Goodbye 2008 ~ Hello 2009

The year 2008 has brought our family much to be grateful for. We are so grateful for each other and the closeness that we share. Everyday spent together in 2008 was a blessing in our lives. 2008 not only taught us to be grateful for each other but to live each day to it fullest. We learned of the importance and the wonderful gift of Eternal Families. We laughed, we cried and we laughed some more.
Hopefully the year 2009 will bring us a MOVE to Arizona. As much as we have loved living close to my family here in Oregon we are anxious to get home. Dan is hoping to get into a program in the fall and we are hoping to have a permanent address before Ryleigh enters junior high. We are grateful for a new year and the fresh start (although, do we really need a new year to have a new start?) Hopefully the year 2009 will teach us as much, if not more than the year 2008 and we will grow stronger as a family together because of it.
2009 will also bring us 10 years of marriage, an 11 year old, a 9 year old, an 8 year old and a 2 year old! Wow!
To all of our friends and family - I am thankful for each one of you individually. Everyone has impacted our family, for the better. Because of you we are who we are. Thank you.

Good bye 2008, Hello 2009

Christmas

I know that I am a few days late, but I have been busy. I work in retail ~ do I need to say more? Anyways - I put together a little slideshow of our Christmas morning. We had so much fun. We missed all of you!

Merry Christmas!

WOW! I can't believe that Christmas is here! Okay, technically it is still Christmas Eve for me but we have opened our Christmas Eve Gifts and talked about the birth of our Savior and watched A Christmas Story - so that leaves nothing but Christmas day left. Here are some pictures of the kids opening their Christmas Eve jammies.

Merry Christmas in Portland

We were lucky enough to take a little trip this past weekend and celebrate Christmas with some of Dan's family. On Sunday morning we had a little "Christmas morning" with them. Here are some pictures from that morning. Unfortunately a lot of my pictures didn't turn out so well because the bright window in the background but here are some pictures of the kids opening some presents. They got a lot of really cool stuff! I was pretty excited for them.

While we were there we stayed in a hotel in downtown Portland, and it SNOWED!! It was great fun! Here is our view.

Snowed In

This past weekend Dan and I took the kids up to Portland to visit family and have a little Christmas with them. We were planning on staying Friday and Saturday nights and coming home on Sunday afternoon. Mother Nature had other plans. We literally got snowed in. It was incredible. There was so much snow in downtown portland that they were shutting down roads and highways in the city! We ended up staying overnight last night too because we thought the roads were going to be better today - not so much. Our drive home usually takes less than a hour, today it took over 3 hours! AAAHHHH!!

Livy and the boys were having a blast in our hotel rooms! They were so great - even though we were displaced.

Downtown Portland

The hill by Dan's dads home. It was eventually blocked off.

Downtown Portland, by the Lloyd Center NE 15th Ave / NE Weidler St

Our van this morning.

The I-5 at the 217 interchange

Headed out of Porland - we were driving about 30 MPH

Someone got a little sleepy....

Ahhh, finally on the other side of Salem.. no snow.

You thought I was kidding...

I always joke about how Olivia is our orange baby because she will only eat Sweet Potatoes and I don't think anyone takes me very seriously because they don't really see it. Usually I use my little photo editing program to tone down the orange but, just for fun I thought I would show the world what too many sweet potatoes will really do to you! The top is edited, obviously. The bottom photo is how she really looks! Crazy huh!?

Happy Birthday Olivia!

okay, so her birthday is not really until Friday (the 19th) but because of conflicting schedules we went ahead and had her little family birthday party today. Unfortunately because of our crazy winter weather only my parents were able to come, but that was okay - more cake for us!

I am totally blown away that she is 1 already. I know that I say that I am amazed every time one of my kids celebrates a birthday, and truly - I AM! I can't even believe how fast they grow up. It is totally bizarre. Where was this super speed time when I was in Junior High?

I think Livy thought we were all a little crazy when we were singing to her, and then she had NO clue what to do with that candle...

...but the cake she had NOOOO problem with.....

We were all laughing hysterically because we have never seen a child so ravenous for birthday cake before! All of our other kids barely touched their cakes and maybe I could get them to lick the frosting if I helped them - but NOT Livy! She devoured the cake -she ate every crumb!

All Gone! (In Livy words: "ahhll honnn")

BATH TIME!!

I think she was hoping to get some frosting out of her washcloth!

All Clean! Time for presents! She really had no clue what to do with the presents either. So the boys were right there to help! She got a Glow Worm from Grandma & Papa Naylor. I had a Glow Worm when I was a kid and so did Ryleigh- I was so happy so see her with one too!

Sweet! Dad & Mom got her first set of wheels!

Dad was helping her figure out how to push it along.

Christmas Tree shopping

Back on the 6th of December, before the snow, we went looking for a Christmas tree with my parents and little brother, Chad. We had so much fun and thankfully for me, my mom chose to document the day with her camera (hence, just now posting these pictures) and there are so many good pictures that this is going to be a long post - but not because I have anything important to say.

Me & my girls - I love Olivia's pondering look

The boys - they are holding the saw.

Miss Ryleigh, so beautiful and old.

oh oh! We found the perfect tree - oh yeah, did I mention that we went to a tree farm where you cut down your very own tree. It was so neat! I think we got a pretty dang good one and it is still alive and healthy! Poor Dan was covered in mud by the time he got done cutting it down.

My baby brother Chad. I can't believe he is almost 16.

Here are our trees lined up and ready to take home.

Dan had to carry the tree on his shoulder to get it back to the tractor (the tractor takes us back to the farm)

My parents, and Chad with their tree.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

We woke up this morning to this! Snow is so fun when you can look at it from a warm house. The kids are all outside enjoying it for now. I am sure they are going to want some hot chocolate soon. We are having a crazy cold front move through our state right now. Here is a little overview of what our week is going to look like!
Today - chance of snow
Hi: 29°
Lo: 12°
Tuesday- sunny
Hi: 27°
Lo: 15°
Wednesday-chance of snow
Hi: 35°
Lo: 30°
Thursday-snow
Hi: 31°
Lo: 15°
Friday-chance of snow
Hi: 26°
Lo: 20°
Saturday-sunny
Hi: 28°
Lo: 23°
Sunday-chance of snow
Hi: 33°
Lo: --°

Fun stuff huh??

These are my purple Kamber flowers. I really hope they are able to make a recovery!