What a week!

Most everyone has heard about the snow and ice in the Northwest this week.  We had MLK day off and then 4 unplanned snow days.  The first day of the snow was pretty fun although there wasn't much of it.  The second day there was a lot more snow but it was raining on us when we went to play in it!  We persevered though and got to sled with some friends down the awesome hill in front of their house (aka the road) in our neighborhood.  That night and the first half of yesterday we got the freezing rain.  At that point there was slushy snow everywhere with a layer of ice on top.  Mid day yesterday it was supposed to start melting but did not.  We got about 2 more inches of snow and the ice stayed put.  We woke up this morning to trees down everywhere! 

This snowman stayed up for about an hour and then tipped over.  Oh well.

So strange to see our hummingbirds coming in the snow.  We think we have 3 different hummingbirds coming now.  They were having a very hard time finding perches in the trees with the ice everywhere!

Christian loves making snow angels.

Wed. night and the first half of yesterday we got the freezing rain. At that point there was slushy snow everywhere with a layer of ice on top. Mid day yesterday it was supposed to start melting but did not. We got about 2 more inches of snow and the ice stayed put. We woke up this morning to trees down everywhere! 

This tree in front of our house got the most damage.  The top branches are mostly gone and there are several branches that are broken but still attached near the top.  That should be interesting to deal with...

One of my favorite fir trees in the backyard is now laying down...bummer.

This tree in our neighbor's yard is bending WAY over, but we are hoping it will pop back up.  Things are finally melting now.  The good news, though, is that we never lost power.  Most of our friends and family did   The kids and I are going a little stir crazy - it has felt like a very lazy week with lots of games, WII, etc.  Its been an adventure, but I'm ready to get back to our normal routines!

This sweet boy has turned 4!

Ezra's birthday was right after New Years.  Hard to believe my baby is 4.  Ezra brings us so much joy.  He is shy around people he doesn't know very well, but he gets pretty silly with family and close friends.  You can see a bit of his personality come out in this picture.  He definately has a caring personality - he gets genuinely concerned when a brother gets hurt and doesn't mind letting his brothers determine what games they play together.  I love that he is easy going about a lot of things - what he eats, wears, etc.  He is a little lost at home when both brothers are at school.  Playing with mom is not quite as fun as his brothers.  He is quite excited when it is time for them to come home.

He was pretty excited about his birthday this year.  He wanted a Seattle Sounders cake.  Actually, he wanted a Steve Zacuani cake.  Steve is a pretty popular Sounders player.  I wasn't sure how to make a cake that looked like Steve, so this is what we came up with.  There is a printed out picture of Steve playing soccer sticking out of the cake and one of Ezra playing soccer too!

Of course, his dad was super excited for a "soccer" birthday party.  We just invited 2 families that have kids the same age as our kids that Ezra knows well.  Tim designed a game where the kids had to try to "pin" the soccer ball on the forehead of the soccer player picture he hung on the wall.  Otherwise, we just ate tacos and let the kids play and have fun. 

A little opportunist...

Happy birthday, sweet boy.

Christmas vacation highlights

We haven't had a computer now since right before New Years.  When we bought the laptop we bought a protection plan, thinking that if something happened to the computer, it would be the kids doing something to mess it up.  Turns out it wasn't the kids, it was the momma.  Oops.  We are back up and running now.  We had a nice Christmas break.  It was pretty relaxing and full of fun activities.  It was a little hard to see it all end and to get back into the routine of January but here are some snippets of our fun.

Christmas Day was just at our house.  Our church did not have services, which I thought was a really great move.  We did have a Christmas Eve service which was wonderful.  So nice to sit with our kids in church for that (shorter) service and be able to reflect on the true meaning of the holiday.  This was the first year they have been old enough to sit through the service without being too wiggly so we could actually concentrate!  Tim's parents came over around  4 (Christmas Day) and his brother and family also came and we had a Christmas dinner together with a few presents.  The kids had a chance to just relax and play with their new toys. Some favorite presents were the guns the brothers bought for each other, Christian's gumball machine (bought by a brother - they sure do know what each other would like and can always seem to find something good for 5$!), lego people. laser tag guns, and some new games.  I did not take a lot of pictures of them opening presents this year.  How many pictures do you need of your kids opening presents??

We were able to go to downtown Seattle with some good friends to see the lights, ride the carousel and monorail, and even go up the Space Needle thanks to a good ticket deal our friends found. 

Part of our Christmas present from my parents was a hotel over night in Leavenworth, Washington.  Its a beautiful drive over the mountains to this cute German town.  They had snow!  We haven't had even a drop this year where we live (although the forecast is looking hopeful for tonight actually).  We all had fun playing in the snow in Leavenworth, even daddy!  I love the snow and have missed it over the holiday time.  We were hoping to find a good sledding hill but it was raining on the snow (yuk) on the way there.  But...we found that in the hotel parking lot they had been plowing probably for several weeks into some piles at the back and it made for a great place to play!  We spent a good hour playing there, sliding down, hiding behind the piles and having a snowball fight, and of course they boys were wrestling each other over and over.  The hotel pool was also good for several hours of fun and was one of the other reasons for this trip!  It was a fun family getaway.

Some dear frineds we knew in Michigan, the Ericksons, moved out to Seattle a year after we did, and invited us to have a sleepover for New Years.  It was super fun.  Basketball in the dark, homemade pizza, tons of snacks, movie time, adult hangout time, kids on the floor in sleeping bags... just a little bit of an experiment actually sleeping over at someone's house, and it was a resounding success.  Thanks for your hospitality, friends!

Tim and Austin did a polar dip New Year's day too.  It was their first one. None of us could make it to the publicized one at noon, so we did our own at 2:00.   Not something Tim would normally do but he was the first one under!  Thanks to his good friend Mark for making this happen!  Maybe I'll try it next year!!??

There you have it!  Lots of adventures in December!  Hopefully another post soon since my baby turned 4 on January 2 and we have pics to share of that!!