Our Snowy Adventures

Yesterday morning we woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland. Knowing this might be our one chance this year to play in the snow, we decided to stay home from church and let the kids enjoy the snow.

This is a view (this morning) from our bedroom window, looking out at our neighbor's barn.

This is the big Laurel tree in our back yard. (the one that blows leaves into the pool.)

Here are some trees on the side of our back yard.

Here is a look at the front area, facing south...and the back yard towards the neighbor's fence behind us.

Before heading out, I fixed the kids a warm bowl of Cream of Wheat hot cereal.

Daddy tried making a giant snowman, but the snowball was too heavy... it was as tall as Hayden.

Dan took the boys on a sled ride in the field.

...after a while, I took Natalie and Hayden for a ride.

The boys had so much fun riding in the sled...

...but they had more fun riding in the Jeep!



Natalie and I tested the snow and then one thing led to another and soon we found ourselves in the middle of a snowball fight!

After a while, Hayden got cold so Dan stayed out with Zander and they both built a cool igloo snow fort.

Due to the snow, Natalie and I had to postpone our girl's day out, so we settled for a facial instead. Later, Natalie and Zander watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Has another week gone by aready?

I don't know how I went a whole week without blogging. I've thought about it, taken pictures to post, but never posted any of them. So here is a look back on some of what we have been doing.

A couple weekends ago, my sister Toni and I went to Ikea. Can you believe this was m first trip to the new Portland location? I was so excited to finally have an Ikea nearby, but it took me a long time to get there. Anyway, I bought a few storage things for the kids. These photos show the kids helping Dan assemble a table for Natalie's dollhouse... "So easy even a caveman can do it!" The table was perfect and it has a shelf to store all the doll furniture too (not bad for $30!) I also bought a shelf for Zander and Hayden's room, but we still need to buy some hardware to mount it on the wall.

Toni and I also went to Fubonn (Asian Market) not far from her house and I stocked up on some yummy food. (Curry sauce, sweet chili sauce, ramen noodles w/out that packet of salty stuff, sticky rice and fun snacks for the kids.) The prices are so much lower than what you can get at the chain grocery stores.

Late last week Toni informed me that all the winter things at Pennies (where she works) was on 70% off clearance (plus her discount on top of that)...so I went in ...twice— to stock up! The selection of 7 year old girls clothes wasn't very good, but I did manage to find this cute outfit. The leather jacket is too big really, but it was marked down from $60 to $6.99 and I couldn't pass it up. (we just roll up the sleeves). I don't recall how much the blouse was, but the shoes were $1.50!!! I also got a winter coat for Zander to wear next year, and a bunch of sweaters as well. Hayden got a new pair of pjs too.

Last Saturday, the kids and I went to my brother Aaron's house because Toni and Chucky were cooking up one of their yummy Thai feasts. Andrea was there too and I got to rock Brandon to sleep! Earlier that day I attended a yearbook workshop in SW Portland (I'm an advisor on Natalie's school yearbook) so I was pretty tired (mostly from the stressful drive over) and gladly accepted the invitation to have someone else cook for us!

Natalie was snacking on a spring roll before dinner was ready and lost her first top/front tooth. It has been wiggly since before Christmas, so I was relieved for it to finally come out. Now Natalie likes telling people she has a "window in her mouth" just like the rabbit in her book "Little rabbit's loose tooth."

Last week while talking on the phone, I got this strong urge to paint the walls in the hallway downstairs. I think I am really struggling with seasonal depression (no sun, cold house, cabin fever etc), so I wanted to do something to brighten up the place. Our home is great in the spring and summer, but can be a bit dark in the winter. Dan and I are planning to replace the front door with one that has a much bigger window to let more natural light in. As it is, I have to have the hall light on all the time for it to feel bright enough. We are also going to replace the dark green linoleum tiles with tiles in a lighter shade...but until all that gets started, I decided to paint the walls a lighter shade of brown; more of a taupe color. We also hope to get an entry table to hang a mirror above to reflect more light around.

Last night after below freezing temperatures made our bed too cold to sleep in, we decided to move it away from the drafty windows and over to a different wall. It made all the difference in the world! The night before I had 4 blankets on, socks, slippers, a sweatshirt and another smaller blanket around my neck and it was still hard to get warm. I told Dan I think there are things in the refrigerator that are warmer than I am!!! We are still going to apply a window film to help save on our energy bill.


