santa brought new rides...

Thanks nana barb, the trikes were a hit... and how cool does ollie look....

really good christmas music...

If you don't have this... you should get it...

Sufjan Stevens... songs for christmas...

It has not left my car since before thanksgiving, and I am not even sick of it yet...

"a christmas story"....

One of my all time favorite christmas movies... every time max is eating lately he reminds me of "show me how the piggies eat" the kid just can't seem to shovel it in fast enough...

resisting the fad

for months I have resisted, I have exclaimed how ugly these shoes were.. how plastic-ee they looked, and how I would never buy them for my kids...

well, I had to return some little shoes to nordy's and I just couldn't deny how easy these shoes would make my life... my little men's feet just slip right in, and unfortunately the beloved "bee boots" have run there course.... so now we are part of the craze, I hang my head in shame....

who needs actual toys...

proving the fact alittle imagination and a cardboard box is better than anything store bought... so why do I keep buying the little buggers things...
good thing aunt jo is little, she was squished in that box with ollie for the entire evening, I thought they might both fall asleep in there...

my personal sweat-shop...

what do you do when you have an order of shirts due, and two little men who need you all day long... if only there were more hours in a day.

I have to give the little guys credit, they did awesome letting me get everything done, and a piece of paper + a hole punch can entertain little hands for hours.....

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree....

I had this great idea to rent a tree this year. When I lived in Seattle Ikea sold potted trees for 20 bucks, than after the holidays you could bring it back for a 10 dollar store credit or something like that. I don't think it really worked out since I only saw that offered one year. But in Portland they have an organization that sells potted trees and after the holiday gives them to non-profits, schools, and churches to landscape with. I thought this was pretty cool, but the trees are like 65 bucks, so we didn't do it, we did end up spending 40 bucks this year on our tree, if I knew that was how much we were going to spend, I would have rather rented the darn thing... oh well I know for next year! This is the only pic of our tree so far...haaaa .. and here is max helping tie the tree to the roof of the volvo, B has been working crazy hours so we just ran to a local lot and picked one up rather than going to a u-cut place, which may account for the fact we spent $40 bucks on a tree...

The Old woman in me is coming out. I discovered this year I love snow globes... now... I am not a knick knacky person, this snow globe is pretty much the only christmas decoration I have... but I love it, and want more... even if it is kind of an old lady thing to start collecting, I never really have held on to much. I always liked being able to move to another city with pretty much only a backpack. Boy times have changed since having kids and filling up a whole house of "stuff".... not to mention B the pack rat and all his "stuff", so I guess starting to build up a collection of christmas crap is only fitting....

Look mom, I dressed myself...

Wow independence is funny, I now hear things like "No. My Hand"... "No, Ollie do it"... and the list goes on and on.

There is an upside to this... the kid cracks me up all day long, his imagination is taking off, his favorite movie is Zathura, he actually acts out scenes from the movie, I am going to try and get some video of this because it is pretty funny to see ollie bring out his pillow and pretend it is the "game". He than runs around the house yelling "danny, take your turn, take your turn", and exclaims "there not friendly, there not friendly".... I guess B did the same thing with star wars when he was little... guess it is in my boys blood..

and here is little max, practicing his smile for the ladies....

Backtracking to Thanksgiving..

I love Jeff and Shannon's house.

We spent Thanksgiving in Medford, and I really think I could live there. It may not be as cool as Portland, but being able to have a house that is awesome, your own land, and a bunch of animals would be pretty freakin cool... sometimes I think the city is for the birds..

It was an awesome weekend, with awesome people, awesome food, and tons of fun for the kids and adults... I feel very blessed to have such great people in my life.

*hey how many times can I say awesome in a sentence...

wow time flys....

I cannot believe it is already the middle of December.... i keep thinking we are still in November, guess i need to get with it...

Here is a recap of our month so far, i know nana barb is probably dying for some pics, so these are for you.....


nana barb sent max his b-day present, a grip of great clothes, books, and jammies. Also like a good grandma sent ollie a little something.... here are the boys in there new jammies reading there new books.

