Introducing the newest Sugar Plum Fairy

Evelyn was given a new Tu Tu from her auntie Marita, just in time to dance like the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker. Evelyn wants to be a dancer now when she gets big she says. She wants to dance at the Christmas Party but doesn't like that Mouse King because he's a little bit scary.

Here is a VIDEO of Evelyn singing along with the dancing Snowflakes as Clara and her Nutcracker enter the Land of Toys.

Our "Progressive" Christmas

We had a progressive Christmas like the Church staff had a progressive dinner party earlier this season, you have your first course of the meal at one house and then move on to another house for the next portion of the dinner. Our first day of Christmas was celebrated at Russ and Judy's, Andy's parents, on December 21st. We had lost power that morning because of all the ice and so Russ came and brought us back to their place where he also went and picked up my Mom and sister as well as SnowCloud and CJ. We all spent the day together, power or not, and made the best of it. When the power did come back on we had delicious soup that Judy had put together and opened some presents (Evelyn's favorite part of the day). Merry Christmas! we all said.

Then came Christmas Eve, another snowy, icy, messy day but it was decided that we should make our best effort to have a Christmas Eve service for those who could make it and so we made it, barely. Evelyn loved the candle light service and sang her heart out along with everyone else when it came time to sing Silent Night. This will be one of my most precious memories of this Christmas. Merry Christmas! we all said.

Christmas morning we realized our teeth were still rattling in our heads from the drive home the night before, it was a nasty commute to put it lightly! Russ and Judy had braved the roads and escaped our little snow globe and were on their way to California early Christmas day. We had planned on getting together with my Mom, sister and her boyfriend TJ but none of us dared try and get out on the roads. So Evelyn had a perfectly delightful, quiet Christmas Day at home with Mom and Dad and Scout. That evening I invited our neighbor, Mary, over for a Christmas dinner. She is single with all her family in California and we were all in the same boat - trapped by our icy driveway. So we had a simple but tasty dinner of home made chicken soup, bread, cheese and crackers and summer sausage. Merry Christmas! we all said.

The day after Christmas we woke up to a thick layer of ice still hanging on but losing it's grip on us. Andy was able to dig out our van and get it started. He then kicked and spun his way down our driveway and onto our street. He then kicked and spun the wheels back up our driveway when done running some errands and we questioned whether our 3rd and final Christmas was going to happen. We were supposed to be over to my Mom's that afternoon. We decided to make a go for it, fought our way back down the slippery track we call a driveway and were off to have yet another Christmas. Evelyn and I spent the night to squeeze as much time out of the night as we could however Evelyn was the only one who managed to stay up late. She was SO excited to spend the night she didn't fall asleep until after 11:00pm!!! Finally, tucked into bed with Gramma Claire she managed to fall asleep, only to wake up before 8:30 talking a mile a minute picking up where she left off. And so, for the 3rd time, we all said "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! and to all a GOOD NIGHT!
I hear Santa's jingle bells, he must be getting close!

Before and After

We have so many cool snow pics I added a slide show if you want to sit through and see more. I won't force our snow days upon you any more ! :)

Not going anywhere soon. Snow Bound.

We have a CRAZY amount of snow, well over a foot as you can see. Here are some pictures of our Dodge Caravan sitting in the driveway.

This is our neighbor's VW Bug, it pretty much just looks like a huge car sized snow ball! I went over to her place to see if she needed anything from the store and had to hack away at the ice just to get her gate open because the snow and ice had drifted so deep she couldn't even get out of her yard.

What a day we have had! I woke up with a jolt at 6:00am to the sound of our neighborhood loosing power. We had over a 1/2 inch of ice laying over 8-10 inches of snow and it was COLD. Our house has about as much capacity to hold heat as a barn, so it didn't take us long to call Papa and ask if he could come get us to a warmer place. He came with no problems on his snow tires and we have spent the day at Granny and Papa's house and are spending the night here just in case we loose power again, at least they have a gas fire place and a propane stove for emergencies. We got nothin.

This is a little clip to show how icy it is. Evelyn can walk on top of the snow and not crack through, I wish I could say the same for myself -ha! She became one with her inner penguin and slid on her belly across the back yard. It was great fun!

Sugar and Spice

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Teaching a Swede Spanish

I was telling Evelyn that HOLA means hello in Spanish (she was watching a spanish game show on the Spanish chanel). I said, Evelyn you can say hola.

Evelyn said, "oh, dis is how you say hello in Spanish. OLAF , can you say it mom?"

