Our new nephew Matthew Steven Brady!
Born December 4th, weighing in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. He's a darling boy and I wish he lived closer!
We went to a different farm to get our tree this year and they had this super cool thing called a baler. They put the tree in and it twisted twine all around it so we didn't have to worry about transporting it around. We also didn't have to deal with pine needles all over the house when we brought the tree inside. I don't know if Ben or the kids had more fun watching the whole process.
The kids had fun decorating it later. Avery got to put the little angel on (from Ben and my first Christmas) and James got to put on the star. I love Christmas time! I wish we could have a tree up all year round!
There was a 4H fundraiser nearby so we took the kids. It was FREEZING! They had super yummy cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate though. Avery refused to go by herself so Nanna was more than happy to accompany her.
The great snow of 2008!
So we woke up one Sunday morning (the 14th to be exact) to a couple inches of snow. Now for Oregon, this is HUGE. It rarely snows, and when it does it lasts, at most a few days. This snow lasted two weeks, off and on. By the end we had probably gotten over two feet of snow. The state does not employ full-time snow plows, even if they did our little city would not be high on their priority list. Our church was cancelled for two weeks and all the schools shut down a week early. There were quite a few days where numerous businesses closed as well. Our super cool mini-van was seriously lacking 4-wheel drive and chains were impossible to come by so we were house-bound. The family members who could make it out of their homes rescued us a few evenings when we started to get a bit of the cabin fever. Ben's car was buried under the snow so he had a nice vacation and we got to spend lots of time as a family. By the week of Christmas I felt like we were truly in a winter wonderland. The roads were completely white, you couldn't see anything but snow. It was beautiful.Then the rain came, right after Christmas and it was gone overnight. It's been reported that Oregon hasn't seen this much snow since 1950, It was neat to be a part of history!
Happy 5th Birthday James!
We had big plans for James' big day, but those had to change when we were snowed in. So, instead, we had a nice day at home and then had my entire family over that night. James is into Speed Racer this year and told me, very specifically, what he wanted his cake to look like. It isn't very pretty but it sure tasted good! It was the first time that all the cousins, including brand new little Matthew, were together and we actually got some good pictures. It helped that Ben was making all these crazy noises to get them all to look.
Avery got some new shirts from Ben's sister Jennie, and thought that the green one was actually pants. I could not get her to change and let her run around like this all day.
Christmas Eve we had an impromptu Nativity show. James was not feeling super good and Avery was pretty hyper so it made for a fun production. Mackayla was our darling, somber Mary. Avery was the pink tight wearing, shirtless Angel, James was a wiseman. David acted on part of all the stable animals. Ben H. was Joseph and Michael was the donkey. My Dad read Luke 2 and the rest of us tried to get the kids to pay attention.
Merry Christmas!
Bethany, Ben, Mackayla, Hunter, my Dad and David came over first thing Christmas morning to watch all the kids open their presents. After trashing our house we took the party to my parent's where the kids got spoiled, once again. It was a fun day with all the family! We had our traditional lamb dinner with Christmas crackers and the kids got their own table this year.
Attempting to get a decent family picture - as you can tell we had the most problems with Avery - silly girl!
So we had to wait a few days but the weather finally cleared and Ben and I were able to take James out! We got a sitter for the girls and spent the evening together. We went and saw Bolt in 3D, bought him a goldfish for his fishtank and ended at Red Robins for dinner. It was so much fun being able to devote all of our attention to one child and I'm pretty sure James enjoyed it as well!