Portland Fun

I was lucky enough to get to go to Portland for the weekend and see some family.  I left on Thursday night and met my cousin Brandy and her husband Ryan at the airport and then we waited a short time before my other cousin, Mandy's flight arrived and met us all.
We stayed at Ryan's aunts town house that was close to Brandy's house.  His aunt summer's there so the house was perfect for us to spend a couple days.  We stayed there our first night and ended up staying awake until like 2:00 in the morning talking. 

We slept in as long as we could on Friday and then we went back to Brandy's house for breakfast and then planned out our day.  We started by going to the movies and seeing "Saving Mr. Banks."  It was a really good movie and I am glad that we went. 
After the movie we went back to the town house and did the heart craft that I brought.  We each chose our paper and paints and then had fun chatting and doing our hearts.  It was so sunny while we were there, so it was so nice to open the shades and enjoy the sun while we did our craft.
After our craft we went to dinner at The Olive Garden.  It was really busy and we had to wait a long time, but we didn't mind too much since we didn't have any kids with us.
After that we headed back to the town house.  We stopped at a store on our way home and bought some finger nail polish and some crazy makeup.  Then we went wild when we got back.  We did our finger nails and toe nails and then did our makeup like we would never ever do in public.  We are such silly ladies.  We stayed up pretty late that night too, but we had fun.
Saturday we planned to go to the Chocolate Fest.  We stopped at WinCo to pick up some healthy breakfast of fruit and such.  Then we drove to downtown Portland for the Chocolate Fest.
We had a hard time finding a parking spot so we ended up parking further away from the convention center and then taking the train there. 
Chocolate Fest was a lot of fun.  There were lots of people there and vendors.  We had a lot of samples of good chocolate and bad.  Some were so bad...after tasting one I literally said "Oh yucky" right in front of the vender. 
We got about half way through the venders when we were getting a tummy ache and decided to eat some lunch.  We all had salad.  It was sad but we all got sick of chocolate before we were done seeing everyone.  But we all bought lots of chocolate and had a good time.
Then we drove back to the house and ate our left overs from the night before.  Then we hung out and watched some shows.  Ryan brought us over some ice cream with all the fixings - so good.  We really needed more sugar.
Sunday morning we got up and got dressed for church.  We packed our bags and got all our stuff and went to Brandy's.  We ended up just going to sacrament because Mandy wasn't feeling well.  Then we ate some lunch before Mandy had to go to make her flight.  While Ryan, Brandy, and Mandy went to the airport Nate, Tony's brother, came and got me and took me to their house.
It was so nice hanging out with his family and seeing their new baby, Cora.  I really can't say enough how much I liked hanging out with them.  They are such a neat family and I hope that they can move back to Utah some day soon.  I ate dinner with them and it was so yummy! After dinner and chatting Nate took me back to Brandy's where I slept that night.
I was so tired I went to bed early and was able to sleep in a little bit.  Monday I just hung out at Brandy's house.  I took a nap and we chatted lots.  Then she took me to the airport.  I flew home and my dad came and got me and dropped me off at home.  It was a nice break and I am glad that I was able to spend time with my family.

Cousins Weekend Here I Come

I am leaving later today for Portland.  My cousin, Mandy, is also flying in from Boise and we are meeting up with our other cousin, Brandy.  It should be a fun weekend of hanging out, chatting, eating, site seeing, and whatever we want to do without children (or husbands).
It is a much needed break that I am excited for.  I am a little worried about the flight because I am not feeling super great and flying generally makes me sick.  But I am going to be positive and hope for a good flight.  Luckily it isn't that long of a flight so I should be good.
Margie is helping out with the kids while Tony works and then Tony is taking care of them for the rest of the time.  I am very thankful to them for making this trip possible.  I love my cousins and definitely don't get to see them enough.  It should be a great time!

Another Year Gone By

I can't believe it is already January 10th.  Nothing too big has been happening here.  Tyler and Josh started back at school this week.  It was nice having them home for a couple weeks, but it was good to get them back on a schedule.
We had a good Christmas break.  The kids pretty much just played with all of their toys from Christmas the whole time until schools started.  It was nice seeing them enjoy their toys.  New Years was pretty low key for us.  We got some food New Years Eve and then hung out at home.  The kids went to bed as normal and Tony and I were in bed before midnight.  We are super awesome.
It has been really cold and has snowed off and on all week.  It is so pretty and I just love it.  We haven't really been playing in it with school and everything, but maybe tomorrow.  One of the things we like about when it snows is that the air quality is good and we can have a fire.  We all love having fires and it just makes the house so cozy.  Well, it should be a good year.  I look forward to all the craziness and good times!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  Can't believe it has already come and gone.  I sit here on the night of Christmas thinking about this day and feeling so blessed.  Tony and I both have such great families.  They are so generous and supportive.  It has been so nice to spend quality time with both sides of our families.  We have three great kids.  Busy, active, crazy, but great!
I can't help thinking that if my pregnancy would have stuck that I would probably have a new born baby now.  I think that my due date was like December 28th or something.  Mostly I am glad that I don't have a new baby with how busy Megan is, but a little part of me is sad.  Heavenly Father gives us so much strength to get though hard times, so I know that we would have been just fine.  It's just kind of funny how things work out.

