There's Something about Davis!

I know, I know, I have been posting kid photos in excess lately. I can't help it. I'm pretty into this little guy and I just can't keep myself from sharing him. Hopefully soon we will have a really exciting adventure to blog about. Hopefully it will not involve one of our cars and fire. Anyway, here are some photos of the little big man at almost 4 months. 

Christmas Fun!

I knew that eventually I would get around to posting a few Christmas pictures. I can't believe how few we took this year. We decided to finally break out the video camera again so we do have quite a bit of Christmas video. Davis, on the other hand, is greatly under-represented. He was "snug in his bed" through most of the Christmas festivities. He did show his face long enough to get his Christmas Eve pajamas though. Justin's family always did Christmas Eve PJs and my family always does a Christmas Eve ornament. So we have continued each of those traditions and the girls were so happy to get their PJs and ornament this year. Since they love bugs so much, we got Abby a grasshopper and Emma a frog for their ornament, they were thrilled. Another tradition we want to carry on is the Christmas Eve seafood extravaganza that the Wilkinsons always have. Since  we didn't go to Utah this year for Christmas, we did our own Christmas Eve feast with all of our favorite foods: king crab legs, shrimp, artichokes and oysters (even the girls tried their first oyster this year). We made sure to decorate the sugar cookies for Santa (he LOVES sugar cookies and we always have to leave out a lot for him. )

Look at this fat happy baby! He loves Christmas!

The girls showing off their pj's and ornaments.

Getting in a little 'Twas the night before Christmas before they head off to bed.

Mmmmm!

The all-important sugar cookies.

The Great Portland Storm

We had a crazy storm up here in Portland over the Christmas holiday. Everything literally shut down for weeks. Schools were closed for a week, church was canceled for 2 weeks, the roads were insane and I literally didn't even leave the house for 2 weeks except to play in the snow and to venture to the grocery store one night only to realize that I couldn't push the cart through the parking lot. So what did we do for 2 weeks in the house. . . 

We at ate a lot of this (these were supposed to be friends/neighbors gifts that were rendered undeliverable due to the weather, so eventually disappeared (not quite sure how that happened:)

We got crafty!

We hauled away bits of the ginormous tree that literally uprooted from our front yard on Christmas Eve and fell across the street.

We marveled at the inch-thick ice that developed overnight on top of the already 6 inches of snow.

And we played and played and played in the snow and we got our "white Christmas" even though we weren't in Utah this year. It was perfect!

Farewell Old Friend!

For those of you who have been with us through the drama of the Jeep over the past 8 years of our marriage, you will really appreciate this. For those of you who haven't, it's still a good story. We have loved our Jeep. It has seen us through many camping, biking, and family road trips. It's taken us to the top of Mt. Logan and across the country to San Francisco and Portland. It's weathered the winter storms over the Sierra Nevadas. It even survived the Portland Arctic Blast of '08 and narrowly escaped the tree that fell in our front yard only a few short weeks ago. The Jeep has also been towed at least 4 times since we moved to Portland a year and a half ago. It's been in mechanic shops all over the west coast. It has squeaked and screamed and smoked it's way through life. But it has ever remained faithful until the fateful day of January 9, 2009 when it went out in a blaze of glory. 

Justin drove it to work on Friday morning. All was well. I met him Friday night for a work party and when we left the party that evening, we were met with this. (see below) Between the time Justin left the Jeep at 7:00 a.m. and returned at 8:30 p.m. an electrical fire had all but consumed the interior of the Jeep. Ah, how fitting. The best part is that Justin looked at me later that night and said those all too common words, "I think we can fix it!" Not this time. It is on it's way to the U-Pull it junkyard where it will finally be laid to rest, never to be fixed again . Goodbye old friend, you will be missed . . . sort of.