It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Sorry for the long blogging absence. We had a good (American) Thanksgiving and are starting to enjoy the holidays.

For Thanksgiving we went up to my Aunt's house in Washington. I got to see my grandparents too and that was really nice. We had all the traditional trimmings with the turkey and it tasted great! After Thanksgiving, I stayed in Washington for 10 days to watch my cousins while my Aunt and Uncle went on vacation to Columbia. The kids were great and really well behaved and so helpful to me too. Adam stayed for the weekend, then had to return home to attend school and study. Every day Lizzy would tell me, "I just miss my daddy!" It was so cute. I missed him too! He came back the next Friday to pick me up and we came back home on Saturday.

When we got home, we found a Christmas tree on our doorstep! Someone left it anonymously and Lizzy was so excited to set it up and put lights on it. We put it up that night, but it was too late to decorate. So the next day we decorated the tree and Lizzy was so proud of herself.

Here she is next to her beautiful decorations. You can tell where she placed hers becasue they are all grouped together in bunches. I had a hard time getting her to smile at the right time for the picture though. She thinks that if she says "cheese" then the picture is automatically taken and that's all that needs to be done. So she will say cheese really quick and then stop smiling.

We are excited for Christmas because we get to go home! I am excited to see the snow and see all of my family. It's going to be great, all of my family will be home for Christmas, and all of Adam's family will be home too, so we get to see everyone! That is quite an accomplishment! So we'll be leaving after exams are all done and will take lots of pictures.

Since writing the above (a couple days ago) the snow has come! This morning we woke up to find it snowing, but not reaching the ground. A few hours later, the snow decided to stay and now there's a blanket of white. Seeing the snow makes me miss home and all the fun activities that we do in the snow. Lizzy is really excited for the snow and wants to play in it, but since I'm not feeling well today and Adam is not home right now she is just going to have to wait.

School might close tomorrow and that means that Adam's exams will be postponed until after the holidays, which is a bummer. I'm sure he doesn't want to think about exams or studying while we're supposed to be relaxing and having fun. Hopefully it won't be a big hassle.

Snow down here is a big deal. If we had a couple inches of snow at home, everything would go on as normal, but here almost everything shuts down. It's ridicolous! I guess they aren't prepared for snow removal or driving. People here do NOT know how to drive in the snow. We have no problem, having learned to drive in the snow, but I try to stay off the roads anyway because the other drivers can be dangerous. But despite the drawbacks, I love the snow and am glad to see it!

Happy Birthday Lizzy

Well, this is sure late, but I have been gone for a while, with no internet access. But our little Elizabeth turned 3 years old on November 21st! I can't believe that she is already 3! It doesn't seem that long ago when she was a newborn!

For weeks before her birthday, Elizabeth was telling me that she wanted a princess cake for her birthday. At first I thought I would make one of those Barbie cakes, where the cake is the dress, but looking at the directions, it looked like more work than I wanted to put in. So I decided to make a princess castle instead and it turned out great!

We got some Disney Princess figurines for Lizzy, which she absolutely loves! She told me they all had to go by the cake.

We had a few friends over for cake and they all wanted a castle tower!

Lizzy was excited to open her presents and got a good haul! We opened presents on her birthday and then had her cake and little party a few days later.

Adam's parents got Lizzy a doctor kit and she loves it! She likes listening to our hearts and checking our blood pressure. Here she is giving Adam a needle. Adam is playing along nicely! She also got some nice new pajamas from her grandparents that she calls her "soft pajamas" and wore them right away.

Lizzy loves anything princess and loves dressing up like one! I bought her a Sleeping Beauty costume. She's modeling it here. Just missing her crown!

Playing with her new princesses! She puts them in her purse and carries them around the house with her.

Our friends Kent and Tiffany got Lizzy a little guitar. This is the first time trying it out. She loves to take it out, strum and sing along. She makes up songs and dances around. It's so cute!

Her other grandparents got her a book that Lizzy insisted on reading right away after we opened it. Then some more friends, Andy and Kathy, got Lizzy a Polly Pocket doll with a car. I think this was her favourite present! She loves dressing the doll up, and changing her shoes (she calls them slippers). For a whole week after opening that she slept with it in her bed and carried it everywhere around the house. She calls it her "special present from Conrad" (Conrad is Andy and Kathy's son and Lizzy's best friend). She had a fun birthday!

Hollidaisy on Etsy

My friend just set up a new store on Etsy - a great place to buy beautiful homemade things. She's having a grand opening sale on things like cards, kids sweaters, decorations, and scarves. All great presents for the holidays! Her site is called hollidaisy so check it out. If you like free stuff, she's doing a giveaway so check out her other blog here for more information! Good luck!

Guitar Hero

Lizzy playing Guitar Hero on the Wii. I love how she does the "power stance" with her guitar, just like her Daddy.

Halloween

Finally some Halloween pictures. Lizzy had a lot of fun this year and was really excited about carving the pumkins. She said she wanted to have a "pumpkin party," so we spent the evening before Halloween carving our two pumpkins.

Here's Lizzy posing with the two pumpkins. She helped design the one on the left saying she wanted triangle eyes, a square nose and scary teeth. Adam carved the one on the right and Lizzy loved the crooked smile. She said laughing, "He has no teeth, only lips."


Here's Lizzy attempting to make the "Pumpkin Face." She made the crooked smile and then said that we needed to make pumpkin faces too.

My scary pumkin face.

Adam's crooked smile pumpkin face.

Lizzy was a tiger for Halloween and loved her "tiger suit." Her favourite part was the tail.

Lizzy being a tiger, growling and crawling.

I helped organize a Halloween party for the PAVA (Pacific Affiliates for Vision Awareness) for which I am co-chair. We had a soup potlock and played games and had prizes. Here's Adam (in the scrubs and wig) playing musical chairs - which he won! Woo hoo!

Our wondrful costumes topped with outlandish wigs from Goodwill. They were hideous.

Lizzy had a lot of fun trick or treating and luckily didn't get too much candy. She looked forward to it for a week and asked every night if it was time for trick or treating yet. I just thought she was so adorabale as a tiger.

Puppies and Kitties

I put this post on my other blog, "The Funny Sayings of Lizzy," but I just thought it was so funny that I would share it on our famiyl blog too. If you haven't checked the other blog, feel free to do so.

Lizzy has been pretending a lot lately to be a kitty or a puppy. She will walk around the house on her hands and feet and meow or bark. Then at snack time, she will put her snack food on the table or on the floor and say, "It's puppy food," and pick it up with her mouth, like a dog. It's quite amusing.

I always ask her what the name of her puppy or kitty is, and she's come up with some pretty creative names, and some that are just weird. Here are some of the better ones:

Bocco the puppy.

Carl the puppy.

Kiwi the kitty.

And the duo team, a puppy and a nice monster.
Tiny the puppy, and Iny-bee the monster. Tiny is blue and Iny-bee is pink.

I'm sure there will be more fun names in the future!

A Little Bragging

Well I just need to brag here a little bit. It is so warm here in Forest Grove. We have been enjoying the nice weather and praying that the rainy season doesn't come too soon.
Yesterday it was so nice that Adam, Lizzy and I went on a bike ride around 6pm wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Granted, the wind was a little chilly, but we were still quite comfortable. I was surprised that I didn't need my sweater.

Well, now that I am bragging about our warm weather, it will rain. That's how things go! But luckily, looking out the window, all I see is blue sky with no clouds.

I'll enjoy the warm weather as long as it lasts and I hope it stays warm for Halloween this weekend.