Trouble in paradise....

Oh boy oh boy are my kids in BIG BIG Trouble..  While cleaning house today, I happened to notice on Owen's dresser - a dresser he had inherited from his dad, who had refinished and varnished it as a 15 year old when times were tight, a carving of Owen's and Morgan's names into the dresser.  Darren is so mad he has told the kids they are grounded till he leaves (in 2 1/2 weeks) and he wants to completely cancel Christmas.  Trouble is the more he thinks about it the angrier he is getting.  Doesn't help that both Morgan & Owen are pointing fingers at each other.  Owen admitted to some of the carving but insists that Morgan did some and Morgan completely denies any wrong doing at all.  She in turn is belligerently sitting in her room being very dramatic crying saying she'll never get to play in the snow again or have sleepovers or play dates.  Not one of them as actually apologized.  This all makes for a very happy Christmas, especially as Darren would like any excuse to not have it anyway.  Oh dear.....on top of that we have guests for dinner tonight who are bringing their daughter who happens to be a friend of Morgan's and on Christmas day we're supposed to go to another friend of Owen's house for Christmas day dessert.  Let's hope everyone cools down a bit and learns to take responsibility for their actions.  I guess Darren will think twice before giving Owen a knife again!!!

Snow keeps on coming....

Two words... GLOBAL WARMING... I kid you not, we have approximately 14+ inches of snow in our back yard and after deciding to be nice and shovel snow.. yes you heard it... me shoveling snow off of our drive way (not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be doing that in my lifetime here in Portland OR) I woke up again this morning and it looked like it had never been touched... 

This is seriously the craziest weather ever for us.  Can't really drive in this weather so I trekked up to the local supermarket to buy eggs and ham and trudged back down the hill along the road ways because the snow was just too deep to walk through on the sidewalks.  Morgan & Owen went sledding again with friends after building a very impressive snow hut (not quite an igloo) yesterday. (Check out the progress).

 

Milo is just in heaven

 - he loves this stuff and he likes to lie in the snow and watch people walking, sledding and occasionally skiing by.

  

This evening Morgan & I are going to a Mother-daughter cookie exchange in the local neighborhood and I'm going to pull her along on the sled.  (No point in even attempting to drive).  Owen is sleeping over at a friends house tonight.  We've always wanted a white christmas but forecast is for rain.. Still it could just be more snow though..

Snow day in the deep freeze.

As unbelievable as it may seem we got hit by an arctic blast that has turned our roads in to ice rinks and the kids got to have a much prized snowday - no school, so after a day of snow falling we woke to a crystal clear but extremely frigid day and the kids were beside themselves with the idea of getting to play in the snow....here are some of the pictures.   Luckily Owen met up with some of his friends and got to sled.  This was one of my favorite shots.  Of course, it wasn't all play.  They still had to do their chores and had their piano lesson that evening.  I even attempted to go to the store but the roads were pretty icy and most people were driving at about 5 mph which was more dangerous than anything else.   But hey, better safe than sorry I guess.  All I can say is thank god they have school tomorrow.

A suprise visit from Uncle P....

Well of course, I have a ton of stuff to tell namely that we went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and then the visit by Uncle Pee (namely Paul) which was such a great surprise for the kids who were in a complete state of disbelief when Paul came  up the stairs on Saturday morning while we were getting  breakfast ready.  Owen's face in particular was a picture going from confusion to recognition to utter disbelief and then total joy that there was their English Uncle standing in their Portland House.  And he couldn't have picked a better weekend to visit as the sun was blasting high in the sky and it made for a glorious day to go and pick out our Christmas tree.  We managed to give him a cliff notes tour of Portland, taking him downtown to experience Portland's famed Voodoo Doughnuts and Stumptown coffee, and the most amazingly colorful sunset that night, only to wake up the next morning to experience the ultimate Portland weather, pouring rain.  After a lovely breakfast in NE Portland at The Tin Shed we, took Paul up to the Pittock Mansion before heading down to Powell's bookstore and finishing up at Moonstruck chocolatier for a well deserved coffee/chocolate/ tea (depending on your particular taste.)  It was sad when I had to drive him to the airport the following morning but we had a such a fantastic time it was a real treat for all of us, including Milo!