*side note, this photo was not set up... ollie sat down to read his thomas book and max climbed up and slid in next to him, ollie made sure max had some blankie, which only happens on very rare occasions... tooo cute....





we spent the first week of the month watching gavin and chloe, Annie and Jeff were lucky enough to be in Hawaii. (jeff for work, and annie got to go along since it was during their 14th wedding anniversary). Gavin and Chloe were great, having an instant four kids was very busy. I am used to being fun aunt katie.... not the boss, but we did okay... On tuesday after school I made the kids run some errands with me, the place I had to go was right by this little restaurant called "fire on the mountain", they serve hot wings... and deep fried twinkies, I was telling Gavin about this and he thought deep fried twinkies sounded pretty cool... so at 4:30 we stopped in for some hot wings and deep fried twinkies.... needless to say dinner was small and late that night....



It is very different cooking in someone else's kitchen, I make a bomb baked ziti... not so much in Annie's kitchen... she has these really cool silicon baking dishes, that don't work the same as glass. My ziti came out crispy cooked on the edges, and all the veggies and cheese were'nt cooked in the middle. The next night we had a baked potato mishap... we ended up on an ice cream run later than night... oh well...
Here is Ollie sporting Annies Uggs...


Another thing about school aged kids is the HAVE to get up in the morning. Me and my boys get up whenever, usually we are up by 8:00am... to get gav and coco up and off to school I needed to be up by 7... I did great the first two days, and the last two... well not so great, the alarm would go off, which I wasn't used to it, it would freak me out, I would shut if off and roll over and go back to bed... than it would be a mad dash to get kids dressed, breakfast made, lunches made and everyone out the door.... crazy...



the one thing that saved my life was this sweet little number.... ummmmm americano's every morning... santa i need one of these...

all in all it was a great week, a little stressful, but fun... even chewie survived...

*User Error*

i loaded up my sewing machine, took it into the shop, guess what.... i was putting the needle in backwards... i never said i was brilliant.....

where is my snow?

so i got a message from my sis this morning that they got snow in bellvue, and another message that it was dumping at 1:30.... and i want to know where is my snow?

like a true oregonian dork, i ran out this morning to make sure i was well stocked, just in case we got some snow, becuase God forbid we drive in even a dusting of the white stuff... and as of 2:30 i have only seen a couple of lonely flakes... so sad..

on another note, i have been going coffee crazy lately... maybe it is the cold i have hung onto, or the fact the boys have spent the majority of the month sick and cranky...but i decided my shop runs need to be curbed... but i am in love with a 1 pump peppermint soy latte... if you get this at the green giant it is okay, still a little sweet since they use vanilla soy milk, but if you get it almost anywhere else that uses plain soy milk, it is heavenly, a very earthy coffee drink... which i love it when you can actually taste the coffee, not all the sweet crap they add to it... b likes his drinks sweet and thinks my soy latte's taste like dirt... i choose the word earthy as a better description....

so today at the store i was in search of peppermint syrup to add to my french pressed coffee... i could'nt find any at freddys (those jerks) so i had a brilliant idea to buy peppermint oil and just add a bit to my coffee... this was okay... but it was OIL.... so it just floated on the top of my coffee.. did clear my sinuses, but did not compare to my yummy soy latte's...

i am super annoyed with my sewing machine, which is why i am blogging... the darn thing is acting like a jack*ss... the tension is being weird, and the needles keep breaking... i just broke my last one i could find... i just bought a pack but can't seem to find it... figures i just cleaned my sewing room... i can't find anything now... i have an order of shirts to get done... crap... and the boys are down for a nap.... so i am stuck until the little buggers wake up...
i guess i could start dyeing some shirts, i am trying out some new colors for spring... i got a burnt orange, avocado, and cobalt blue.... i am stoked to see the avocado, i love green stuff...

speaking of green stuff... I LOVE BRUSSEL SPROUTS.... i did'nt realize how much i loved them till recently.... i swear growing up my mom must have boiled them or something, i remember them being mushy... but if you trim them, cut them in half, spread them on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and garlic... broil at 400 degrees until tender.... yummy...

my sis just called she has 3 inches of snow, so not fair..... but she was good luck while on the phone i found my sewing needles.... so off to fix the freakin tension on the jack*ss of a sewing machine, glad i bought the extended warranty, i might just have to run to the repair shop....

hey hey were the monkeys...

and people say we monkey around...


for maxes b-day we went to ikea and got some stuff for his room.... a new table and stools, (that the boys insist on sitting in upside down) and a really cute little rug. i got max a new duvet cover and curtains for the boys room... now if i would just take the time to actually put it together...

november blues...

so we have spent almost the entire month sick. we seem to be passing a bug around the house. I have gone through and disinfected everything.....

