we woke up today, there was ANOTHER 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. Really, I am dumbfounded. I can't believe how much snow there is on the ground. I went out to measure the amount and it was about 11-12 inches. Underneath is 1/2 inch of ice layer so you crunch along as you walk. The weather reports are saying that all of this snow is not going anywhere fast. It is supposed to be around 30-35 all week with more snow on Christmas. It has been since 1968 when Portland has had this much snow on the ground. I have to believe it will be another 30-40 years before we will see it again. It's just amazing...and beautiful.

What will Santa do?

Happy Winter Solstice Day! Today is the shortest day of the year. From here, we start working our way back to summer time. In only 6 months we could be back in the 60's or 70's. We could have snow on the ground still at the rate we are going.

Luke asked today what Santa will do if it is so icy out. I told him that Santa is a professional driver...all is good. I am just hoping I get to mall to finish shopping by then! Hee Hee.

On to FREEZING RAIN!

Today we woke up to a layer of ice on top of the snow. I heard Matt drive up this morning when he got home from work because he sounded like he was driving over a life size bag of chips. It took him an hour to warm up his truck enough to melt the 1/2 inch of ice off. He said it was a pretty crazy night at work trying to get around. He is off now until Wednesday and I am thankful we don't have to go anywhere in this stuff. We are now hearing that the ice/snow may last a little longer than first anticipated since things are really warming up. I better start getting creative with the boys!

Arctic Blast 2008---it's still snowing!!!

SO...it started snowing on Sunday and it continued off and on all week. The boys and I were out of school all 5 days. Unbelievable! Today, it snowed from sun up to sun down. We have at least 6 inches outside our doors and it is a very dry snow. The boys are just beside themselves with amazement. I don't think they have ever seen so much snow in their lifetime. For that matter, I don't know if I remember it snowing so much in a week's period of time. Today, we did get in some more sledding which was absolutely a blast with so much snow.

Thankfully, we were able to escape the house a few times during this snowy week. We hit the mall, had meatballs at IKEA, went sledding, shopped at Target, played games, baked cookies and have slept in every day. I have to say that I am feeling so rejuvenated from this forced early vacation. Now, Matt on the other hand, has had to continue to work his normal shifts. Personally, I think he enjoys the challenge of driving in the snow...a true dude!

Here are a few highlights of our winter wonderland. These pictures were taken about 1:00. Since then we have added a few more inches...the snow comes up to the curbs in the street.

Snow days!

Sunday morning we woke up to big, giant snowflakes falling. We quickly had about 2 inches of snow outside and the boys were ready to hit it by 8:30 a.m. We were able to hold them off until a little later when we could scrounge what winter gear we had left together. We realized that we will be adding a few more gifts of hats, mittens, etc. to the tree for the boys. Anyway, once outside the boys had a great time throwing snowballs and trying to put together their own "Frosty". They came in frozen and happy.




Monday was a snow day for all of us...no school!! Yippee! So, we hit the park with a couple other friends and the boys went sledding for their first time. They LOVED it! I knew they would but I was just amazed at how many times they were willing to slide down and then haul the sled back up the hill. The 25 degree weather didn't seem to bother the boys at all but we finally had to drag their pink cheeks away with the promise to come back again soon.

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The boys are busy!

The boys just finished football season. Luke's first season was a big success. He really started getting the idea of the game and I can proudly say was one of the best ball hikers! Unfortunately for Luke, he is cursed with his mom's lack of speed so anytime he had the ball he was quickly pursued and his flags pulled. It didn't seem to bother him a bit. Ryan played for his 2nd season and loved it even more this year. His favorite part was playing defense and "charging" the QB. Now Ryan is on to basketball season while the rest of the family cheers him on.

Ryan has lost 3 teeth since the summer. He has just one big 'ol toothless grin.







School really takes it out of the boys, especially Luke. This picture was taken at 6:50 pm and the boys were snoring! Mom just wanted to crawl up next to them on the couch!

Happy Halloween!

At 5 and 7 years old, I don't think that the boys have been more excited about Halloween. We had the countdown going for the last week and a half. The costume fun began last Sunday at our church Halloween party. They started stocking up on candy (and sugar highs) then! For Halloween we started at 4:00 by trick or treating the local Safeway complex. Then, after pizza, we headed to the neighborhoods. The boys ran up and down every street for hours. We finally got home at about 8:00 with about "230" pieces of candy...according to Luke. We had a fun night and definitely crashed hard. We didn't get out of our PJs on Saturday until 3:00 pm.

Pumpkin patch

October has been a beautiful month here in Oregon. The boys and I made the most of one Saturday by heading to the pumpkin patch with Christy, Bridget and their kids. We did the hay maze, slid down the hay slide, ate kettle corn and deep-fried apple fries, romped in the "nut house" and took several pictures in front of pumpkins! The most adventurous thing we all dared was the pitch black hay maze. I don't know why but the 3 moms and all the kids went inside a pitch black barn and tried to find our way through a maze with only a flashlight. Call us crazy but the boys loved it!!!!

Ryan could be jack-o-lantern this October. He has lost 3 teeth in the last month which makes his smile quite unique right now. I think it is cute!


We have been doing the pumpkin patch with these friends since they were all toddlers. Ali and Merilyn are always good sports to hang out with the boys! Luke, Ryan, Camden and Logan kept us moving quickly throughout the various attractions.