Sometimes technology just makes me so.... grrrrrrr@#$#@

And I can't say more than that.  First off I get my butt out of bed super early on Friday morning to go and get the newest and "supposedly" (please note the quotation marks) greatest new phone from Blackberry the STORM.  And with promises from the Verizon people that "of course it's compatible with my Mac."  What a load of boloney.  Not only is it not compatible, but there is NO after market product as of yet that allows me to sync my calendar and all my contacts onto my new phone, so I spent the better part of the day inputting my most important and most used numbers into my new phone.  (SO MUCH FOR A SMART PHONE).  As for my calendar - well forget it.  I'm about ready to give up on the stupid blackberry once and for all quite frankly.  I spent all of friday googling to find out if others were having the same issue as me, and there seems to be no solution unless I want to pay an extra $40 for a less than perfect (according to others who did buy the product and found it didn't work properly) after market syncing software.  What a rip off.

Then today, Darren decides to buy the Office for Mac upgrade for us as he needs it for work and after spending a good hour loading it and deleting my old version of Word, the stupid thing is only good for one load.  And it wasn't cheap either.  He paid over $200 for it.  I'm so fed up with the whole thing.  It only came with one product number and I can only use it when his computer is off.  HOW STUPID IS THAT.  I am so frustrated by this.  I get that they need to make money and all but honestly when you live in the same house, you should be able to only have to buy the product once.  It's not like it was that cheap to start with.

Anyway.  Am now done with my rant.  Hopefully will find a solution to the Microsoft Office Problem in the morning.  As for the Blackberry Storm, unless they find a way to let me sync it to my mac within a month, it is going back to Verizon.  (You get 30 days to try it out)  and as far as I'm concerned I will then just have to think of something different.    GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Birthday parties and sleepovers

Okay I must be truly insane because after Morgan was done with the birthday party she went to today, we invited her friend Molly to come over for a playdate.. which is nothing really out of the ordinary but then I guess in a moment of complete insanity (mainly on Darren's part because he suggested it) we invited her to stay for a sleepover and if that wasn't crazy enough, as Owen was at a playdate at Paris' house, we then invited Paris to come sleepover too... 

So right now we have four kids in the house. 

The boys playing on the Wii

 which seems incredibly loud and the girls running circles in the house from the kitchen, through the dining room, into the living room through to the front door and back in to the kitchen.

Actually it isn't really that bad.. they're keeping themselves occupied and I'm getting to write my blog.  Bed time might be interesting though.  

I'm not all together sure Darren really thought this through as he just got back from Finland yesterday after being in travel mode for 24 hrs and then after we picked him up from the airport we went straight to Owen's last soccer game of the season, followed by the end of season party just to then go out last night to see the Blazer's play the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Rose Center. And after a particular lack lustre 1st half they Blazer's came back to win in the final qtr... as always it was very exciting and even though we were in the nose bleed section it was so electrified that after a while we forgot how high up we really were... 

It's Official...

Hallelujah.... no more Bush and no more Republicans.. It's time for our change and it's time for this country to turn around...This is the man for the job!  And it's a time to celebrate history!

Election Day

Nuff said.  Only 70 electoral votes to go.....

Trick-or-treat

Well we couldn't have asked for a better night for Halloween, despite the wet start to the day by lunch time the sun broke through as the rain disappeared and by evening we had a nice balmy 60 degree temp.  So the candles were lit and the kids in costume as we got ready for our Spooky Halloween evening with friends.  Check out the costumes....

As you can see Morgan "was double trouble" when she and her friend Molly decided to be dead cheerleaders.  In fact at the school parade the two of them walked hand in hand down the corridor each carrying one pom-pom and I heard one person say "red-rum, red-rum".  They really did look like the female equivalent of the twins from "The Shinning".   So they were a big hit when they hit the Trick-or-treat road Friday night.