I knew as soon as we walked into rachels house and saw jason chugging nyquil the beginning of the month that our turn was coming next. Ollie has this awesome ability to catch anything and everything he comes into contact with. i guess that is one of the joys of being a preemie.... it actually started with max, poor guy got croup, we got to go to the hospital and everything... than ollie came down with a horrible throat bug. he would just point into his mouth and say "ohwee....." it was so sad, and lasted for days.... on the third day of sleepless nights a house full of humidifiers and crying kids we took him into the doc... who said just keep doing what your doing... which i wanted to reply... can i have my money back please.. the advice nurse could have told me the same thing and saved me the trouble...

one thing that worked really well for sleeping is i put some lavender oil in the cool mist vaporizer, the kids actually slept much better... and i was happier too...

in the midst of all the sickness turmoil, i had a show on Nov. 17th at milagros for a grow a cure fundraiser. it was really fun despite the rain, and the slow trickle of shoppers, but i met some people, and made some cash, so it was not a total loss, but i knew my turn to be sick was on the way... i don't think standing in the rain for a couple of hours helped me much.

stayton calling our name...

so we headed back down to stayton at the beginning of the month to watch joey for a couple of days... while there we played, and played, and played....... we finger painted, made cookies and even got a date night snuck in for rachel and jason, i am a big believer in doing good to have good things come to you, and not more than two weeks later jo and mom relieved me and b of our parental duties for a whole night of no kid bliss... more on that later....

Here are some shots from our time with cousin joey....

sweet new craigslist find...

i just could'nt load max into the backpack one more time... our walks are much more enjoyable now.

the only thing that sucks is i have no cup holder (good God you want me to carry my latte), and the basket under the seat is smaller, but i also do not have to lug a 22 lb one year old around on my back, while pushing a 26 lb almost 3 year old...thanks craigslist... also i think the boys really like being able to hang out together..

what my dad taught me...

the last couple of weeks our bathtub drain has been getting slower and slower... i hate draino, but tried it... it did'nt do a thing, except make me worry about the toxic sludge residue i was now bathing my kids in....

then i found the culprit, my lovely boys had been biting off pieces of there bathtub foam toys and shoving it down the drain.... by the way i do watch my kids while they take a bath, but i do things like tweeze my eyebrows, contemplate my wrinkles, and read up on really great mags like US weekly and life and style... haaa (thanks jo, i am addicted) so you could say i don't pay attention that well... but I am in the same room....

anyway, so what do you do short of calling the plumber? My dad taught me this... you buy a drain snake...9.99 at freddys, a long snakey piece of metal that you crank into the plumbing until you move the clog along... This is one of the ingenious little tips i picked up from my dad... i also can fix almost anything with duct tape... and wd-40 is great to have around the house... alcohol is great for cleaning and fixing the inside of electronics (used this when i had burned a ton of incense on top of my vcr... all the little dust went right into the vent) I have also taken apart the inside of my own toilet, and taken all the plumbing apart under my bathroom sink... and successfully put it back together... My dad was a fixer, and passed on alittle bit to me... i miss him...

Happy birthday Maximos...

Happy Birthday baby boy... I can't believe he is one.... he seems like he is still my baby and such a big kid at the same time.

the monkey and the chicken, or the chicken and the monkey..

we got ollie a chicken suit last year, that he never really wore... i was pregnant and huge, and had worked all day, and b had to work late last halloween... so me and the bean had stayed in last year and he never debuted his lovely outfit...





so this year i grabbed a hilarious monkey outfit for max... we came home and put it on him... he thought he was pretty funny... ollie than decided that he would make a much better monkey than max.

Yesterday i spent half the day prepping ollie that he was going to be a chicken, and max was going to be a monkey. He threw a fit when i first got them dressed, i ignored him and eventually he calmed downed.




We met up with annie and the kids to do some trick or treating in the good ol O.C.... and gavin had professed ollie the super chicken.. i think ollie was okay with his outfit since gavin and chloe had thought it was cool.....we had a good night, ate some yummy potatoe soup and hit maybe 2 houses and headed home... my kids are'nt old enough to really be into the halloween thing... next year we might skip the trick or treating, but it was fun night....