Christmas Morning

I was so scared of going into labor during the night and missing Christmas morning with my kids. Not being able to see their faces and their excitement when they saw all their presents was going to be really tough. Thankfully I was able to be there to experience it with them. They were so stinking excited! It has to be one of the best Christmas's I have had. My children and my husband are such a blessing in my life, I love them dearly!

I think this is the first White Christmas I have ever had!

Christmas Morning with their stockings


She is all girl, except for her love of cars. And not just any cars, the cars from the Disney movie. She has almost all the characters now.

My mom got them these adorable aprons with matching caps for Christmas.

This is a picture of both of them with their presents they asked Santa for!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was pretty interesting for us. My mother did make it here the night before, so that relaxed me quite a bit, but still no baby. It snowed all morning Christmas Eve. The plan was to go to Grandma Pezl's for a family get together that happens every year since Aron can remember. But the roads are terrible, so I told Aron sorry I wasn't going to go. I didn't want to be out in Canby and go into labor during a snow storm. Canby is about an hours drive from us and it is in Oregon. All morning long Grandma was trying to decide if she wanted to cancel and reschedule for the weekend, but in the end decided to have the party. By noon the snow was melting everywhere and the news was showing reports of the freeways being completely clear of snow and ice. So in the end Aron decided to go and take the kids, and at the last minute I decided to also go and drag my mom with us. We all felt good going on the way over, the freeway was clear and the drive was nice. And then we got off the freeway. Apparently Oregon City doesn't believe in plowing their roads, they were terrible!! The roads were so rutted and the car ride was horribly bumpy that I thought for sure the baby was going to just pop right out of me. We finally made it to Grandmas but not before we got stuck at the bottom of her driveway. I went inside and left the men to deal with that. But we had a really good dinner, and the kids were spoiled with tons and tons of presents! I'm not sure they were that good, but hey they are loved! So then we leave for the bumpy ride back through the town of Oregon City. No labor, everything is good, right? No, we couldn't get on the freeway because a semi truck was blocking the on ramp, he was stuck due to the ice. Then I realized there was something very wrong with our car, the dashboard was shaky even worse. And I realized then we probably had a flat. I shared the news with Aron who pulls over as best as he can (there was snow everywhere, again they do not plow here at all) and sure enough the back passenger tire was flat. Our next mission was to find somewhere that Aron can pull over to fix this flat, but everywhere is covered with this disgusting, dirty, slushy, yet still icy snow. He drove forever before we found a chevron that he thought he could make it into the parking lot without getting stuck and change the tire on dry pavement by the pumps (it was closed due to it being Christmas eve, and of course their parking lot was not plowed either). We made it, got the tire changed, we are all tired and it is now around 9-9:30 at night. Now what do we do, the on ramp is blocked and we really don't know where we are to find our way around it. So Aron just started to drive, and drive, and drive. Hoping the donut tire holds up on these awful rutted roads and we don't get another flat, oh and I don't go into labor! We drove what seemed like forever before we finally realized how to get home. By the time we got home it was about 11 pm, and we still had all, and I mean ALL of our presents to wrap for Christmas. Thankfully my mom was here to help! So that was our interesting night. The only thing that could make it more interesting is if I did go into labor! Thankfully that didn't happen yet.
The car stuck at the bottom of Grandmas driveway

Grandmas Pezl's birthday is Christmas!

Snow, Snow & More Snow!!

It hardly ever snows in the Northwest. We get rain, until now. They say that this is the most snow in some 30 years. Good timing too, right before Christmas and right when I'm due to have a baby. So it has been interesting, really, really pretty and awful at the same time. The kids think that just because it has snowed that means it's Christmas (thanks to all the Christmas movies that always have snow) they don't realize it doesn't always snow on Christmas and never in Washington. So every morning now they keep asking if it is Christmas yet. Sorry not yet. We actually got freezing rain also, which is hard to drive in. So in preparing for this I kept telling Aron to buy chains for the car and he would say no, it won't get that bad. Well guess what it is that bad and now I'm due to deliver and we can't get out of the driveway and my Mom can't get here. But the good news is that my dad did make it here (he has been in Hawaii and couldn't make it back into Portland due to the weather) and he has chains for his vehicle. I made him chain up first thing Monday morning, my due date, in case I needed him.

Now it is Tuesday, no baby yet, we did manage to get a hold of some chains of from craigslist now, so are car is driveable. And my mom is on her way, still no baby though!

The kids and Aron went out on Tuesday to build a snowman. I could only come up with red hots to use for the snowman's face. After a while it looked like the snowman was having some serious bleeding issues!

These two pictures of Aron and Abby with the ice are from Sunday after the freezing rain. Abby said she was making shapes out of them!

A visit with Santa!!

We suprised the kids by taking them to see Santa at the mall. They were so excited when we turned the corner and they saw him. They completely and devotionally believe in Santa 100%. For the month of December they were very good kids (at least most of the time). Dalan asked for his transformer and Abigail asked for her Ariel doll with flounder, the one she can take in the bath with her. She was very specific for a 3 year old. They loved it and we got some good pictures!!

Gingerbread Houses

The kids and I had fun hanging out with our friends Chrissy, Aidan, & Madden while we attempted to decorate our Gingerbread houses. I think Chrissy did most of the work on hers, poor thing kept falling apart. Also Aidan liked eating his decorations more than he did putting them on the house. I was lucky my house came pre-assembled, Dalan didn't do much he was to interested in Aidan's toys, but Abby seemed to enjoy it. It all ended up being a little more complicated than we thought it would, but all in all it was fun!

Oh Christmas Tree, Time to Decorate

This year we went and cut our tree down at a place out in LaCenter. I brought my camera to take pictures but forgot the memory card, so no pictures. Aron worked real hard though!! This is my absolute favorite part of Christmas time!! The kids were so excited to decorate the tree. They each help put ornaments on the tree taking turns. Abigail would pretty much put her ornaments in the same are each time. Then when she went to go get another one Aron would move it to another spot on the tree to even everything out. She did this last year too, this time I think she knew that Aron was moving them, but didn't seem to mind. Last year after Christmas I bought a set of small ornaments that were the characters from Rudolph the Reindeer. She was so excited to see those and had to personally hang all of those. Her favorite ended up being the monster (can't remember the name). She was so excited to show everyone when they came over her monster on the tree. We ended up decorating the tree before church that day, so I thought I would let Abby wear her Christmas dress early, good thing too, since for the rest of the month we didn't go to church due to it being cancelled because of bad weather.

Christmas and Baby are Coming!

The kids are especially excited this year for Christmas. They really get the concept of Santa and lights and especially presents this year. To add to that excitement they know that Mom is going to have this baby soon too. They talk about presents and Santa on a daily basis. The other day Dalan told Aron that he was so excited for Christmas. And then he explained to his Dad that he will go to sleep and Mom will go to sleep, and then he will wake up and come into our room and Mom will be awake and there will be a baby, and he will say hello to his new baby sister. Oh, if only that would happen so easily! When Aron told me the story I agreed it would be much better that way, whatever happened to baby's being delivered by the stork? Gotta love the imaginations of 5 year olds!