Tid Bits

Evelyn was looking up at our skylight and said, "what's dat up der? (and answered herself) Dats called Winter"

Evelyn had just woke up from her nap and I went in to her room and said Hey Sweetie and Evelyn put her finger up to her lips and said, "SHHH! (a very loud SSHH but then whispered) I'm trying to sleep." So I said, do you want to come snuggle with Mommy? and Evelyn said "SSSHHH! Yes, I do." very matter of factly.

She was helping me make sugar cookies and stiring the ingrediants up and said, "wow, I'm really good at dis!"

Scout just couldn't stay out of our way and got what was coming to him- a dowsing of flour while Evelyn was "helping" spread the flour on the cutting board.

what will she say next? She makes me laugh so.....

Christmas Traditions

I'm going to give you a virtual tour of our Christmas decorations. My sister in law down south turned me on to this idea in a movement of online virtual home tours started by another blogger boo mama. However there is too much technical work involved to do a boomama virtual tour and I'd like to keep this blog for people who know me as much as possible. So here goes. Welcome to our house! As you walk in you are met by a garland of mittens given to me by my Mom some years back.

And then you see the tree of course. Our tree has an eclectic collection of ornaments meaningful to us and when I get a new ornament I try and write the year on it so I can remember when we got it. My Grandma Biddy (my moms mom) has made several of my favorite ornaments shown below. The glass ball that is painted and the little gnome are both painted by her. The little bear was made by my mom and she gave it to me when I was pregnant and I have been given sets of Raggedy Ann and Andy ornaments for several years in a row. I even have a little pillow that says "I love Andy more than candy" embroidered on it. If we have a theme at all it's Scandinavian. I have several Swedish ornaments on our tree and our Star is made from straw in a Swedish design.

I have a collection of angels that are special to me on the mantel. The quilted angel hanging a star in the heavens was also from my Mom for our first Christmas after we were married.

This is our Advent calendar. We get to open a new door every day, a highlight of Evelyn's day. When I brought it home we were a bit behind and got to do some catching up which involved a thrilling amount of chocolate and I explained to Evelyn that this was meant to help us count down the days until Christmas when Santa would come and bring us presents and we would celebrate baby Jesus' birthday. Now several times a day Evelyn comes running up to me with a sly smile on her face and tells me excitedly, "I wait to Jesus came Mom! now we can open a door!" She's a bit mixed up but the important thing is the daily dose of chocolate.

Snow Bound

Today is brought to you by the number 26, our high tempurature for the day. And the word of the day today is... ICE. The city of Portland is closed. Every single school district in Clackamas and Multomah counties were closed. A snow day for most people, a nasty commute for those poor unfortunate souls who had to venture out.


Here's a look at our driveway. This morning Evelyn looked at me, thoughtfully put her head to one side and said, "uhm Mom? Do you have some ice for me to skate on?" I told her no, not realizing that we had several small ponds out in our driveway perfectly frozen over and just her size. So when we went outside Evelyn got to skate on ice as requested.

Here's a look at our ice encrusted, vacant street.

Just the right weather for making snow angels though.

And relaxing in the sun... not exactly the best weather to "sun" or the best spot-a; brick wall.

What a difference 1 week makes

We've gone from playing in the sand on the beach to playing in the snow in 25 degree weather but throughout the whole week we have made some beautiful, wonderful memories. I so love this little girl!

We've been waiting a long, long time

We've searched for it......

We waited patiently for it.......

It finally came!!! SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!! We love to play in the snow!

a few more of our snow bunny

FACE PLANT everything's ok but a cold nose :)

Go faster mom! Here you can kind of see how high the snow is on the fence

Life is a Beach

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how sandy are your branches! Christmas trees can even be made on the beach.

My Moms very good friend Julie and her husband Kirby are visiting from Oklahoma and JulieKirby (Evelyn calls her JulieKirby because we know so many Julie's) was desperate to spend some time walking again on the Oregon coast. We were able to tag along and go back to our "happy place." My Mom's other friend, Judy, and her family own a beach house where the ocean is their back yard and we were lucky enough to visit that beautiful home again for one night. Evelyn, of course thinks it's her beach house- naturally. She kept saying over and over again, "we at da beach house.... wiv JulieKirby!" When we got to the beach she informed me, " I'm gonna go put on my sunglasses and baving suite and burry my toes in da sand!" She likes the beach house itself almost as much as the beach. We had a great time, just wish the sand and water wasn't so cold, this was a disappointment for my beach bathing beauty. Evelyn's little hands just froze but she couldn't resist digging to her hearts content.