Owen on the other hand was almost completely unrecognizable as his version of a vampire Einstein.. I thought his costume was brilliant.

Happy Spooky day...

Okay, yes I know it's Halloween.. the kids are very excited but I wanted to blog the photos of our front yard that Darren and the kids have been busy on for the last couple weeks... I took some photos before the rain arrived and with fingers crossed it will have dried up a little before the trick-or-treaters come by tonight.. otherwise the candles won't really work.. 

Been busy this morning making mummy fingers (asparagus wrapped in filo dough) and have to run to find spirit gum for Owen eyebrows and mustache for his vampire Einstein.. so this has be short.  Will try to continue the post later.. enjoy the photos..

Toothless Moe

Actually I should say toothless Morgan... because she has finally finally lost one of her front teeth and she has a big ole gap in her mouth now... I knew it was coming but truthfully I really wasn't prepared enough for the impact of her loosing that one little tooth.  A sign that she is most definitely heading into big kid category and away from my sweet little baby. Okay not baby but little girl anyway.  For a day or two she was most definitely a snaggle tooth and refused to smile showing her teeth and finally I guess she and Darren made a deal that if he could pull it out she could have 100 marshmallows.. At dinner that night she sat and thought about it and finally turned to Darren and told him he could pull it.  Of course I don't think she realized that eating marshmallows right after pulling a tooth would be so unpleasant as of course the sugar was quite painful on that exposed area of her gum.  Needless to say that it ended up with just one marshmallow (much to my relief, her dentist's relief and I'm sure her teeth's relief).  Anyway here she is miss Toothless Moe

A much needed getaway...

After the trials,tribulations & drama of last week nothing I care to go into but needless to say those in the know will get what I'm talking about ... I was very very glad when Darren suggested we get away for the weekend with the kids and go to Newport, OR.  And we couldn't have picked a better weekend for it.  The weather was spectacular.... Asides from not being particularly good on my diet... well who can possibly resist clam chowder, we had an amazing time, exploring the beach and tide pools.  Taking a walk down to the wharf where we saw the sealions all basking in the sun and getting quite upset whenever another wanted to join the dock.    We also got to take in the Newport Aquarium... 

We also got to check out the Newport Lighthouse that was built in the late 1800's and is still working today mind you not with lard oil anymore... and then it was back to exploring more tide pools.. 

  

All in all we had a really great weekend and now it's back to the drama!

Halloween is on it's way and pumpkins are ripe for picking!

Isn't that the truth, we are heading at break neck speed into the holiday season with Halloween fast approaching, we decided that this weekend was as good as any to head off the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins.  So we bundled up into the car and decided to head out to Sauvie's Island with the promise that the weather would be dry... well it wasn't!  Quel shocker!!  So we figured what the heck.. we'd do what all other Portlanders do and just continue with our plans because as they say up here "if you postponed due to the weather ie rain, you'd never do anything"  of course I did paraphrase that somewhat to death but you get my drift....Honestly it wasn't that bad, I was just mad because I'd actually bothered to dry my hair that day and with in seconds it was a frizzy mess that the birds would be happy to nest in... ho hum! 
 Still that didn't stop us from wandering through the corn maze with Owen as our leader who said he was just using his instincts to get us through the maze,  actually what he managed to do was get us hopelessly lost, which was half the fun... all I can say is thank god for rain boots because it was really REALLY muddy  and slippy.  Once we finally found our way out it was onto the pumpkin field to pick out our

 pumpkins... our rule has always been that if you can lift it you can have that pumpkin.. of course those two are able to lift a lot more than they used tooo... check out the pumpkins that

 got picked.

As you can 

see we got quite a substantial haul!  

After relaxing with a yummy lunch of freshly roasted corn.. we hit the produce stand and finished our shopping...

All in all a good fall day out!  

Oh yes for those of you keeping tabs.. the hand is healing but looks like leathery snake skin that is currently peeling and ITCHY, looks worse than it is though!