Pics for the Grandparents!

Happy Monday Mom, hope you enjoy these pictures (all are from this weekend)!

Jakob making a "goofball" face
Family drum time.
Sarah, on Friday after preschool, looking so stylish (minus the food/drink on her shirt).
I'm so upset, I need my snuggie!
Oh, there's my snuggie, all better!
Sarah discovered our little grocery bag closet, this morning!

New Tricks

Sarah's newest trick - Peek a boo (Not the greatest video, but at least her hands are over her eyes, last week they would go over her ears!)

A quick post/catch up!

We've been busy here, we had Auntie Bex visiting for a week, and had a lot of grown up drinks, laughs, nights out with Auntie Amby, Bex and Uncle Joosh, and late night board games - Happy New Year, by the way!

Sarah and Auntie Bex - so cute! Rebecca got her the cutest outfits, my favorite are the pants with horizontal stripes - oh yeah, a bit big yet, but I will post a pic of her in them for you Bex!

Until then, here are a couple, very stylish pics of Sarah in, what I like to call her yoga/Mom pants - comfy, stylish and they come up high over the belly!! She doesn't really wear them like this, but I pulled them up after I changed her diaper and couldn't resist a picture!


Oh, and here is what are almost 1 year old is up to  - TROUBLE!!

Doggie Love!

Ok, even though I complain about Roxy sometimes - with her constant shedding, anxiety, need to figure out if any of the kid/baby toys could be hers too, and constant need to crap whenever we go to the beach - seriously it's like a laxative for her, oh - and her never ending need to barf on any new carpet around - she is still a really great dog! She is so wonderful with the kids.

Here are a few of my favorite pics and some of my most unfavored pics of her - you'll understand soon:

Roxy's first meeting with Jakob - she was so sensitive with him, not sure about him, as you can see by her ears, but still so sweet.

Again being such a good dog.


Don't let the following picture fool you, here she is being so sweet with baby Jakob, letting him ride on her back. But, take a closer look at what Roxy is doing, no she isn't barfing on the carpet but still managing to hack something up at the beach!


Here she is trying to figure out who's stuffed duck this really is?

And here she is protecting new baby Sarah, so sweet again!

Don't let the sweetness get to you, here she is in all of her glory at the beach, a.k.a. her natural laxative: (obviously Mark took this picture, I would never care to remember this moment. When Mark took this shot, a man was walking by and no joke, said "Sweet Shot" - Men!)


And here she is yesterday with Sarah. These pics are the reason for this post.

Is it over already?

We had a very quiet Christmas with about 15 inches of snow on our front lawn - couldn't believe it! Actually it was melting on Christmas, but on Xmas Eve there was quite a bit. We spent Xmas Eve building a snowman, playing, opening a few presents and out to dinner with the Brink family. 

We woke up to both kids in bed with us, not by choice, but by necessity and because that's just become comfortable in our house! When Jakob woke up, he said, "I have to go potty," as he jumped out of bed - and started to run to the bathroom, we heard his steps abruptly stop as he entered the living room, he ran back into the bedroom and having forgotten it was Christmas he announced "Santa was here and he even brought me presents even if I've been pouting" (we've been battleing/ working on the pouting). Sarah woke up, started laughing, Jakob ran to go potty, came back into bed, played with Sarah a bit and then got down to business and went right for the stockings. I quickly wrote a note from Santa to Jakob and Sarah - basically stating that Santa thought that they deserved gifts because they were good, thought about others, but did remind them that he doesn't like the pouting - Jakob really understood that then!

I would have to say that my favorite part of the whole day was hearing Jakob's feet running and then stopping so quickly - him not saying anything until he ran back into the room - so sweet - I can only imagine the excitement he must have been feeling. Later in the morning Jakob did say that he heard Santa's jingle bells and that he was sure he heard him land the sleigh on our lawn.  Oh, on Xmas Eve, Jakob did look out the window to tell me that he saw Santa flying over, but he wasn't going to stop until he was asleep, of course I agreed. Jakob got a lot of great presents, including a super cool space/planet mobile, an X Wing Fighter, a little R2D2 computer and a lot of other cool games, clothes etc.
Sarah's first Christmas was mostly about her tearing paper, eating paper and taking Jakob's gifts out of his hands - lots of fun for her. She did get a lot of wonderful gifts, she loved her Curious George doll - she tried endlessly to kiss it before he was out of the box. She also got a ride on toy from us, which she likes and likes to ride backwards. She also got this great Sesame Street pop up toy, each character sings a bit of a song and she thinks Ernie is hysterical, because he laughs at the end of his song. The whole family can recite each little song now - we've heard it so often! 

We all stayed in our pj's until about 2:30 or 3pm, then went on a walk in the snow, pulling Jakob on the sled, Sarah in the backpack. Came home and ate homemade Mac n' cheese (not the boxed stuff, I can cook a little), had a couple glasses of wine and fell asleep early (I am speaking for myself here)!
Oh, just to catch up a bit from my last posting, we did make it to the homeless shelter - after shoveling the driveway yet again - I actually shoveled quite a bit while Mark took Jakob sledding with his friend Asher, then Mark shoveled some more - we donated our coats and our little gifts for a couple kids. We also made a visit (Jakob and I), to a neighbor (a senior citizen) whom I helped after he fell and fractured his skull and nose on the concrete - Jakob and Sarah were there when I yelled for a neighbor to call 911 and waited patiently in their stroller while we sat with him, trying to keep the bloody mess hidden from the kids - so Jakob understood that it was important that we go check on him - long story short - we also brought him and his wife cookies. Good deeds accomplished for the holiday season!

