Multnomah Falls

While we were visiting Wes's parents, we were able to go to Multnomah Falls. It's a beautiful waterfall(or 2?) in Oregon. As most of you know, Washington and Oregon had just recently gotten record amounts of snow, etc, and the views were just spectacular. Here is the view across from the falls: A photo that does not do the falls justice. My lens kept fogging up and getting misty because we were so close to the falls and it was soo cold outside. Truly stunning, nonetheless.

I honestly didn't realize that I was afraid of heights until Wes was carrying Liam on his shoulders and we were on that bridge up top. I was very nervous, especially when Ben leaned back to take a few photos. Luckily, we all survived!Us on the upper bridge. It was really hard to get a good shot.
The trek up to the bridge across the two falls was packed snow and slush that was very, very slick. It took us a while to get safely up there--note to self, Uggs are comfy and cute, but not practical for anything slippery. ZERO traction.

Down was worse than up. Some people were just sliding down!
One of my new favorite photos.

Liam decided he was going to ham it up, so I got quite a cute pictures of my boy-- let's face it though, what picture of my child is not cute?

Last of the Reno Christmas Fun!

We had everyone over for Christmas brunch on Christmas morning. We had a great day full of yummy food (thanks, Shaawn, for cooking and everyone who brought yummy things to eat!), playing games and playing Wii. Here are some photos from our morning/afternoon.

WHITE Christmas!
Food time!

Izzy was trying to find Izzy with his Diego flashlight.

Albus trying to eat Terry's new shoe.

Liam in his cool new hat and jacket.

Loving Cousins

Santa Really Spoiled Us This Year

Santa truly was good to us this year. A few weeks before Christmas, a woman at Wes's work asked him if he would like to buy a raffle ticket to raise money for a local child who needs a heart transplant. Wes said "Sure" and bought a $5 raffle ticket, knowing every little bit helps when it comes to those types of things. The night before finals, I was studying in the living room with a friend and I hear Wes yell out a "Whoo!!" I run in to see what it was and he was on the phone with someone saying we won the raffle grand prize: A Nintendo Wii and Wii Play with an extra controller! We were so excited. I then began to think that we should donate it back to the child and talked to Wes about it. Come to find out, the reason they chose the Wii to raffle was because it is the child's favorite game that he has and he wanted to say "Thank You" by offering someone who chose to help him the same fun. That made me feel better. I saved it for Christmas morning so it would be extra special. We really do feel like Santa brought it to us.Everyone, even Grandpa Great enjoyed playing the Wii on Christmas day.

Liam really loves it and always wants to play when everyone else is playing. Giving him our white remote to appease him and let him pretend he is playing no longer works. He figured out the difference. Aunt Pam found a candy tin in the shape of a Wii controller. So we weighted it down and taped it together and now he has fun the whole time we're all playing. Great idea, Aunt Pam!

If you are debating about whether or not you'd like to buy a Wii, it's definitely worth it. I'm fairly anti-video game, but we've had a ton of fun with our Wii so far and we still have just basic games. Highly recommended!

Infamous Cookie Decorating

Every year for as long as I can remember, we have decorated sugar cookies. There is no question whether or not it will happen, even if it's at the very last minute. This year was no exception. Liam LOVED putting sprinkles on the cookies and eating them and Izzy enjoyed her first taste of frosting.
Here she is excited about her first cookie decorating experience!

Liam pouring on the sprinkles.His finished headless polar bear. I think more sprinkles made it on the plate.

Izzy frosting her beautiful snowman.And getting a sink bath afterward.Papa even joining in on the fun post-hunting. He wrote the names of all the dogs on the cookies.
Papa's masterpieces.

Christmas Concert

Wes has been lucky enough to have a local high school band teacher be a member of our ward, so he's been able to voluteer and do some practicum hours for school with him. He's loved helping out with the jazz band, etc, and was able to perform with them for their holiday concert. It's great that he's getting his foot in the door with music programs and he's keeping up his music skills. Plus, he has a lot of fun, too.

Pre-Christmas Party!

The weekend before Christmas we went to Nana and Papa's house and had our big Christmas dinner celebration. Liam and Izzy had a great time. Here are some more shots from our little photo shoot in their Christmas outfits. How sweet are her little tights and shoes?

Izzy doesn't really like food, so everyone, especially her mommy, was thrilled when she loved spinach dip so much! She went crazy!

The guys went duck hunting that morning. They had a good time and got a few birds!

Wes decided he wanted to throw one of his ducks in the deep fryer. He says it was delicious. I'll take his word for it.
Here are some traditional Christmas dinner shots in our Cracker Hats.

Mom and Dad Heather and Shaawn.

Me and My Sweetie.

Pam and Bill.

Ronnie and Pam.
G.G. and Grandpa-GreatLarry, Miranda and CourtneyThe kids were so cute eating together.

Dinner time.

After dinner fun--playing with the Dora Memory Game from Nana and Papa
Daddy teaching him to play.Izzy inspecting the presents.
Courtney and Miranda doing the dishes so lovingly while listening to tunes. Multi-taskers

We had a wonderful time and a scrumptious dinner!

I'm getting caught up, finally! Watch for lots more posts in the coming days!

Christmas Crafts

As most people know, I love crafts. We did crafts in 4-H as kids and it has definitely carried through to adulthood. This year, we made most of our Christmas gifts and had a lot of fun doing it.

My first project was the PJ cans that I made with my friend Erica. We were originally just making Christmas cans for pajamas, but it evolved into making them for friends, nieces, teachers, etc, and we found other uses for the cans besides for PJs. We actually will be doing a phase two of the can project in the next week or so, so stay tuned. Here are all of our big cans mostly finished. The small can underneath Isabelle's is one that Erica made for her kids' teachers. Erica did a wonderful post about the project and what it turned into, so you can click this link to read her post: http://jeffamily.blogspot.com/2009/01/cans-cans-and-more-cans.htmlI had been feeling a little bit guilty during finals and end of the semester projects, so one night I decided that we needed a fun activity to do as a family. I looked online for some Christmas projects and came up with salt dough ornaments. We had a blast doing them and they doubled as gifts. Liam did a great job rolling out the dough. He loved to cut the shapes as well.He also liked to pretend that the spatulas were swords or magic wands as well.I can't believe I slacked so badly on picture taking, but I didn't even get a photo of the finished products, painted and all. :( They did turn out very cute though. Liam wanted to make them for each of his daycare friends. He even picked out which one for which child. So thoughtful. You can see them a bit in this picture, fresh from the oven. Liam decided to make a bridge with all of our chairs when he got bored with the activity.

I also wanted to make something to put with another little project I was doing, so I decided to give the cinnamon applesauce ornaments a try. They turned out great and smelled sooooo good. I think I'll definitely do these again. Wes made me do a "Martha Stewart" pose to look like I can actually bake or cook. Deceiving, isn't it? Another project that I did, was bathroom towels. With the help of my sister, I cut fabric out and sewed them onto towels and added a ribbon and button. They came out really cute, not exactly functional, but really decorative and cute nonetheless. Here are a few examples. I was sewing buttons on until Christmas Eve, but it was a lot of fun!

I also did one more project that turned out wonderfully, but didn't take pictures of it (I know, Erica, serious slacker, right?). I made 4 more memo boards like I did for Liam's room(see http://whstephenson.blogspot.com/2008/11/busy-day-off.html to see Liam's.) I may have to get a picture of my sister's and post it.

I had so much fun making Christmas crafts this year that I'm already on the hunt for more to make for next year. If anyone sees any cute ideas, let me know!