Natalie's Science fair was last night and we got to walk around and see what other kids put together. It is optional to participate in the Science fair, but she really wanted to, so we did a little experiment with water density using maple syrup, colored water and cooking oil. We also learned that different objects float in different fluids depending on the density of the object. She was nervous to talk to the principal about her experiment, but afterwards she was telling Zander how neat it was to get to talk to him. (Then Zander was cute and asked me if we were going to invite him over for dinner sometime!)

So that brings me to today...and what's for dinner?

We're having a roast compliments of my handy-dandy crock pot. Hope you are all doing great and staying warm. On our trip to get groceries in Troutdale yesterday (as I was being blown around) I was thinking about how extremely thankful I was not to have to live through another icy cold, windy Troutdale winter...garbage cans blown over, garbage blown and stuck to the fences etc.

Well, that's all for now...happy Thursday!

AWANAS on Sunday night

As a kid I was in the Awana program beginning in the third grade. Because I started when I was older, I wasn't in the Sparks group that Natalie is in, but I remember my younger siblings in that group. I was hoping to get our kids involved, but our church doesn't have an Awanas program, so I was thrilled to see a local church advertise it and they are just about 5-10 minutes from us.

At a typical Awanas night, the kids have game time, handbook time and then a singing and awards time. Last Sunday was parents night, so we got to go hang out with the the kids. Dan went with Zander to his preschool class and I went with Natalie. The parents even got to run in a few of the relays. We also got to use our kids as bowling balls (on scooters) to try and knock down a bowling pin. It was a lot of fun!

Here is Natalie waiting to run the relay.

Go Natalie, Go...she ran in first!

Every week the kids work hard to pass sections in their handbook. Sometimes they recite Bible verses. This week Natalie was learning about how to treat the American flag with respect. She had to memorise a rule about not letting it touch the ground and then draw a picture of the American flag. For each section they pass, they earn a jewel on their pin. Here is Natalie's leader pinning on her crown with her newest jewel.

Here is her pin with the first green jewel added.

Natalie and Sarah are inseparable...Every Sunday we eat dinner with our friends the Mickles...sometimes at our house, other times at their house. We take turns carpooling the kids to and from Awanas, then while the kids are off at Awanas, we play games or watch basketball and chat. It works out really well.

Going Bananas!

Recently we have been the recipient of lots and lots of bananas...see for yourself:

Dan's brother Dylan and sister-in-law Rebekah have generously given us some of their goodies from the stash of food they get from Natures/Wild Oats/Whole Foods. The food is generally fine, but perhaps a bit ripe or just past the expiration date.

So what does one do with all those bananas?

I have been making banana bread like there is no tomorrow!!! We have been making lots of smoothies (we all love that!)...and just last week I made these oat, date bran muffins and added bananas to them. They are sweetened with molasses instead of sugar which gives them a dark color. I have been eating these muffins for breakfast every morning and they're very tasty!


I was getting tired of banana bread, so I made a banana cake with homemade cream cheese frosting!

This weekend we got another "shipment" of food:

This time there was lots of milk. I froze some of it, but with three kids there's no doubt we will use this up. There was even chocolate soy milk!!! We also got cottage cheese, soup and apple sauce.

Thanks to Dylan and Rebekah, we have a freezer full of whole grain, very healthy bread and are never in short supply of bagels. Just after Christmas, we got pastries and pie! (I've been good and let the kids and Dan take care of those items!)

We've also been able to help some of our friends out. One family in particular is struggling financially. When we found this out, we loaded them up too! God has really blessed us with all this food for free and it has dramatically cut down our grocery bill.

Produce: more bananas, apples, potatos and avacados. I bet this week we will be having smoothies, mashed potatoes, guacamole and applesauce.

This past Sunday, I needed to use up some apples, so I made homemade applesauce with the sieve/strainer thingy I remember my mom using. After cooking the apples for 30 minutes or so, I just run them through until all that's left in the strainer are the seeds and skin. Looky a quart of applesauce with no added sugar or preservatives...another great benefit to all this food it that it's all organic! A couple weeks ago I made applesauce and added pears... it turned out amazing!