A PT Christmas

All of us around the finished Gingerbread House

Gma & Gpa PT with Carson




All the kids with Great Grandpa Cooper

The Nativity

What's wrong with this picture?

Who organized this Nativity scene?

A North Christmas

The white boards are a hit!

Gma & Gpa North with the kids

Four Generations - Bob Gray, Carol North, Christine Cooper... & kids

The Nutcracker

We had a lovely time at the PNB's Nutcracker on Saturday. Emily and Abby did a fantastic job of listening and watching for the entire production. Here are some pics:

And since we've no place to go...

Of course there are places we could go, and places I'm sure we would go... But it is really nice to be forced to just stay put for a couple of days. For the record, we are completely in favor of the mandatory slow-down caused by snow in the PNW. Forget education. Forget productivity. Cancel whatever was supposed to be happening. Life is so much more than work and errands! The snow brings such unexpected, unusual beauty. (Aside from if you're on the roads trying to get somewhere when it all starts). If I blog again in a few days and the title is, "Going stir crazy," then you'll know we've had our fill. But in the meantime, we're giddy for snowdays!

Chillin' on the deck

Sledding with neighbor kids in the cul de sac

Eating snow is a priority activity in our family.

Em and Daddy

Abby buried in snow

Our mini snowman on his day of creation - Fri. Dec. 19

Emily says, "We need some WET snow. Not this dry stuff!" Some day when she's a fabulous skier, she'll realize how wrong it is to wish for wet snow.)

The mini snow-man this morning (Sunday Dec. 21). I regret to report he was buried in fresh snow, and has since been beheaded and entombed in pieces.

Gone for the winter already

Sleep Quotes

If you're in the last few months of pregnancy (or can remember them), or the first few months of parenting a new baby, you might be able to relate to our recent conversation around sleep quotes.

Quote: Sleep is so overrated.
Response: Wrong.

Quote: Never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep.
Response: Right. Got it. I promise, I won't.

Quote: Early to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy, & wise (or: 'till you make enough money to do otherwise).
Response: Whatever...money is not the point here. SLEEP is.

Quote: You've made your bed, now you'll have to lie in it.
Response: Really? I must? Okay, but how long can I stay there?

Taking Route 66

The world of Cars (the Disney movie) has overtaken much of our lives, or perhaps just our imaginations. It keeps things very fun... you have to be on your toes to twist everyday things into the world of a little blue Porsche named Sally. To let you in on what that's like, Abby is going to dictate this blog entry (at least to begin with ~ until she loses interest and I polish it off quickly and move on!). Oh, and just to clarify, we did watch the rest of the movie, and for whatever reason, Abby now likes to pretend she's Sally, as opposed to Lightning McQueen (that's usually my assignment these days).

I love to drive! I just so much love to drive. I love being a car. My name is Sally and my name used to be Abby. I like to wash my front wheels and I like to go to the car wash. I do not ever want to get rusty. But if I get a little rusty, I'll go to the car wash. I'm really fast when I drive on my back wheels. Do you want to watch me? I sometimes put socks and shoes on my back tires to keep them warm. When mom calls me Abby and I say, "No. You called me Abby; my name is Sally." My friend Mater loves to drive backwards. We all love to take drives in Mac, my friend Lightning's big truck. Lightning likes to say, "Cachow!" I sleep in my own special garage every night. I also run the Cozy Cone motel.

Well, she did most of that on her own :) If you aren't familiar with Radiator Springs and the world of Cars, you should borrow it from the library. It's quite cute. And plus, then you'll know what to say next time you're with Abby - - I mean, Sally.

Tree Expotitions

"Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything."

By far the best 'Big Boots Adventure' we ever had while tree-hunting was 2 years ago with Lisa and Mike up at their property just past Snoqualmie Pass. Here are Mike and Craig cutting down one of the trees.

Here's the Ranger about 20 minutes later - - in a ditch with three beautiful Christmas trees tied to the top. Trust me, it took much more than good Big Boots to get out of that mess!


This year we much less adventursomely, yet still with great excitement, hit a tree farm in Maple Valley. It was a perfect foggy day (if you can't have snow, at least fog is nice) and the kids all had a grand time selecting the perfect tree. Okay, Carson really just rode around happily in the backpack and was agreeable to whichever tree we all liked. Here's our self-portrait prior to taking the saw to Elizabeth (that's what the girls decided to name the tree, per Abby's brainstorm about 30 seconds after loading up the van to head home with the tree on top... so Elizabeth she is).

