Christmas in Portland 2016

A few highlights from Christmas time in Portland this past year...

We went to the Portland Zoo Lights with some friends.  It was so beautiful! They did a great job covering the zoo in Christmas lights.  We also had hot chocolate and elephant ears and took a ride on the little train, which was a huge highlight for Carter.  He didn't stop talking about it for days.

Maddie and I did our fair share of baking while Carter napped.  During his nap these days, usually about 2 hours, she has a quiet time in her room for the first hour and then we spend time together in the second hour.  Depending on how much energy I have, we either bake, work on letters/alphabet stuff, do arts and crafts, or watch a show (she watches while I lay down).

We spent a weekend in the small town of Silverton with friends in the beginning of December.  It's about 45 minutes away.  We had a lot of fun playing on their parents' blueberry farm, feeding the horse, riding the gator, and going to the Oregon Gardens for their annual Christmas market.  It reminded me of some of the Christmas markets in Germany/Switzerland.

And here with a 20 week belly photo...halfway there!

Before we left for the east coast, we got quite a bit of snow by Portland standards.  I think there were almost 3 solid weeks of snow fall on and off.  The roads get pretty bad here considering they don't salt and there's almost no snow plows.  Basically the roads had 2-3 inches of snow/ice packed on them for those 3 weeks until the temperature rose.  The kids loved it and went out jumping on the trampoline in the snow.  Carter enjoyed eating the snow and I got exercise shoveling a lot of snow.

A couple weeks before December 25th, we celebrated Christmas just the four of us on a Saturday morning.  It was really special to me and made me look forward to more Christmas traditions as the kids get older.

I also had to include photos with Santa... we didn't have to wait in a huge line, but I had a memorable mommy moment that day.  We were at the front of the line after waiting maybe 25 minutes, just 2 people ahead of us, and Carter says, "I have to go!!!"  Well, it was during the day on a Wednesday so it was just the kids and me.  I tell him to hold it until after.  A mere two minutes later, steam is coming off his pants and I look down to see that he has just peed his pants.  He had no problem, so I just acted like I didn't realize and we went ahead, saw Santa, and went home.  I just hoped that his jeans were dark enough that it wasn't so obvious!

This Santa, by the way, was very impressive.  It was just about a mile from our house at this nice outdoor mall.  He sets up this little cabin in the center area of the mall and you wait in line outside to enter into his cozy little place.  They let you take as many photos with your phone as you want and he gives the kids time to talk to him for a couple minutes.  He also gives out colorful, big candy canes (better than the cheap mini ones that mommy bought at the store).

Thanksgiving 2016

Just had to share a few memories from Thanksgiving.

My Dad and step mom flew from North Carolina and my sister came up from Las Vegas.  We had a great long weekend.

The kids LOVED the sparkling cider in fancy cups for Thanksgiving.  Maddie still doesn't like mashed potatoes and Carter loves them.  They still think turkey and chicken are the same thing.  Carter loved the pumpkin pie.  Maddie loved helping to make the pies but she prefers just vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles or eating the raw pie dough before we bake anything.  Carter and Maddie would eat an entire pie's raw dough if I didn't stop them.  Is this normal?  I always let them taste, and of course, I like to have a little taste, especially cookie dough, but they love it.

 We not only celebrated Thanksgiving but also my birthday!  I think it was the best birthday I've had since my sweet 16 surprise birthday party.  Bryce and I got a night away at a hotel downtown.  We walked to dinner at the best sushi place, slept in (til 8am!), ordered breakfast in bed, and then got home for me to go to a spa with Amy and Kim.  It was divine.  We went in the sauna, we got massages, we ate treats at the French bakery down the street from the spa, and then came home to a filet mignon dinner (thanks, Dad!).  I mean, I was completely spoiled.  Usually my birthdays are just nice because I try not to cook dinner myself.

The weather was, obviously, rainy and cold.  But they had a blast playing with Nana, Papa, and Aunt Amy.  When the long weekend was over, it just didn't feel like enough time together.  That's when you know it was good.  

I say'd that

I know there are so many more things I'm forgetting right now, but at least I've written down a few...

Over the Spring/Summer 2016:

One of Carter's first "sentences" or combination of words:

"Mommy!  Carcar toot.  Smell. (sniff, sniff).  Peeyew!"

Maddie:

"Mommy, some day, God will give us a baby and put it in your belly.  Then it will grow and grow and grow and then it will come out of your MOUTH!!!!!!"

"When I get big, like maybe 10 years old, I can have a boyfriend.  Then I can get married."

"Can I go to the doctor with you when the baby is ready to come out? ...Now tell me about the magic trick that the doctor does to get the baby out of your belly."

"Whoa, you're going fast, Mommy.  Is this the high road?"  (while we were driving somewhere...she meant high way haha)

Over the Fall/Winter 2016-17:

Maddie:

"Carter!!!! Get out!!!! Give me privacy!!!" (Maddie while sitting on the toilet)
"Honey, he is just curious.  You don't need to get so upset." -me
"What does 'curious' mean?" - Maddie
"It means you want to know about things, how things work, why they work a certain way.  You have been very curious lately about what certain words mean." -me
"Oh. I'm curious, too.  I'm curious about how machines work." -Maddie

"I love you all the way to the earth!!!!!"

