Merry Christmas!

We traditionally spend Christmas Eve at my mom's house. This year was the same as any other - well, except the fact that it had snowed FEET of snow the week before and several inches on Christmas Eve! We debated staying home...getting a hotel...staying at Grandmas...finally we just went and figured we'd decide what to do after we got there!

We ended up only staying a couple of hours and then heading back home. We drove with my aunt and uncle behind us. It was hard on both of our families to not stay at mom's for the huge family bash - but leaving early was the right thing to do! The roads home were HORRID! We barely ever got over 35mph. We have never been so grateful to pull in to our own garage!



My little sister, Lindsay, and me - look who is taller!! (I'm never taller...only in instances like this when I have on my thick soled shoes and she's barefoot!)

And that wraps up all of my pictures from Christmas Eve - usually I come home with over 100 pictures! I really hate that it was cut short this year...

Christmas morning started promptly at 5:00 am. This is an improvement over past years! I was able to catch the kids as they came down the stairs...very Norman Rockwelly of me! (Somehow that darn Megan got down between shots!)





Jared & Megan



Jacob and his dragon hand puppet




Goofy Jason in his Goofy pj's



This year Malorie and Melanie are at such a magical age. They loved every single thing about Christmas! Look how big their eyes are! They have been that big for three days now! We just love it!




Joseph woke up a couple hours after everyone else, so we had a moment with him and his gifts!



The bike is by far his favorite!!



We saved the best for last (mostly b/c we knew that the minute it was opened all interest in other gifts would be lost)! We spent the entire day playing Wii! (Wait, not true, we stopped and watched Prince Caspian - which I loved, btw!)



Gracie has been sick with a cold/runny nose! It's nothing real bad - except she's a thumb sucker and having her nose runny/snuffy really makes sleeping hard...for both of us!!

SNOW DAY!

After last night's snowfall - really more than just last night - more like the last 24 hours NON STOP - we got an automated call from the School District this morning saying that school was cancelled. We assumed that would be the case, but it's always more exciting after it's official.

We went downstairs early to assess the damage...



I'm sure there was still some snow when Gracie was born...for sure there was COLD - but I'm counting this as her "first snow".



Joseph enjoys watching the snow and he says he wants to go out and play in it - but when it comes time to suit up, he almost always disappears.



Brandon and I ventured outside to shovel the sidewalk and the decks...



MAN! There is just MUCH stinking snow out there!


(That's the pick-up, just in case you can't tell!)


After I shoveled for a while, it dawned on me that nobody in their right mind is going to come out to our place to actually walk on our sidewalk or decks, so I started taking some pictures instead!



The snow is "deeper than a dog"...



We had to venture out to the county road to UNstuck the truck -



Figured it would be fun to document the snow depth on the mailbox before the plows come by and knock it down. (The whole box, not just the snow!)



I had a chance to do a little more depth documenting while I was walking back down the driveway from the road...



And it's still snowing......

12 hours later...

If I'd known what we were in for...



I would have snapped a few pictures this morning when Brandon left for work.



We had a couple of inches of snow left from a day last week, but nothing real impressive...



And now, 12 hours later, we have snow in places where we didn't no snow could go!



(Yes, the hermit in me is LOVING this! We had a pizza, sweats and games night tonight...and have been constantly refreshing the "school closures" page on our local news channel's website. We're anxiously anticipating a Snow Day tomorrow...we'll all be horribly disappointed if the bus rumbles down our road in the morning!)

December

Well, here we are, almost half way through December and I'm doing what I swore I'd never do on the blog again...playing "Catch Up" - *sigh*

Another Siting of Gracie's one and only tooth. She also had a check up this month and weighs in at a whopping 16 lb 10 oz. Whose baby is she? She is, by far, the waif of the family! I will admit that I enjoy it though. It's fun having a "little" baby to love and snuggle with...not that I didn't enjoy snuggling with my "big" babies when they were this age, I'm just saying it's nice not having to make so many trips to the chiropractor.



The kids were in a Christmas program at church. I even labeled them for you. Yes, Maddie and Jason performed too...but they are too cool for the blog. Like that has ever stopped me before...but I'm feeling the Christmas Spirit today, so I'm letting them off the hook!




We traveled to one of Madilyn's volleyball games in Chewelah earlier in the month. The kids loved getting to visit with Grandma and Grandpa...




...and I got to visit with my best friend from High School! We hadn't seen each other in 14 years. Now we each have daughters playing on rival teams!



We had yet another visit to the dentist this month. My younger kids love when the older kids have appointments because they get to pick toys out of the prize basket just because...well, because our dentist is way too nice to our kids! We all got a kick out of Joseph picking teeth as his toy...oh the irony!



Madilyn had her last game of the season so we took a few pictures of her in her uniform.



And yes, I still TRY to get decent pictures out of our camera...and no, they still don't happen! But I was happy to see that of the three people in the picture, the only one who wasn't blurry beyond recognition was MADILYN! What are the odds!



Megan took over the camera at the game and took a couple of pictures that I found when I looked through them...figured I'd share for fun!




And this is reason 4,587 why I LOVE having a camera in my purse all of the time now! I would have hated to miss this shot in the aisle of Walgreens!

Happy Birthday Dear Megan...

10 years ago, right now ... Wow - a decade ago we had just met our Megan Muff. It seems like forever and like just yesterday both at the same time!



Now look at her!!



Megan had a few friends over to celebrate with us this year!



Tell me again why they're called SLUMBER parties??? I remember "reminding" them to go to sleep at midnight...this morning they informed me that they were still awake at 3am - ugh! Those were the days!




I am sure they all had a blast! They are such fun little friends!




And since so many of you have been so kind as to contact us on the phone and through countless emails to check on our little man, Joe - here he is! He's truly doing great!



A little added bonus to the memory of Megan's birth is the birth of my friend Amy's daughter Hailey - she was born in the same hospital the day after Megan.

Happy Birthday (tomorrow) Hailey!!


Megan (L) Hailey (R)

Black Friday...

We celebrated Black Friday by STAYING HOME! And then Mother Nature decided to add some decoration to our party...darn it all!

It started off slow and innocent like...



A little skiff - nothing too threatening...



In fact, it prompted us to set fire to one of our many slash piles... (and I'm looking at this picture right now realizing that it probably doesn't LOOK like it was very safe, what with an entire forest within inches...there really is more of a safe zone around it than it looks like!)



Through the night the snow continued to fall - by morning the fire had died down ...



... but we had a couple of inches of snow ... enough for a snowball fight Dad & Joe VS Jason, Jared & Jacob...

Joe would pack them and hand them off...



And dad would hurl them at the boys - quite a team!