What we've been up to...

Finally getting our Christmas tree. Turns out it is hard when it is ALWAYS raining and it gets dark at 4pm. Ended up getting it from a family farm. They came out of their house just to let us pick one on a week night (most here are only open Saturday, Sunday and it's almost always raining those days).

The Tree

And catching the ladybugs that are flying out of our tree.

Decorating the tree...

And finally it feels like Christmas! I have a love hate relationship with trees, love the smell but hate the needles!

And this is a good story. Brady's Christmas gift arrived yesterday. I tried hard to keep it a secret. As soon as he got home Ella ran up to him and said, "Hey Daddy, Mom doesn't want me to tell you this but we got you goggles for Christmas!" She was so excited she couldn't contain herself apparently. Guess I didn't try hard enough. So sure enough since Brady was going skiing this evening after work he asked to receive them early. Oh well! Carter has learned that if he wants to reach something he just has to get a stool. Ella's play-doh ended up in his mouth of course. Not sure what to do with this naughty kid!

And this is Ella practicing to be a hair dresser. She put this in my hair and I had to leave it in until Brady got home to remove it. She did do a wonderful job however, not sure how she even did it!

Christmas time!

Christmas time is here and we are loving it. Ella is quite into it this year, and we have been having fun getting all decorated. The inside is decorated (minus the tree), now we just need the outside and the tree this weekend. The count down for Santa begins! P.S. My sister in law and I went Black Friday shopping this year and I am nearly done with shopping. About 2 more gifts to buy and then we are done! I am excited to be finished, yet have to wait a LONG time to give the kids these presents I know they will love. That's hard for me! Hope you all are having a great holiday season so far!

Simply Uncontrollable

Carter is quite the little sweetheart when he wants to be. He snuggles and kisses and hugs all day long. I am beginning to see the major difference between boys and girls (some of you are laughing at me right now I know). Ella is such a little preteen already and plays mind games with me daily. That is exhausting. What I didn't know is that Carter would be uncontrollable. I like to say all of this comes from Brady and of course Brady likes to say it comes from my side (sorry Darren he blames you!). He is into everything of course, that is the age. He also likes to hit, bite, scratch, pinch...you name it and he does it. If we get mad at him for doing it, he laughs at us! I swear that comes from Brady. I hear he used to make jokes to get out of trouble...seems like there is some relation there if you ask me! In some ways I think it is harder having the boy second. He has someone to beat! Poor Ella was laying on the floor quietly watching a show when Carter took a plastic toy doll house (her strawberry shortcake one) and threw it at her head. Below you will see the result on the poor girls left eye. She is so patient at putting up with him and very rarely lashes out at him. Guess we will see how long that lasts! At this point, I feel I am not in control of my own child. He laughs at me when I get mad at him...that isn't working. I can put him on my lap for a time out, it seems to work, but I feel a bit bad holding him down. He is obviously too little to put him on his own time out, so that is out. I used to swat Ella's hand lightly at this age and that worked with her lovely. With him being a hitter I don't want to teach him to keep doing that so that is out as well. Anyone have any advice for me on this kid? I wish Supernanny would do a show about a kid this age and how to discipline them! Haha. They are always older and can do timeouts, but what about when they aren't old enough for that yet? Come on Supernanny!

My kids received this from a cable lady that left it here on accident. I called and she never came to pick it up. They LOVE this toy. They walk around doing party light (the flashing one) all day!

And no he doesn't ALWAYS have his binki in his mouth, but it has been a lot more since I hurt my back. Guess it has been his coping. We will work on that after I am healed.

My poor victim. =(

Oh how we missed you, Auntie Cass!

My sister came for a visit this weekend! We dropped her off at the airport today and were very sad to see her go. Ella asked if she could just move in with us here. She sure misses her, as do the rest of us! We didn't do much due to the constant rain and Cassidy feeling slightly under the weather, but we had fun just hanging out. Next time we will do more, so come back soon!

The two buds reunited.

We made a few beanies...

Hahaha nice sailor hat Cass!

