california sun....

We made it to cali for a quick little visit.. more on that later...

look at my little men...he heee

sushi...

What a nice ending to such a bummer day!

christmas road trip failure...

Today we were supposed to be finishing up our drive to California. We were supposed to be in Modesto for a week, wake up Christmas morning and celebrate with B's mom, grandpa, and uncle Lee. It was supposed to be super fun, and super special, since it would be the first Christmas we spent in California with the kids. Stupid Weather ruined our plans, but we put up a good fight, only to end in defeat last night... here is the rundown....

When the weather turned bad, we thought hmmm, maybe we should get train tickets? Nope totally sold out, good thing since train service shut down...

soooo... back to the original driving plan...

• Decided to get a 4wd rental car, our goal was to leave town between noon and 1pm...
• Getting the rental car should have taken, what, 20 minutes? took 2 hours... ughhh!
• Left my Mom's house loaded with half our stuff at 2:00pm...
• Ran down I-205, not really a problem and had to stop at our house... in record time had all presents loaded, snacks packed, and movie started for the boys...
• 3:00pm hit the road... goal was to make it to Medford to stay with my brother for the night by 9pm, 6 hours gave us plenty of time.
• 3:15 heard from my sister they would be closing I-5 at 4pm to de-ice the roads, so we needed to be fast.
• Didn't stop for gas, figured we would make it to I-5 before they closed it down and would stop to get gas than.
• 4pm sitting on I-205 going 5 miles an hour... sucks...
• 4:30pm have gone not even a mile...
• 5:30pm still on I-205 not moving at all...
• 6:30pm... still sitting, people are out of the cars, trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
• ...We have only a quarter a tank of gas left...
• 7:45pm barely moving along, we finally make it to the stafford road exit... we get off of I-205 south, and get right back on I-205 North... we are going home!
• 4 and a half hours we made it 2.6 miles...
• It took us 11 minutes to make it back to our exit for home, that was traveling at a high speed of 30mph.
• We threw in the towel! There are now winter advisories on both sexton and the siskiyou pass, plus a storm is supposed to hit Northern California... we are done. the universe is telling us it is No Go....

after almost 5 hours in the car to only turn around, we decided to go out to dinner (I have no groceries at home, thought we were going to be gone for the week).... we ended up having a very lovely dinner at 8pm at our local sushi-go-round place...

Totally bummed!

all hung by the "chimney" with care...

My stocking is 30 years old, so crazy. My Great Grandma made every child in my family a stocking and they are the only ones we have ever used.It is so fun to carry on the tradition and make ones for my family. B's is from our first Christmas together, Ollie's was of course his first Christmas. Max did'nt get one for his first two years, poor guy, I finally got my stuff together and got his made... so fun....

so over it....

If I had no where to go, and nothing to do, this would be great. Maybe for a day.

Going on over a week, this is starting to suck!

snowy days...

Well, the weather gods were not listening to little old me, and dumped snow and ice on the metro area, totally ignoring my request.... how rude.

But despite the snow we made it to the crafty wonderland yesterday, just by the skin of our teeth. I almost had B turn around about 3 times and just head home. I am glad we stuck it out and got there. There was actually a great stream of shoppers and we made our money goal for the day so it was good. I sold out of most of my women's stuff, and was so glad I went ahead and added in long sleeve shirts with the dresses. There was allot of baby stuff, but we still did really well.

Today I am so glad to just be home, and not have to go anywhere, even though I am on my last diaper for max, I guess we have to use up the last of the g's. Maybe we could just potty train today.. oh wouldn't that be awesome, but not going to happen.

I do need to go to the post office, and may just bundle up the boys and walk down there, don't know if I would rather walk on icey sidewalks or drive on icey streets... hmmmm.

The boys LOVE the snow, which is so awesome. Last year I don't think we really got any. The year before that I had a 2 month old baby and a 2 year old, so ollie didn't really get to spend that much time actually playing in the snow. This year they both have had so much fun. I see many trips to the mountains in our future. Maybe we will have enthusiastic snowboarders in our future... that won't be so bad, fun for mom, dad, and the boys...

**again blogger just uploading my pics anyway they want to... what the heck?

this is for you Nana Barb...

I got a request last night on the phone from a certain Nana.

seems I've been heavy on the max video, so here is some ollie clips to hold Nana over till Christmas....

No Snow Please...

Oh Weather Gods... please, oh please, could you hold off on the snow until Monday...

Otherwise this house will have a very broke Christmas....

www.craftywonderland.com

baby Jesus is cute...

What a sweet little man.

oh christmas tree...

Ideally I would love to hike out into the forest and cut down my own tree...

Ideally I would love to make a day out of a Christmas tree farm, hiking through the mud and picking out the perfect tree....

Reality is my husband grew up in Central Valley California, we are lucky we get a real tree!