"Mommy, did you know that some people have fat bellies?  But we don't tell them that."

"Mommy, when I go to heaven, will it be lonely?  Only your Nanny and God will be there."

"But I don't want to go to beeeeeeed" (every.single.night.)

"Well, Mommy.  I beleeb God.  When I turn 100,000 and I'm old, I will go to earth."  (she always gets earth and heaven mixed up)

Carter:

As he hugs and kisses my belly, "The baby loves me."  (he does/says this often these days)

"There's ONLY ONE."  (he says this ALL the time while pointing to my belly...probably because Maddie keeps saying she wants two to come out)

Lastly, here's a story I need to write down.  Lately, they've been so good about playing together.  Of course, they fight over sharing or who got it first or who goes first.  But in general, they play throughout the day for up to an hour sometimes just on their own with minimal interaction from me.  For some reason, this happens mainly on regular days when it's just me at home with them.  Over the weekend, they rarely play together without getting fussy or asking us to play with them.  It's like they know there are two adults at home and at least one should be free to play.  Anyways.  They ran upstairs laughing and wanting to play doctor.  I heard them run to our room then scurry back to Carter's room and shut Carter's door.  First red flag.  Then it got quiet.  Second red flag.  I was in the middle of something-probably putting my feet up while eating bon bons and watching Oprah (aka washing another dirty dish or emptying the dishwasher or taking out trash or who knows what), so I waited maybe 5 minutes until I finished.  Then I tip toed upstairs and put my ear to Carter's door.  It sounded like they were playing really well together.  I opened the door and inhaled what felt like the first breath you take inside a eucalyptus steam room.  They had a container of Vicks vapor rub almost emptied (which was almost full five minutes prior) and all their 100 stuffed animals laying on the floor.  "What are you doing?" I said in my most calm but about to explode motherly voice.  "We're playing doctor, mommy!" she said, "YEAH!" said Carter.  Then I look behind Carter's rocking chair and see that Maddie's bag of make up was open (little girl make up but it's actual real make up...which is kept in our bathroom in a high cabinet).  Once we clean up the stuffed animals off the floor, I see that there's different bright shades of eye shadow in the rug around the room.  Not only did the animals have Vick's all over their faces, but Maddie and Carter had a good dose of it on their arms, necks, cheeks, and hands.  After sternly asking them to clean up, then washing them up, I spent at least an hour scrubbing the rug with different cleaners to get out the hot pink and blue mixture of eye shadow and Vick's and lip gloss.  Funny now, not funny in the moment.  Little stinkers.

Sisters in Vegas!

Bryce got back on a Saturday and I literally left town that next Thursday for Vegas (woohoo!!!!).  I hadn't been away from the kids since the previous November when Amy came to Switzerland to visit and we spent the weekend in Paris together.  We really missed our older sister, Emily, so we vowed to try and have an annual sister trip.  This year, all three of us made it to Vegas where Amy currently lives (working for Zappos, not a back up singer for Celine).  It was a little too quick of a trip, but amazing to get away and catch up without little ones tugging on our shirts or fussing as we quickly scarfed down our dinner.

The first day, we got to tour the Zappos office, which is 100% amazing and I don't know how anyone actually works there.

Meeting rooms each have a different theme.  There are video games in the elevators. All the offices were decked out for Halloween when we were there, including a ball pit.  Lots of interesting wall murals all over the entire office.  Not to mention the rooftop cafe with free or super cheap things like lattes, salads, sandwiches, and of course, rooftop mini golf.

PNW Bucket List

I never really saw myself living in the Pacific Northwest.  I was born in California, raised in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, then university in Virginia.  The PNW was kind of "off my radar" and never really crossed my mind.  Now that we live here, I can't believe I never was adamant about visiting the area.  There are so many things we want to explore!  It's such an amazing part of the country with lots to do and beauty to see.  Most of these places I had never heard of before moving here, but now, I have a new appreciation.  Take, for example, the Oregon coast.  It is a completely different beach experience than the Outer Banks, North Carolina.  In July and August, you may find yourself wearing a fleece and eating s'mores by a fire on the beach in Oregon, definitely not putting more than your toes in the water (if you're like me).  At the same time in the Outer Banks, you are laying out with a little bathing suit in the heat of the day, diving in the ocean throughout the day, and still hot outside by 6pm.  I used to look at ads with people wearing cute sweaters on the beach in summer wondering, "where are these people...clearly not in North Carolina!"  Both are beautiful and fun, just so different.

(Mount Hood)

(Leavenworth, WA)

Fall/Halloween 2016

In October, it rained every day except two, I think.  I'm literally not exaggerating.  If that wasn't enough, Bryce traveled for almost 3 out of the 4 entire weeks.  Luckily, we got out every dry second we could and got lots of practice on our scooters, we had friends bring a few meals while he was gone, and it was dry on Halloween so we got to go trick-or-treating and hand out candy in our neighborhood for the first time ever with the kids.  On top of all of that, we got to go to a really fun pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island, have a little friends Halloween party and another party at gymnastics.  All the fun festivities made up for all the rain we had.  Here are a few pictures of October...

Apple orchard

At the very end of September, we made it to a local apple orchard.  It was only about 10 minutes from our house and they had so many varieties.  I couldn't believe we hadn't been before.  It was 3 moms with our army of children.