I love my sister! =)

Bye Auntie Cass, we miss you!

Somebody's "Almost" over the hill

Brady is feeling exceptionally old all of a sudden. He turned 29 on Saturday and Ella helped me bake a cake for him. We had enchiladas for dinner (at his request), red velvet cake (my idea because I know he likes it) and then went to Chuck E Cheese for a bit (bet you can't guess who's idea that was!) I think Brady had a fun day despite him feeling old. =)

Very into Clifford these days.

VERY into throwing things these days.

This was his favorite game. It was a video game driving a boat. He is a boy for sure.

Ella was very proud of her daddy for blowing out his candles. =)

The move and Halloween!

Well we were moving over Halloween weekend so my kids did not get a very exciting Halloween this year. Nana, Grandpa and Kearis came down to help us move. Thank goodness, I don't know what we would have done without them! Friday (moving day) was our trunk or treat and we had to miss it, sadly. Brady's sister, Amy came down with her family on Saturday to visit and we got the kids dressed up to go to dinner in their costumes. Here are a few pictures of the kiddos.

A gourmet chef!

He was pretty sick with a fever, but a good sport nonetheless.

Cousins...my kids were in heaven!

Like Carter's head? He always looks like this. Once one goes away, he replaces it with a new one. Not to mention the fat lip he has now to go along with it...

Not an attractive photo, but shows his fat lip he recently gave himself.

"Sleeping" in the box like Ella used to do when we were moving last time.

Woes

Feel free to skip this post, you will not hurt my feelings. Some of you have already heard this tid bit of information, but here it goes anyway. Life has thrown a few curve balls at us lately. First with my broken back of course (for those of you that didn't hear details, I fell down the stairs. Day after my birthday I slipped on my pajama pant and went sliding. Slammed my back on the stair, and the rest is history...well not yet I guess. I have a T8 thoracic fracture and am in a back brace now. Scroll down for lovely pictures). The doctor told me in the ER that day that I would be in the brace for 6-8 weeks. I later found out at an appointment that he wasn't telling the truth that day. Somehow in that week or so it changed from 6 weeks to 10 weeks. I was distraught but got over it. I am pretty sure he was just making me feel good about my life that day. As I reached my 7 week mark of the brace, I was anticipating my x-ray in 2 weeks to show the break being healed and me getting out of this thing. We had our friends Carrie and Jimmy come down with their baby Declan to celebrate a late birthday for Ella that day. They took the train so Declan would not have to drive 3 hours from Seattle, so Ella and I headed to pick them up. After getting them from the train station, we headed home in the rain. As we came out of a tunnel on the freeway I saw a car spinning around doing a 180. The nose of the car heading toward us. I stopped the car, as did the car to my left. As my attention was on the car heading toward us, we got slammed from behind. We of course pulled over to the shoulder. The truck that had spun out was parked along side the road and the car that hit me got pushed over there as well. After a policeman showing up, he refused to take a statement (have no clue why). The truck took off without speaking to anyone (guess he really didn't hit anyone, but come on). The man who hit me exchanged information with me and we left the scene. Luckily the kids were fine. Ella complained a bit about back and head pain, but she checked out at the pediatrician fine. Declan was very upset after the accident, but seemed to have come out unscathed. As far as the adults, Carrie and Jimmy are having some neck and back pain and being seen for that. Now for me. I had to go the ER and have x-rays done. Luckily they didn't show the break any worse. I had to see a Primary care and my Orthopedist to get things checked out the following week. In short, I have some very strained muscles in my back and I am back on muscle relaxers/pain killers. I am in this brace for another month now. I was due to get it off on Monday but now because of the accident it is going to be another month. As for the car, it isn't bad. I do sound like a rice rocket, but it isn't too bad other than that. I need a new muffler, bumper and underneath of the rear. His car was far worse. I just can't drive in the rain or I will get mold inside. We live in OREGON!!! It rains! We waited the first week for the guys insurance to find a "missing" policy. All the while, he was calling me trying to figure out why they couldn't find it with the number he provided. Brady finally called them for him (he has 21st Century, who is now Farmers) and they were able to locate his policy with someone actually doing their job. Apparently they had a number off and his name misspelled. Poor guy even came to my house on Sunday to look at what he had written on my paper to try and figure out why they couldn't find his policy (he lost his insurance card following the accident). He was so kind to bring me flowers when he came. We are so happy they finally found his policy and I gave my statement today. We are now waiting for them to assign it to a new adjuster here since there were injuries. Then they still need to take his statement to decide fault. Then we can finally get our car fixed. Probably next week. Oh, did I mention we are on a Trip Permit now from Oregon because our car won't pass smog now and our registration is due? Only have that until the end of next week. Somehow the car has to be fixed next week, smog checked, and registered. Hmm. As for next week, we were told by our landlord that he doesn't want us to stay in this home due to the fact that he hopes to sell it (it is way overpriced, but whatever). We have to be out by the end of the month...next week. We have about 6 boxes packed at this point, I can't do much unfortunately. Want me to add more? Well we got such a steal here that we can't find a place to live. We need a garage because of all of our belongings we have acquired. We are looking at townhomes (we are in a house right now) that are way older and way smaller and are MORE money! Not to mention the cost, we are looking for a short lease and can't find one. My Ortho told me as I went to see him after my car accident, "You need to pack your things and move your family back home. Get out of Oregon, something is telling you not to be here!" He laughed. I am beginning to think he may be right.