In A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, chapter VIII, "In Which Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition to the North Pole," Christopher Robin and Pooh carry on their conversation about taking an Adventure:
Christopher Robin: "We are all going on an Expedition"
"Going on an Expotition?" said Pooh eagerly. "I don't think I've ever been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?"
"We're going to discover the North Pole."
"Oh! I see," said Pooh. "Are bears any good at discovering it?"
"Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of you. It's an Expedition. That's what an Expedition means. A long line of everybody..."

According to Christopher Robin's definition and this picture taken by Craig, I guess our fun last Saturday in Chehalis helping the Norths find their tree also qualified as an Expedition :)

Thankfulness

Well, I've been in the unblogging world (Craig says, "you mean the real world?") for a couple of weeks now, and as a result haven't even taken the chance to report about Thanksgiving. It all began at about 1:00 AM with a call to the pediatrician's office regarding Carson's cold/breathing rate. The nurse we spoke with recommended we head to a hospital, and so Thanksgiving began a little too early for us (and for my parents, who came down to sleep in our house for a couple of hours). But all's well that end's well, and we returned home by 4:30ish and slept soundly for a few hours :) Carson is doing great now, after the help of a nebulizer (for those who are familiar, it was RSV). We are thankful for good medical care and for his returned good health!

Once the day got under way, we had a fabulous time. My parents (who were the head chefs), and Brian and Gwen and their family were all here. We decided it was the first major holiday our kids have had cousins around for, and it was a fabulous hit. What could be better than playing with cousins all day long on a holiday?!

Aside from delicious pies, the day was also topped off with the arrival of 8 more adult family members who popped in for dessert (and brought much of it with them). So I go to have my play-all-day-on-holidays-cousins around for a bit, too. It was the perfect end to our day of Thankfulness :) Ahhh.... doesn't it just make your heart tingle with warmth to be surrounded by so many loved ones?

In the busy-ness of the day, however, I neglected to take ANY pictures. Silly me. So, above is a picture of our Thanksgiving table surrounded by Emily and Abby's stuffies, who dined there together for a couple of days following Thanksgiving.

Reading with grandpa

Carson visited Gma and Gpa's house while his sisters were at gymnastics on Wednesday. You can see that he must have been a great help with Grandpa Brad's crossword puzzle :)

The things we hear

I jotted down a few things that our girls have said lately because they just struck me as cute. Hope you get a kick out of them, too.

While running an errand in the van yesterday, Abby came out of her usual peaceful silence (it's sometimes hard for her to get a word in edgewise) to state, "Some people call me Abby, but my real name is Lightning McQueen." Then she proceeded to insist that we refer to her as Lightning for much of the day. (Yes, we saw the movie - or I should say, the first 15 minutes of the movie, a week ago or so.)

While we were using the electric stand mixer to beat frosting (which had to be mixed for 7 minutes) on Tuesday, Abby said (in a loud voice so as to rise above the mixer), "Mom, that mixer is so loud, it's yelling at me!"

Then, at dinner last night, Emily said the blessing: "Dear Lord, Thank you for this day. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my huge imagination. Thank you for this food. And thank you for everything in my whole life. Amen."

If the pajamas fit, wear 'em

So we bought these snowman pjs for Carson to wear at Christmas. But I'm afraid they won't fit by then, so he's wearing them now. Tonight was their debut. Apparently Carter's sizing label of "6 month" actually means, "put your child into these clothes before they turn this age, or he'll never wear them."

These 3 pics of Carson were all taken this evening. Oh, and can you locate the place on Craig's head where 5 stitches were just removed? (Blast that kitchen cupboard!)

Making wreaths

Over the weekend we visited the Washington Arboretum. We were there near dusk, so didn't have as much time as we wanted, but nonetheless were treated to a beautiful array of colors and shapes. Because a breeze picked up while we were there, the sound of falling leaves was an added bonus to our quick arboretum adventure. The girls had a great time gathering leaves for some not-yet-determined art project.

Then, on Monday while we were dinking around here getting ready for kindergarten, the idea struck to make leaf wreaths. We grabbed some cardboard from the recycle bin, cut out our frisbee shapes (per Emily) and hot-glued leaves all over. Despite one brush with a baby's unforgiving grip (it's tricky being the foreman for art projects with a baby riding in a front-pack!), they turned out pretty cute.

Fall 2008

Emily ready for her first day of kindergarten

Visting the aquarium

The pumpkin patch

Carving pumpkins with Gma & Gpa PT

One of our growing pumpkins :)

Pressing apple cider at Grampy's house

Halloween night

Summer 2008

Fun at Lake Coeur d'Alene

Abby's 3rd Birthday