Happy Birthday to Marq

We celebrated Marq's birthday yesterday, he is now 31. Ledger and I went out of our way to get him some balloons which Ledger quite enjoyed letting go only to figure out away how to get a hold of the streamers again.

We had breakfast, gifts and a relaxing morning at home. Marq has been working a lot lately so he enjoyed some down time.

After naptime we packed up and headed out to Hood River.

We met Marq's Aunt & Uncle for dinner at one of our favorite pubs. Ledger was excited to see his cousins Zeke and Malina. He sat and looked at his farm book with Malina for a long time while we waited for our table.

When Ledger saw Zeke with a can of Squirt it was over, we got him his own can and he ended up drinking more than Zeke. He was wound up and he and Zeke played and giggled like crazy which unfortunately did not speed up the people taking their sweet time to leave.

After an hour of trying to control little man on a sugar high and up way past his bedtime, we got a table and some awesome pizza. Happy Birthday Marq!

New Toys

I don't know who is more excited to have new toys, me or Ledger?

With daddy back to work today we had a nice, long playdough session this morning. It is so nice to see his attention span developing :)

We made pancakes, waffles and LOTS of milkshakes.

I love playdough, I find it therapeutic. Ledger loves it too and he gets so focused and quiet when we play.

Thanks for the awesome new toys Santa!

Christmas Eve

Ever since I can remember my whole family has had a big Christmas Eve party. My parents and siblings get together, eat dinner, reenact the nativity and my dad reads the Christmas story. This year I was their only child missing but we still managed to celebrate. We had our neighbors over for dinner and a Christmas movie and we had a great time.

Ledger had a complete meltdown when our friends had to leave. He was so tired but didn't want to stop playing. He put on his coat and boots and followed them up the driveway. Marq finally got him to come in the house but he cried and cried. We couldn't even talk him into opening a gift.

We put the cookies & milk out for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer. Sneaking some of Santa's milk did seem to make him feel a better :)

My family called me several times and we Skyped a couple times. I'll admit I felt a little left out, especially with my sister and her family there from Texas, but I am so happy to have good friends up here & my little family to spend the holidays with.

Candy!

Today Kim and the kids came down to decorate gingerbread houses.

Ledger & Kapri did more eating than decorating but they were happy :)

Ledger and I's house.

Messing Around

Another productive day at our house.

Ledger was totally entertained by this box, until it fell apart... then so did he.

GIRLS NIGHT!!!!

Last night I met Denice & Kim downtown for our first Christmas Shopping/Girls Night. It was great to spend some time with them without our kids & husbands.

We met downtown, did some Christmas shopping at Pioneer Place Mall, saw the city Christmas tree and then had an amazing dinner.

It is so nice to be close to these two women that I love and admire. We missed our moms and sisters that weren't here with us but enjoyed being together.

Christmas Shopping

Christmas will be here before you know it so we headed into town today for a little Christmas shopping.

I love this little country store! It is full of local products and even has an old fashioned ice cream counter. They made Ledger an awesome blackberry shake.

Good Day

Today we finally woke up to some snow!

Unfortunately it didn't stick. It hits the ground and turns to slush.

We spent the day doing some Christmas shopping and then rewarded ourselves with a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant. Ledger loved watching the girls volleyball on TV at the Sports Bar.

After dinner we drove home to our warm house for jammies and Christmas books.

Good day.