We have been enjoying lots of family parties this past week.  It started on Saturday with the Big Steenblik Family Party.  They decided we were getting too big to have it in someone's home so they reserved a church and we had a nice lunch there.  There were a lot of people and plenty of food.  It was nice to see Tony's extended family that we don't see very often and the kids had tons of fun running around the gym with their cousins.
Then on Sunday we had the Clark Party.  We had dinner at my parents where we also did a kids gift exchange and an adult gift exchange.  It is always fun to play games where you get to steal presents from people.  We had a good turn out.  We had my whole family (minus Wendy and Teagan) plus some cousins with their families.  I love my cousins and am always trying to get more of them to move to Utah.  
The next party was last night, Christmas Eve.  It was the annual Kresser Family Party.  It was held at Tony's parents home and it was lots of fun.  We had a good amount of people come and it was nice to see them.  Since we haven't been going to the camp out the last couple years it seems like we only see some of Tony's extended family once a year, if we're lucky.  We also did a gift exchange for the kids and the adults. A good time was had by all.
After the party Tony took the kids home to put them to bed and I went to my parents house to Skype with Teagan from Japan. 
Not sure why, but they arranged for her to talk to us Christmas Eve here which is Christmas there.  The hour difference got miscalculated, so that is partly why we Skyped so late.  It was really nice to see Teagan and to chat with her for a while.  She seems to be in good spirits and is doing really good in Japan.  They even have a baptism set for this Saturday, so that is really exciting.  Julie and I were super silly talking with Teagan.  It made her laugh.  We sure do miss her, but she couldn't be doing anything better then she is doing right now.
Tony got everything all ready for Christmas morning so when I finally got home we were able to just go to bed.
Josh and Tyler came up at about 7:10 am saying, "Santa Came."  It was pretty darn cute.  They were so excited to open presents.  We made them wait to open anything until Megan woke up.  She woke at about 7:30 and the party quickly started.  They were all so excited about getting presents passed out and then taking their turn to open their gift.  At first Megan was a pretty slow unwrapper but she quickly figured out how to get to the gift quicker.  She LOVED opening gifts...and not just hers...any gift she could fine.  Adorable!
The kids all seemed to like their presents and started playing with many different ones.  We let the kids play for a couple hours and then we got dressed to go to my parents.  We ate breakfast there with my parents and Julie's family.  After we were done eating it was present time.  Grandma Kim and Papa G had a couple things to hand out.  The kids all got a gift from Grandma and one from the cousin exchange.  Then my dad had these huge blue bags that had fun "stocking" stuff in them.  Some of the stuff was for Tony and I and some was for the kids, they loved it.  My parents also gave me one of their old IPads.  It was a totally surprised.  It was very nice of them to give it to us since we are the only one of their kids without an IPad.
After we hung out there for a couple hours we decided to go to Tony's parents.  There we ate some lunch and then the kids opened their presents from Grandma Margie and one from Aunt Suzanne.  They loved their gifts and had a blast playing with their cousins.  My kids are so lucky to have so many cousins who live close to play with.  I didn't really have cousins who lived close, so I really understand how nice it is to be close and have those relationships.
After we were there for a couple hours we packed up our car and headed home.  We unloaded the mess and the kids went right to playing with their new toys.  Tony set up the new Wii and the got the new game going for the boys.  We pretty much just played and played until bed time.  We did a light dinner (since it felt like we had been eating all day) and watched a short holiday show before bed.  Megan didn't even take a nap today.  Too much fun to be had.  We feel very blessed to have been able to have this time with our family to exchange gifts and spend time together, but most importantly to remember the birth of our Savior.  I love Christmas!

Christmas Sunday Cuites

Our cute kids all ready for church on Sunday.  Tyler and Josh sang two songs in the Christmas Program.  Tyler did great and knew most of the words.  Josh...looked super cute on the stage.  He didn't want to go up, but once I mentioned cookies could be had once we got home he quickly changed his mind.
It was nice to see the kids come home with papers from their teachers about Christ's birth and how much they learned about the true meaning of Christmas.  It is going to be a fun Christmas this year.  The boys are so excited for Santa and Megan is loving opening the presents she has been given so far.  I sure love these trouble makers!