This year we headed down to a local lot selling lovely trees for $12. We walked around the lot looking at the trees they had out, and the huge pile of trees still wrapped up tight. We opted to gamble on our tree and picked one out of the pile still all wrapped up. It was fun when we got it home, like the anticipation of opening a present, fingers crossed that it didn't have a huge gaping hole in the side. The tree turned out to be a perfectly cute little tree, We had a warm and fuzzy evening decorating it up. Our living room looks so pretty, and smells so good.

the shopping list...

My husband is awesome. Let's just start with that.

But, anytime I have him run to the store to pick up a couple of things, he is gone, seriously like 2 hours. Usually he comes home with odd things that I asked for, but the completely wrong brand and wrong size. Accompanied by exaggerated tales of having to search the store, and walk from end to end multiple times.

An example, milk, we buy only organic milk, which I won't go into the reasons here, but you know the reasons. So B will usually come home with a half gallon, claiming that was all they had... hmmmmm... pretty sure they have gallons.

Since I spend allot of my time, I mean allot of my time, at the grocery store, last time I sent him, I sent him with a map...

I think I am freakin hilarious!

I really shouldn't complain at all, he took the kids with him so I could get some work done... love that man.

etsy article...

I was asked to submit a photo and a little blurb for a shop local etsy article...

http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/gift-ideas-shop-local-portland-with-thisisalliknow-2980/

funny...

my daily saving grace...

I heart naptime.

weekend exploring...

I have been obsessed with hum bow (steamed chinese BBQ pork buns, yummmm) lately. Usually we make the trek out to Uwajimaya in beaverton, but a couple weekends ago we decided to stay on the eastside and check out one of the biggest Asian markets off of 82nd. I have been in my share of grocery stores, Seattle and San Francisco both had great Chinatowns, with huge markets. And Mexico, of course, is a whole different shopping experience. Nothing better than bumming around a shop where you can't read most of the packaging.

**(blogger will not import the photo below of ollie correctly, in my viewer it is the right way, in photoshop it is the right way, but every time I upload the pic it uploads this way... stupid blogger).

I never realized how upscale Uwajimaya was until we visited this store. It is like comparing whole foods and winco. I ended up only buying a few things at the mega-asian mart. I hate winco, and I guess I don't enjoy the mega-asian mart either. We had planned to pick up some steamed buns and long noodles for a kung fu panda night. We ended up at trader joes, with potstickers and pad thai... not exactly the same, but close, and my boys dig pot stickers.


I guess my hum bow cravings will have to be filled out at Uwajimaya after all.

that's right son....

just another night at the raetz house.

their, there?????

anyone got a rule of thumb when using the word there, their? I hate that I never know which one to use when writing. I am horrible at english and spelling, and this word killlllllssss me.

i heart funny people...

So Jo is a funny kind of gal, all us Meiers think, of course, we are hilarious. I think we all love being a little honory and sarcastic. Always done while batting our eyelashes and almost bursting with giggles inside.

Jo told me this story of a conversation with a twenty something tanning store manager.... I almost peed my pants.

Tanning guy: "do you have goggles."

Jo: "no, I have the stupid eye stickers you made me buy last time."

Jo pulls them out of her wallet, untouched and never used.
Tanning guy: "You didn't use them."

Jo: "No, I don't open my eyes in there."

Tanning guy:"I can't tell you how bad that is for your eyes, do you want to go blind?"

Jo: "No, I don't want skin cancer either, but I am still here aren't I."

Tanning guy: "uh, number 10 is ready for you."

A couple weeks later...

Tanning guy: " oh I remember you, I know you don't need goggles, do you need some lotion."

Jo: "oh yes, I would love to spend $40 dollars on a bottle of something that doesn't work anyway."

Tanning guy: "uh, I can't even deal with you today, number 8 is open."

Jo.... "heee hee heeee"

To bad Jo is the whitey of the bunch, and has to go tanning every once in awhile to get some color... so sad... but funny.

thanksgiving craziness....

We had a great thanksgiving. Me and B are foodies, I love to cook, and I love making delicious food for friends and family. I was so stoked when planning our thanksgiving day menu with mom. I made savory rosemary sweet potatoes, was forced to make the sweet marshmallowey ones... (seriously forced, everyone was throwing a fit when I put my yummy caramelized pecan and sweet potato dish in the oven, they wanted freakin marshmallows, totally ruined it), homemade cranberry sauce, and my favorite broiled brussel sprouts, with garlic and pecans. B made smoked gouda mashed potatoes that were so good the were almost deadly. My mom did the turkey, stuffing, and her almost famous cheese bread.