Christmas Eve - Mark and Jakob working on building the snowman

Jakob and Sarah with the snowman.
Our attempt at a family photo with Frosty in the background.

After Christmas Eve dinner, opening gifts - Sarah and her new Curious George doll. 
Trying to kiss it!
Jakob's note to Santa with cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer.

Christmas morning - serious bed head!
Let the opening begin!
The X Wing!
Sarah, trying to figure out her new ride on toy!


I'm sad to see Christmas over, we put our tree up just after Thanksgiving and the time has flown by. Sarah's first Christmas gone, already? This means Sarah will be 1 year in a few weeks - what?
Wendy - tagged me on her blog, asking what are the things I like and don't like about Christmas - I love Christmas for the decorations, the feeling of giving, the cold weather, the cuddling up and reading Christmas stories, the Christmas movies, and the true belief and excitement that kids feel! I even like the shopping part, well most of the time, there are a few people that are always hard to buy for and I don't like having to ship our gifts, I hate the packing and waiting in line at the post office. Some of our gifts haven't even been sent yet b/c the mail service was down for 3 days here and I haven't felt like waiting in line with 2 kids, and walking there in the snow!
Anyhow, I like the teaching part of Christmas too, or the meaning of Christmas, in our family, we aren't religious but we do want to teach the basics of Christmas. So, for us it is about giving, peace, love and Jesus's birthday or as Jakob put it, "Baby Geniuses Birthday" - yep, he said that, at Target 2 days ago - when he pointed out some angel ornamaments and said, "You know who are the nicest people Mommy? Angels, they are so good, and baby Genius, he was also nice." I about died! Another Mom was next to us and she just started giggling. So, I think Jakob is getting the basics of what Christmas means to us.

Even More Snow, (and a good deed attempted)!

Ummm....we live in Portland, where it rains and isn't supposed to snow - maybe a few inches a year, and this morning we woke up to  about 10 inches of snow on our front steps! Even crazier, the snow was frozen on top - from freezing rain - who knew! I'm not sure I really know the difference between freezing rain, snow, hail, and sleet. What I do know is it is all very cold and should not be happening in this quantity or frequency here! I did not sign up for this! (This is the biggest storm in at least 10 years - per local news reports).

Well, we are trying to make lemons with our lemonade and trying to enjoy the snow with the kids - it's hard with Sarah, she doesn't really like it, as she can barely walk well on flat ground,  not really going to happen in 10 inches of snow. I did pull her on the sled with Jakob but the freezing rain in the face, wasn't helping her out at all!

So, here is the story of our good deed attempted. Last night I saw on the news that the homeless warming shelters are in dire need of coats, hats etc. as this kind of storm doesn't usually hit this area. So, I told Mark that we had to go down to the donation center today - as we have a couple very nice snow coats that we don't need any longer. Well, we didn't think we would be waking up to literally 10 inches of snow. Mark so kindly went out and shoveled the steps from our porch, the driveway and cleaned the snow and ice off of the car, put the chains on the car (they are required now anywhere in the city), which all took at least an hour of serious hard work. We loaded the car with the coats and got both kids loaded in the car, drove about 5 miles and got to the donation center, and it was closed! Closed due to weather - c'mon! I couldn't just leave the coats because I didn't bring a bag to put them in, plus there wasn't a covered area to leave them in. The sign said they would be open tomorrow, so I guess we'll try again tomorrow! What I failed to mention here is that it took a lot of explaining and bargaining to get Jakob in the car, he said he "wouldn't feel comfortable going", I couldn't believe that he said that - very mature, obviously he wouldn't feel comfortable, but I really wanted him to understand the importance of thinking of someone else (apparently hard to do when you are 4 years old). So, I really talked with him about how many people don't have anything and that we should be thankful for what we have - even though our budget is SUPER tight right now, we should still be thankful. He did seem to understand, and with a lot of encouragement we got him in the car for the ride and then it didn't even happen! He should be ready tomorrow. We also have 2 gifts, one for a girl and one for a boy, that Jakob picked out with our saved change   ($26 - much in part to Nana and Papa and some little "jobs" that Jakob did). We were thinking of giving these to the children's abuse shelter but these just might get dropped off at the homeless shelter tomorrow too - I don't think we are going to be driving any farther any time soon! I'll keep you posted on the outcome of our good deeds being attempted!

Here are some pics of the snow today:

The road in front of the Sellwood park - can't tell the road from the sidewalk - on all streets.

Sledding in the yard!

Taking a taste of the frozen snow.
Carrying and stomping the frozen snow.
Jakob immediately running to shovel the snow!
Here is Jakob, laying on top of the frozen snow - you really had to push your feet in to get it to smash down - it was so amazing.

Keeping busy in our Winter Wonderland!

We got about 5 inches of snow today - who knew it would snow this much in Portland - it's pretty unusual really.

Today, Mark took Jakob sledding in the a.m., then we had Ian and his Dad, Peter over for what we thought would be a play date with horse and carriage rides (free in our neighborhood today), but they ended up cancelling this event, I'm assuming because of all the snow. So, instead the kids played in the snow, drank hot chocolate and watched a movie.

Sarah keeping busy inside, while Jakob was sledding with Daddy.

Busy with toilet paper!

More toilet paper fun - now Jakob is getting into it. we had a serious toilet paper party! Seriously, I'm not sure why we even buy any gifts for Christmas, boxes and toilet paper go a long way!
Jakob and Ian, ready for fun in the snow!
A quick pit stop for a snow angel.

Fun at the park!

Our little house, all covered in snow. (You can see our little Charlie Brown tree on the porch - it's just a blur of lights).
Ended the day with some good ol' spaghetti!