Roloff Farms

Yesterday was beautiful so we decided to take advantage of it. We went to Roloff farms (from Little People Big World for those of you that watch it) to fight the crowds (we thought). Ended up being quite slow in the evening when we got there and we had quite a good time. When we first arrived, we saw Matt Roloff driving around in his mule. He came over so he could sign some things and meet some of us. We got Ella a shirt to let her get it signed by him. She watches the show, so she thought it was pretty cool. (Don't mind the old guy that took our picture and cut Carter out of it mostly). And yes, this is my brace.

Then we decided to go take the tractor ride around the town he built. So we got in line for that. While we were waiting, I saw Amy Roloff walking around so I had Brady take Ella over to meet her. She loved her. She was so sweet. She asked what her name was, and guessed that she was 5 years old since she talked so well (she thought she was pretty big after that). She really liked her.

Then we waited to take our tour, and got to meet Rocky their family dog.

Since we were the only people on the wagon for that tour we got to take a personal tour on the mule instead (wish I got pictures of us on it, but didn't)! The twins friend Mueller (he's on the show quite a bit) drove us around and showed us the farm.

Their new house they built. This is Matt's bug and Jeremy's BMW he fixed up.

The porch with the short rails for them.

And for those of you that watch the show, this is the Men's Crisis Center.

Their soccer field. The chapel

They stopped at this old town Matt built and we got out to walk around. Matt's parents were there and so we got to chat with them. (They asked about my brace of course). We spent about 20 minutes chatting with them (about his upbringing and politics and all kinds of things). His dad LOVED Ella. He kept telling her that she was so beautiful and that he really meant it. He was really sweet. Jeremy was also there so we hung out with him for a while. He held Ella and they chatted a bit. They all signed her shirt and then we eventually had to leave of course. (Apparently we went 15 minutes over...it was their fault for chatting though!)

The whole gang we hung out with in our private VIP tour. (And yes my brace is cool!)

Ella and Jeremy

She keeps saying her favorite part about the trip was with Jeremy. She says, "I was staring at Jeremy and I liked him". First crush apparently. Haha.

The castle he built for Molly.

And a cool fort that grows with the tree!

After the tour we went to pick a pumpkin.

And of course had to climb to the top of the haystack.

And take pictures in the cutouts. Carter is hard to photograph. This is the best I could do.

Ella decided she wanted to sit on one.

They had this silly little house with how the pumpkins live. This picture was Ella's favorite. "Get small in our tall chair." haha. We were tired by this point, but thought this was pretty cool. Bye Roloff Farms! We had a fun time! We enjoyed our one on one time and VIP treatment! Ella is still talking about it (mostly Jeremy). =)