My mom has been making her cheese bread forever, it was a recipe from my grampa, and I always felt like my mom made it better. My gramps always used to overcook it, so it was kind of dry, Mom's most of the time is moist and soooo good. This is what we made every year for all our teachers for christmas. Since there were seven of us the bread was pretty memorable, and every teacher I had, who had previously had a Meier child, was so stoked when christmas came around.








It was a great day, hanging out with good people, good food, and good conversation. Our meal was a little potato heavy, but I was in heaven with my brussel sprouts so I barely noticed.



After our yummy meal we all laid around for awhile and than me and Jo went to hang out with the crazy holiday shoppers....








Our friend Michelle manages the Van Hueson store in the woodburn outlet, and needed help at there midnight madness sale. Me and Jo volunteered, some extra cash under the table, always good for me. It was INSANE... we started at 10pm, I totally thought michelle was kidding about how crazy it gets. I am not a shopper, I don't care how good the deals are, I do not go out in the middle of the night to shop with 8 million other crazy people. We worked from 10pm till 4am and it was busy the entire time, like lines out the door busy. It was also really fun, I haven't worked retail in years, and forgot that I actually do like it, it is kind of fun just talking to people all night. We got home around 5:45 am and I was up again at 9:30 am to hang out with the boys because B had to work. It wasn't to bad, but yesterday is a total fog to me. I know I took the boys on a bike ride and we ate up all of our leftovers already and I drank allot of coffee, other than that it was like one big dream. Kind of like how you feel the entire first year you have a newborn in the house. I was in bed by 8:45pm and slept in until 8:30am. I am feeling much more human today.

I am getting a little carried away on my black and white camera setting, but it looks so cool... someones gotta stop me!

from the mouth of ollie.....

I was doing dishes, the sun was setting, it was only 4:30 p.m.

Ollie is standing behind me saying...

"i'm doing it, i'm doing it."

His eyes are shut very tightly and his hands are in fists at his side.

I ask him "what are you doing?"

"I am making it light outside again, look, I am doing it."

I look outside, "it will be light in the morning."

"but can we ride our bikes now."

I know little man, I know... it gets dark way to early for me too.

being all artsy like...

I had to take a photo for an etsy article... here it is...

Our Camera has a setting that is black and white except for a some tones, it was fun to mess around with. I was walking around the house making everyone be artsy with me... Max was taking a nap and I had to get the photo in that day, that is me, always waiting till the last minute... so he did'nt make it in the photo, but I think he will be okay with it.

B was so stoked, can't you tell, I made him put on a green scarf... totally goes with the tough guy image.

Little man turned two...

As of Saturday our littlest man is no longer a baby. By the time your two it is official, you are a kid.

My favorite birthdays growing up have never involved the gifts that I got, they always involved special traditions my family did. Like getting to choose what we had for dinner, not where we went for dinner, but what my mom made for dinner. Your birthday was a day you got to ride shotgun all day long, and didn't have to fight for it. You got to go to the grocery store, just with mom, and one time I got to go alone with my mom and dad, and on the way home, we stopped at DQ and shared a peanut buster parfait. My memories are all of the special time I got to spend, not how much money my parents spent on me, or what lavish gifts they got me. As my boys are getting older, I am trying to keep that in perspective, trying to hold onto the memories I hold so dear, and trying to make there birthdays just as memorable, without being materialistic. I fall short of course, because who doesn't want to lavish your kids in lots of new fun stuff. We didn't do too bad. Nana Barb sent a fun package for thanksgiving and for maxes b-day, so he got quite a bit of gift opening experience this year.

on the morning of, max and ollie both woke up early, at 6:45 am... gasp... so as I was sipping my coffee, and B was getting ready to run to the store to get some balloons, we decided to load everyone up in there jammies for a little freddys adventure. We let Max pick out one toy, and we let Ollie pick out a toy to give to max. It was really cute, and I think Max had a good morning. It is rare you get to hit up the store in your jammies.


Max picked out this little vacuum. He is obsessed with our big vacuum. He has spent the last two days attached to that thing, on his birthday night I had to put it to bed with him, all snuggled in next to a vacuum, crazy kid. I keep kicking myself, I should have got one that actually does vacuum, like a dust buster, it would have crossed one thing off my chore list.

Ollie picked out a little bottle gun, we'll he got one for himself too. We never have really bought gun toys for the kids, an occasional squirt gun in the summer, but man, my kids turn everything and anything into "shooters" how do kids pick up on that kind of stuff.

We celebrated with some friends and family that night at Old Town Pizza, originally we were headed to mississippi pizza pub for live kids music. But man that place was packed, so we turned around and went to plan B. It worked out nicely and the kids got to run around like crazy monkeys. I got to eat yummy pizza and drink a pint, so I was happy.













































Almond got Max a little sesame street bongo video game. It plugs right into the tube, and is pretty freakin cool. Super easy for the boys to use, and educational too. The boys had a blast the next morning hangin out in there jammies and taking turns.