23 Years Ago

December 12, 1989, 23 years ago, my life was turned upside down. This is the story from the eyes of an 8-year old, as I remember it... My brother, sister and I were just getting home from school. It was a cold December day and my Aunt dropped us off as usual because my mom had already left for the hospital where she worked evenings as a telephone operator. As we walked into the house we passed our neighbor who was leaving, he worked as an EMT. My two older sisters were already home from school, they were tending Brett (2) and as we walked in my sisters were in tears. Rikkie(14)who was on the phone with our dad, quickly handed the phone over to Melissa(12)and took us into the living room. She sat us down and explained that there had been a horrible accident on Geneva Road and the neighbor said that it was our mom. He had come to the house to call my dad at work and let him know. I remember Rikkie gathering us all for a prayer but the rest of the evening is a blur. As more details unfolded I began to understand the severity of things, it was unlikely that my mom would live. My dad and grandparents rushed over to the hospital where she was taken by Life Flight to the University of Utah Medical Center. My Aunt & cousins came to be with us and ward members came by to help and wait. For the next week or so, we waited. Waited to see if she had made it through the night, waited to see what the Dr's would say and the tests would show. No one knew if she would live or if she would ever come out of her coma. I don't remember seeing my dad at all. People brought food and treats to the house, lots of food from people we didn't even know. A few days before Christmas they decided to let the older kids go to visit my mom for the first time. I didn't qualify but I was relieved when I heard that seeing her was too much for Nick to bear, he was two years older than me but he had ran out of the room in tears. On Christmas morning we received a call from my Grandpa, he had spent the night with her at the hospital and he was so excited that she had fluttered her eyelashes! We called it a Christmas Miracle! We all went to see her that day. We gathered around her bed in the ICU, she was covered in tubes, her legs were in traction, part of her head had been shaved and she was on a respirator. I remember being so scared to get near her but my grandma kept forcing me to hold her hand and talk to her. I was terrified and carsick from the drive up and we sang lots of Christmas carols. I was confused, scared and unsure for a long, long time. She slowly came out of her coma and then endured months of intense therapy. At one point she spent several months in an inpatient rehabilitation center. The years that followed were hard. I have no doubt that the challenges, unfairness and pain that accident brought helped determine who I am today. Each year I look back and remember the events of that day the best I can, I try to put myself in each of our shoes. Try to see it through the eyes of my siblings, my dad, my aunt and my grandparents. I know that we all suffered and in many ways it still affects each of our lives. This year my feelings are different. Maybe because I am now a mom, maybe it's because I've moved away but I think it's only right that I take the time today to say... "Thank you mom. Thanks for having the courage and the strength to fight. Thank you for the years of physical and emotional pain you endured. Thank you for learning to talk, walk, read and write again. Thank you for getting out of bed everyday and try. Thank you for listening to us cry and whine about how much the accident hurt us. It would have been so easy to give up. Thank you for staying. Thanks for being there when I danced, I graduated, I got married and when I had my baby. Thank you for being around to watch us all grow up. I love you and although I'll never fully understand your sacrifices, I appreciate them more than you know."

Random

As you can probably tell we haven't been leaving the house much lately. It's cold and wet outside so we are finding ways to keep busy at home.

Our Day

This morning Ledger made this cute snowman craft in the daycare at my mom's group meeting. It is the first project he has made for me and I love it!!!

After naptime I was in the kitchen making lunch when I heard the sound of ripping paper. Ledger has discovered the stash of presents behind the Christmas tree and broken into one of my gifts.

Chevy is getting sick of the rain and lack of walks going on around here. Sorry Chev.

Last year my parents gave Ledger The Night Before Christmas book recorded in my dad's voice. He loves it! Reads it almost every night.

How sweet are these two?

Company Christmas Party

Last night was Marq's company Christmas party. They had the party at Hotel Monaco in downtown Portland and reserved rooms for all of us. We were lucky enough to get Kim to take Ledger overnight so that we could enjoy a night downtown.

The suite we had was really nice.

We got dressed up for the party but I forgot to get a picture of us together.

Marq's company is full of fun people! His boss is awesome and I am so very grateful that he has found a company that really appreciates him and has welcomed us with open arms.

After the party a bunch of us hit the town. We walked around for awhile, checked out the nightlife and had a great time.

Back to the hotel we hung out for a bit in Santa's chair before heading back to our suite :)

The next morning we slept in and had room service send up breakfast. After coffee in the lounge we headed out to pick up our little man.

It was so nice to get away for the night, have some fun and make some great friends.Thanks for watching him Aunt Kimmie!

Popcorn!

This year we decided to go with an old-school traditional Christmas with all the things that remind us of Christmas when we were little kids. Marq wanted colored lights that chase and blink but we couldn't find those anywhere so... plain old white lights it is.

I remember stringing popcorn for the tree when I was little.

I only really remember doing it one year but still... it's a childhood Christmas memory so we did it.

Ledger loved the popcorn even though it had nothing on it.

He shoved handful after handful into his little mouth.

Ledger watched a movie and made a huge mess while Marq & I strung the popcorn. It's begining to feel a lot like Christmas.

The tree still only has a few ornaments but it's slowly getting there. The tricky part is going to be convincing a one-year old to leave the popcorn on the tree.

Moving Mayhem

Today we went up to help Marq's sister move into a new house.

Ledger had SO much fun playing with his cousins! There were toys, boxes, empty mattresses to jump on and room to run!

Poor Kapri ended up on the bottom of the dogpile. No nap + wild cousin play + rootbeer = a very tired little boy

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Today we picked out our very first fresh Christmas tree! EVERYONE here in the Northwest has real trees and they think it is SO strange that we've never had one.

The Christmas Tree farm is literally down our road so we didn't even make Ledger ride in his carseat.

They had a big barn with fires, hot chocolate, a gift shop, Santa and live animals. Ledger loved feeding the goats.

We did a lot of walking around to find our tree (and wear the little man out before naptime).

Here are the boys watching them tie up our tree. They put it in a shaker to get all the loose needles out, tie it up and load it in your truck.

We found a great tree and we're excited to have the smell of Christmas in our home for a few weeks!