'Twas 6 Days After Christmas...

And I finally got to my Christmas recap.  It was a really busy, and sickly (for me), Christmas season around here.  I started off the month with a trip to Portland to visit Nanette and less than two weeks after I got back, we threw a Christmas party at our house.  It was pretty much all Rob's friends from work that we invited and a lot of them showed up.  It was open house style with lots of food and drinks and I was so busy, that I didn't even get a picture of the house during the party.  You would just see wall-to-wall people though if I had gotten the chance.  It was a good time and I'd like to do it again next year but Rob was so worn out, he said we could do it in about 3 years.  We'll see.  I did a lot of decorating around the house and I have two favorite projects.  The first one I didn't get a picture of either.  I am bad about that.  I got the inspiration from Pinterest to do an advent calendar out of a over-the-door shoe organizer.

Source: modernparentsmessykids.com via Shelby on Pinterest

This one is a lot cuter than mine.  I will have to see if I can spruce mine up for next year and make it look like this one.  The other thing I did that I loved so much came from another pin.  I got so many compliments at the party on it too, which was great.  On our gallery wall, I swapped out the photos I could change with all our different Christmas card photos we've taken over the years (that part was my idea) and then the ones that I couldn't change, I just wrapped them up to look like giant Christmas gifts.

It was kind of a lot of work and definitely took a lot of wrapping paper and ribbon, but the result was totally worth it.  The whole house was totally decked out because I love to decorate and with the party I had a good excuse to go nuts but these were my two favorite things.  And we took everything down this weekend so that is all the photos I have of that.

We had a lot of fun on Christmas morning.  Santa brought Rex a "space station" that he was asking for (actually it is a space shuttle and launch tower) and Wyatt got a V-Reader so he will stop stealing his brother's all the time.  At least that is what I was hoping for and now we have two so there are a lot less fights over that toy.  They got all kinds of things from us and family and friends- pretend camping gear, Mobigo games, boats and trucks of all kinds, books, clothes, puzzles, play food and cooking stuff and more that I can't remember right now.  Because it was a LOT.  Here are some photos from that morning.









I have to point out the matching Christmas elf pajamas.  This is the one time of the whole year when I insist on dressing them the same and I will keep doing it as long as I can get away with it- they are so adorable!!

Cooking With What You Have

Rob and I were pretty proud of ourselves tonight when it came to making dinner.  We made dinner using only what we could find around the house.  The menu planning was all Rob- he is really good at figuring out what to make with what we already have.  I have a sinus infection and I wasn't planning on assisting with any of it.  So Rob decided to make cornbread muffins, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and sort of a chicken a la king dish that he was going to use up a bunch of our turkey lunchmeat with instead of chicken.  When he called me out to help, he already had the cornbread made, the carrots were boiling and so were the potatoes.  I am the mashed potato queen though so he asked me if I could check if they were done and finish them up.  He also had the cream cheese and butter sitting out so that I could make them Pioneer Woman fatty-fat-fat style.  Don't get me wrong- they are the most delicious mashed potatoes I have ever had.  I just usually only make them that way for Thanksgiving.  As I was taking care of the potatoes, I watched Rob starting to make the gravy for the turkey a la king.  And I got concerned.  Making a roux or gravy is about one of the hardest things to make in the kitchen and he was going about it all wrong.  I am no expert but I have had some success with making a roux before (thanks mom and dad for the lesson!) so I jumped in and took over.  I also told him he did not have "gravy clearance" which we both laughed really hard about.  He was just dumping the flour right into the melted butter and onions and was about to add the broth before I stopped him.  The flour and butter have to be stirred constantly and cooked together for quite a while to make sure you get the gritty, raw flour taste out of there.  Anyhow, it turned out really good and I think we will have to add that recipe into the mix for future meals.  Like Rob said, "It's like really, really good cafeteria food."  I got a picture of what was left of it.



Not that I am enjoying the sinus infection at all, but it is kind of nice to have Rob take over the menu planning for a while- he does such a great job!

A White Christmas for 2012

Last year, we didn't get hardly any snow and this year has been off to a pretty slow start too.  Until last night that is.  I'm not sure how much we did get- I usually measure by the amount I see piled up on things like fences and outdoor toys so let's say we got about this much.



If I had to guess, I'd say we got around 8 inches of snow last night.  That's a pretty significant amount of snow for us.  The boys were so anxious to go out and play in it this morning; it was all they talked about from the moment they got up.  I was dreading it because I knew what would happen- so here it is.

Mommy opens the door and they rush out-



Wyatt's boots get "dirty" from the snow and he wants right back in-



Wyatt decides to watch us play from inside the house where he can stay clean and dry-



Rex plays in the snow with me and tries to throw snowballs at me-



Then he makes a snow angel-



Then I make one-



And then I decided we were both too wet and cold and needed to go inside.  I chased Rex around for a while and finally got him back in the house where we got into some warm and dry clothes.  It was a lot of fun though while we were out there.  Rex was asking all day to go back out but I had enough for one day.  I took a few pictures of our street from the front porch- I was all warm and dry again and didn't want to venture too far out so this was the best I could do.





