December 12th weekend

Right before the weekend we started getting notices of a winter storm coming in. Of course, kids were getting excited and hoping it would get to OR before Friday, so they could get a school cancellation, and I was hoping it would hold off till the weekend, so I wouldn't have to drive to work on ice. I won!

On Friday night we went to Tim's work to see Santa Clause movie. Looks like most people decided to stay home, in fear of a possible snow storm. The place was pretty empty. Oh, well, more candy for us!

On Saturday we all got up early and headed out to a Chess Competition at an elementary school nearby (Gabe and Larissa were signed up to participate). When we got the the parking lot, we got suspicious, because it was empty... I run up to the front door and found a hand written sign that it was cancelled... It would've been nice to know ahead of time.

Since we were already downtown Hillsboro we took advantage of it. First stop was to see a Christmas tree.

Nothing was open yet (not even the Saturday Winter market). Hillsboro comes to live at 10am and it was barely 9am at that point. We found a cozy coffee/candy/crafts shop and had some family time, drinking hot chocolate and browsing through their selection of "nostalgia" candy.

Jon didn't want any hot chocolate, but was very happy to discover a candy-kabob

Snow/ice storm never reached us, but it was too cold to do much outdoors anyway, so when I got home I tried a new recipe (thanks Mary!) for a Key Lime bunt cake. I even went as far as getting fresh key limes and squeezing some fresh juice out for the recipe!

I am telling you, THE best cake ever! Usually my cake is slowly consumed and stays around for a while (until it's gone or I throw it away), so I made sure to select a recipe that listed "can be left out at room temperature for up to a week"...

Well, before I knew it, it was pretty much gone. I wasn't even fast enough to take a "before" picture!!! WOW!

On Sunday we finished decorating out tree with lights and ornaments & got out our Christmas stockings. I spent most of the day addressing and sealing Christmas cards and gifts. I am so on schedule this year!

December 5th weekend

On Thursday, December 3rd, Jonathan's school had a Christmas Show. All the kids had a chance to perform for their parents onstage. Everyone had a wonderful time and we laughed quite a bit. All the kids were so darn cute!
We sat very close to the stage, so at the end we "claimed" Jon and bypassed the parent crowd:

Our very exciting weekend started early Saturday morning, when we decided to go to a (first annual) Breakfast with Santa event. It was only a few miles from our house at the Hillsboro Fairgrounds, there was no issues with parking , and admission price was just right ($19 for all six of us, that included a breakfast and a picture with Santa)!

Taking picture as a group turned out to be quite a challenge though For some reason Jon absolutely refused to get anywhere near Santa. We had to give up on the first attempt, eat some food, then try again. This time I told Jon that I would be willing to be in the picture and have him sit on my lap, far far away from Santa.

At first he seems to go along with it, but at the last second, he backed out
The best part was that all that negotiating was captured by a photographer from the Hillsboro Argus newspaper, and what do you know?.. It was published in a Tuesday's issue!

After the dramatic photo session, kids decorated sugar cookies and went around vendors' tables, looking for goodies.

We found a petting zoo and an inflatable maze. I gave kids a choice of one or the other.
Gabe and Miranda opted for feeding the animals:
Larissa and Jon went through the maze.

On the way out, we stopped by a Santa's letter writing station, and Jon composed a letter only he can read...
It doesn't take much $$ to have a good time, that's for sure!

As the temperature continued dropping, we finally decided that we all hate a candle burning setting in our fireplace. We removed the fake logs and the oil cans, brought in some old fire logs from the backyard, and started a REAL fire. Never we will go back!
We have done so much that day, that kids were totally worn out, and dropping like flies, falling asleep (literally) where ever:

We continued with a fun weekend on Sunday. As soon as Miranda came back from a sleepover Tim and I went out and surprised the kids with a real tree! (We have had enough of fake tree too). Of course, we also had to get the stand, but I guess it will last for a while.

We didn't want anything too small or too big, so we got a tree just under 7' tall.

For dinner we all headed out to meet Tim's old Intel friends, visiting from Arizona (Gail & Donna). Gail insisted kids take her $5 and try getting something from a claw machine. She didn't have to ask twice. All the kids gathered around the glass box, working out a best strategy. Talk about a team work!

It took (quite) a few attempts, and a few more $$, but kids were able to score three toys to take home!

I think everyone picked the right crown for this picture...

Thanksgiving's Day 2009

Happy Thanksgiving's Day!

We lived through another one, without burning down the house or passing out from overeating!

There wasn't much planning, as far as a menu. Since it's only our immediate family, we just make the "staple foods" and whatever extra we feel like that day.

I always manage to forget to make something too. This year it was the sweet potatoes. No need to fear though, I quickly whipped some sweet potato fries. Can't say that anyone actually liked it though... Oh, well, no one really likes sweet potatoes at my house anyway.

We started off with our tradition of taking a family photo to be later used on a Christmas card. As always, kids were only able to tolerate about 30 seconds of it, and then went into their "silly" mode.

No worries, I am sure I can "photoshop" something decent for a final product!

We then had a great feast, with another traditional photo of our funny faces.

I then made a mistake of leaving my camera unattended and now have about 50 extra pictures to prove it...

Since this was every one's long weekend, we all got to catch up on all the projects. Kids got caught up on their gaming. I got to make a few "I have been meaning to do that" projects, then Tim and I painted our new beautiful garage door. It is worth every penny! ...and now it has a functioning door lock too...