Sledding at The School

Megan on the tube.  She liked going down the hills.

Josh tubing down the hill.

Tyler super smiley after coming down the big hill and going off the jump.

Tony and Megan going down the hill on the tube.  She loved every minute.

Megan even went down the hill by herself.  She did pretty darn good for just a little one (20 months).

Tony and Megan at the end of their ride down the hill.  Too much fun.

Josh catching some air off the jump that some other kids made.

Tyler got some good air going off the jump in the tube.  The boys loved going off the jump.

Ginger Bread House

Tyler has been begging to make the ginger bread house ever since Margie gave it to us a while ago.  I told him we would do it during Christmas break, so today was the day.
We waited until Megan went down for her nap and we got started.  Josh was most excited about the candy and Tyler really wanted to decorate.  I put on the frosting and the boys did the decorating.  I ended up helping decorate, but Tyler did most of it.  Josh quit about half way into the decorating, guess he had enough of the treats.  This has been a fun tradition that we have done for the past few years and we hope to continue.  Thank Margie for giving us such a fun activity.

Four Wheeling and Sledding Fun

With all the snow we decided to go four wheeling and sledding at Grandma Kim and Papa G's house.

Megan road most of the time with Tony on the four wheeler while the boys had a wonderful time on the sled.

Tyler and Josh tipped a lot at first, but finally figured out how to lean with the turns...and then they learned that they had to lean the opposite way that dad was turning...tough lesson to learn.

They had so much fun.  Lots of snow makes it just perfect for being pulled by the four wheeler.  Really made me wish that we had one of our own at our house.  Don't know where I would put it, but would love to have one...or two.

Then Megan joined in the sledding fun.  The first couple of trips around the yard she laid down in the sled.  She sat up by the time I got the camera back out.  She really liked it until she got a face full of snow, then she was done.

Josh and Tyler laughed and had so much fun.  That is until they fell off and got a face full of snow and snow down their coats.  Something about snow down your shirt quickly turns the fun times into crying times.  They had fun coming in and playing with Grandma's and Papa's I Pads.  We sure do love playing in the snow!

Oh The Snow

Today it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.  It snowed so bad that we lost power for a while early this morning, but luckily it came back on at our house. It didn't come back at the Elementary school so Tyler and Josh both had school cancelled.  For some reason the school didn't contact me so I took all of us over to the school in the snow just to have some teacher tell me school was cancelled.  The boys were pretty excited to have no school.

After it had snowed a good six or so inches and when Tony came home I went out to shovel and then Tony got all the kids dressed and they came out and played.
Tony then helped me shovel and then we decided to blow up the tube and see if Koda could pull Tyler.
We don't have a pulling leash yet so we just put on Koda's harness and leash and told Tyler to hold on tight.

Tony just had them try in the driveway.  I think that I would have had them go in the street where the snow was all packed down.  Let's just say that Koda did not like it at all.  Tyler however thought that the short ride that he did got with Koda pulling him was a hoot.  I guess we need to invest in a pulling leash and start training Koda to pull stuff.   
After Koda tried pulling a couple times we let him free and Tyler tried sliding down the hill of snow that we had piled up from shoveling the driveway.  It didn't really work.  So we told Tyler that we would take him to the school tomorrow so he can sled down the hill there.  Maybe we'll even go to my parents to ride the four-wheelers and pull the sleds...maybe.

Breakfast With Santa #2

Tony and the kids singing Christmas carols while they waited for Santa.

Margie finally got Courtnie to sit down with the kids to see Santa.

Megan meeting Santa.  She was happy to get the candy cane.  It think it helped that Tony sat with her on a chair that was by Santa.  Megan didn't even cry, this time.

Santa, Tony, and Megan say "Cheese."

The Steenblik's with Santa.

Josh is telling Santa that he wants a candy cane for Christmas.  I don't think he understands how it's suppose to work yet.  So sweet.

Tyler and Santa.  I couldn't hear what Tyler told Santa he wanted for Christmas, I am hoping it wasn't a computer...he keeps changing what he wants for Christmas.  He told the Santa last week a yo-yo, much more doable.

All of us with Santa.  We enjoyed having the Schiess kids and Grandma and Grandpa at our Breakfast with Santa.  Grandma and Grandpa were so nice to have a sleepover the night before.  The kids LOVE sleepovers.

Tyler, Santa, Josh, Tony, and Megan.  So excited for Christmas!