It looks so beautiful but it is a little scary out there still so we didn't go out anywhere today.  Rex's school was canceled so that was good.  Rob took the bus to work so he didn't have to worry about driving.  Rex's last day of school before Christmas break is tomorrow and they are having a party so we'll have to go out for that but it should be a lot better by then.  I'm so happy to have all the snow in time for Christmas!

Lowering the Weirdness Level in Portland

I said goodbye to my husband and babies last Thursday morning to catch a taxi, shuttle and two airplanes to go visit Nanette and her family in Portland, Oregon.  It was the first time I had been away from the boys for more than just a couple of hours so it was a big deal.  I cried a little here and there throughout the day I left but was also looking forward to some me-time.  Something I have only had very small doses of for the last 4.5 years.  So it was a fun, but kind of difficult, time for me all wrapped into one.  Anyhow, moving on...

I noticed even at the airport gate in Chicago that if you are a guy from Portland, you probably are sporting one of these things- a beard or skinny cords.  If you don't have either, you better at least have a cardigan sweater on to make up for it.  I hate going places and being obvious that I am a tourist.  I have very few pictures of my trip, in fact, just because of that reason.  I think though that there was no way to hide it in Portland.  The motto is "Keep Portland Weird"- don't believe me?



It is painted on the building right there by Voodoo Donuts.  I think I'm pretty normal and not-weird so I'm sure the weirdness level dipped a bit over the weekend.  Sorry Portland.  Speaking of Voodoo Donuts, it is a must in Portland so we went there for breakfast Friday morning.  I love donuts so it wasn't hard to convince me.  I decided to step out a little and try something different.  Now they have a lot of crazy donuts so maybe it wasn't so different but I got the "fritter of the day" which turned out to be strawberry-pineapple-banana with sprinkles on top.



It was good but a little too much sugar for my breakfast.  I ate half and threw the rest away before I gave myself a stomachache.  From there, we cruised over to Powell's City of Books where I loaded up with books for the boys for Christmas presents.  We shopped around downtown a little more and then headed over to the Clackamas Town Center.  I had requested a visit to one of the H&M stores and the mall provided that along with lunch and a showing of Silver Linings Playbook.  The movie was great and I was just happy to see any movie in a theater because that rarely happens these days. I picked up some Molasses Chips for Rob at See's Candy, bought the boys some more clothes at a super-duper sale at Gymboree and then we headed back to Nanette's place.   Brent picked up dinner for us at Killer Burger which was fantastic.  Such a good burger.  Thursday night's dinner was also a big winner- we went to Hopworks and the soft pretzel sticks were amazing.  I felt like I didn't really get the whole Portland experience since it is beer-heaven and I don't like beer.  In fact, no one ordered beer at Hopworks.  Lucky they didn't kick us out.

On Saturday we went to the Little T Bakery for some breakfast.  Like everywhere else they took me, this place had fantastic food.  We did a little shopping in the Sellwood area and then were headed to the Japanese Garden when we got distracted by the a food cart pod downtown.  It was lunchtime, after all.  I got distracted by this one, in particular.



Mmm, Cuban food.  I ordered the pork box and it was great.  The pork, the maduros, the black beans and rice- all of it was delicious.  As we were all getting our food from the various carts, it started to rain.  No one brought an umbrella (I was advised not to use one as to avoid looking like a tourist and being snickered at) so we decided to head back to their house where we all took naps.  We hung out there for a while before heading over to Dove Vivi for pizza.  Once again, delicious food.  We all spent some more time at home hanging out before I headed to bed fairly early since I had an early flight the next morning.

Now, about my flights home.  What I had booked was terrible.  I was using a mileage award for the ticket and my choices were poor.  I was supposed to fly Portland-Seattle-Chicago-Des Moines with about 4 hour layovers.  Yikes.  I tried on the phone to get the direct Portland-Chicago flight so I could completely skip Seattle but had no luck.  When I got to the ticket counter, "Sure!  There's room on that flight."  So I got to Chicago way ahead of schedule.  It looked like I would spend 9 hours there before my flight to Des Moines took off.  I figured I would spend $30-40 for a rental car and just drive home from O'Hare.  This was where my plan started to unravel.  I never checked the cost of the rental car until I got to Chicago and then realized it was going to be $140 for a car.  Uh oh.  As I'm talking to Rob on the phone about this, I realize there are 3 flights bound for Des Moines, all leaving at 2:00.  It was 1:40.  I hang up with Rob and run from the L gates all the way over to the G gates to see if I can get on one of the planes.  As it turned out, Des Moines was foggy all morning and no flights had been able to get in there yet.  Bad for everyone else, fantastic for me.  I had to pay a small fee but I was able to get on a flight that left at 2:20.  Woohoo!!  Rob and the boys picked me up at the airport and I made it to my house about 9 hours before I thought I would.  My advice is that if you want to change a flight, keep asking because someone just might tell you yes.  And even more miraculously, my bag made it to Des Moines ahead of me and was waiting at the baggage claim counter.  I wasn't due in until 11:35 that night so I have no idea why that bag was there- it shouldn't have been, but it was.  Everything just turned out perfect.

My boys didn't get more than about 4 feet away from me once we were home, which I loved.  It was a great trip but I was thankful to be home again and see my husband and my boys.