YAY! IT SNOWED!!!!!!! I can't believe it already snowed yesterday. The boys loved watching it coming down & loved running around in it even more. We need to get them up to the mountains soon to go sledding. They'll go crazy for it this year. I love the holidays. I think I love it even more as the years go by, because seeing it all through my children's eyes is so wonderful. I just can't wait for all of the fun things we have planned, because I want to see how happy it makes them. I hope they have a spectacular Christmas season!
Making their gingerbread house a few days ago- yummy!
Elijah making a snow hat for Rogue
Pausing for a quick "cheese"
Alexandra's 1st time in the snow!
Warming up w/ cocoa after a hard day of playing :)

THANK GOODNESS! Ok, so I was just being dumb and freaking out for no reason. I finally spoke to someone at the railroad today, and found out that they never sent us the tickets. All tickets are there waiting for people to pick up. So, I didn't screw up and lose the tickets afterall, and my kids aren't going to miss out on the coolest train ride ever. I am, however, a complete moron! lol. So the kids are super excited, and so are Trav & I. I can't wait!! :)

I am completely freaking out! A couple of months ago, I came across information about a "Polar Express" train ride at Mt. Hood railroad. I was so excited about it, and bought tickets right away. We have since told the kids about it, and Elijah is soooooo looking forward to it. Now, the "freaking out" part: I CAN'T FIND THE TICKETS! The train ride on Thursday, Nov. 30th- just 4 days away. I've called the railroad to see if we can still get on, because I assume they must have some records of us paying. But, I just had to leave a message, and now I am going crazy waiting for them to call back! It wouldn't be QUITE so bad, if the event wasn't totally sold out! Dang it! I have turned the house upside-down looking for them, and I am no closer to finding them. How could I have been so careless with something so important!! I am so mad at myself! I don't know what I'm going to do if we miss out on this.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We spent most of the day at my parents' house, then the evening at Travis's Grandma Betty's house. We woke up early, and headed out to Dad & Mom's. Travis met up with our brothers to go play some football while I hung out, and had some help with the kids & got to take my time showering and getting ready. It's funny the things you suddenly realize you've missed since having kids. It was so nice to take as much time as I wanted getting ready.... Anyway, like I said, we spent most of the day there. Travis didn't end up in the hospital after football, Alexandra slept for several hours (hard to believe, I know), and all of the kids got along really well. Those 3 things alone made it a good day :). But, we also got to visit with all of our family. Michael and Grandma Hilverda flew in from Utah & Idaho. Elijah is finally getting to the age that he can remember people he hasn't seen in a long time, so he was so excited to see them both. The dinner at Betty's included not only Trav's family (Karen, Randy, Shane, Megan, Jared & Meagan), but also Uncle Tony, Aunt Stacey, Roman, Noni, Missy, Christi, Tiffany, & Janessa. Aunt Jamie and Ryan stopped by for a visit, too. SO- there were a lot of people there. Alexandra got passed around a lot, and was giving lots of smiles. It was a long day, but all-in-all a good one.
Today, we got up early once again, and headed to Dad & Mom's house. Travis dropped me & the kids off, and went to basketball practice. Mom watched the kids for me, and I went shooting with my Dad, Mike, Ed Hudson, and Jim Turner up at Jim' s place. I love going shooting, and wish I found time for it more often. Between all of us, there were plenty of guns to choose from, but as always, I like Dad's 22 rifle the best. This time, though, I also realized how much I like the 9mm pistol. I never really took such a liking to it until today. Shotguns, however, are still not my forte'. On one shot I didn't have the gun all of the way up on my shoulder, and I bruised my armpit pretty good- ouch! On the way home, we stopped by 17 acres for sale up there toward Silver Falls that Travis & I have looked at. The problem, of course, is that we just moved into a new house, but I hate to pass up a great piece of property. That is really what we want in the long run, is some great acreage. Anyway, it looks real good, and Dad seemed to think so too. We may look into it some more. It is so beautiful up there. But, it'd be a lot of work. Sell the house, pack up, unpack into an apartment for 4-6 months while we build a house (and all of the decisions that come with that), pack up again, and finally unpack into the new house. I don't know if I'm ready for that. I don't think we'll end up doing it, but it's pretty tempting. We'll see. For now, here's some pics from yesterday....




...and here's the AWESOME new ring Travis bought me today- I LOVE IT!! :)....

On Saturday, we went on a little family outing up to Silver Falls. We walked the trail down and around the South Falls. It was really cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind. We just bundled up, and the boys had a really good time. We really need to go up more often. It's a great activity for us to do together.
We also checked out the local pool for the first time the other day. The boys haven't been swimming in a long time. Elijah is back to being scared to go under water. After taking some swim lesson in the summer, he finally got over it, and started swimming underneath the water. But, since we haven't been in so long, he's regressed. We really need to keep up with swimming for him. Rogue, of course, doesn't care one bit. I have to worry about him a little for the opposite reason. He is too brave. He goes down big waterslides all by hisself, and he would do it all day long if he could. He's also started jumping into the water without us catching him. In fact, he refuses to jump if he thinks we'll catch him. That's not that good, considering he can't swim yet! I need to get both of them enrolled in swim classes again.
I think we'll be headed up for some sledding pretty soon. I can't wait. The boys- especially Rogue- are going to love it this year. Maybe even Alex will make it down a little hill with Mom :)


~ The Fam @ the Falls
~ The boys


~Alex all Bundled up in her backpack
~Eli's "Pretzel Power" gave him the strength he needed to make it up the hills :)

So, I know I haven't posted a new entry in a while now. Why? My baby girl has colic- BAD. I took her to the doctor today to make sure it isn't something else wrong. It's not- just colic. It's great that there's nothing wrong, but it also means that it can't be fixed. We just have to do what we can to soothe her, and wait for it to pass. From what I've read, it usually goes away by 3 months old. So, just a little over one month to go, hopefully. I remember Elijah being a little bit colicy, but at least he could be soothed by the swing or a ride in the car. With Alex, nothing seems to help her. The poor little girl just cries and cries most of the day. The one thing that she does great that most colic babies don't- is sleep at night. She almost never sleeps during the day, so she does really good at night. She usually just wakes up once, eats, and goes right back to sleep. At least that gives me the energy I need to take care of her during the day.
In other news, Elijah is still loving school and doing great at it. They do lots of projects. Today they worked with clay, and tomorrow, they are doing some cooking- which Eli LOVES! I hate to do it, but I think I'm going to have to move him to a different preschool after Christmas break. It's just to much driving to go out to Stayton 4 times a week for school. I'm going to start looking at preschools here in Silverton, but I'm not going to move him unless I'm sure it'll be a smooth transition for him. We'll see....
Michael and Grandma Hilverda are going to be coming for Thanksgiving. It was supposed to be at our house, but we realized it was too hard to coordinate it with having to go to Travis' family's dinner, too. So, as usual, it's going to be at Mom & Dad's house.
Let's see... what else? Last Saturday, we drove up to Portland to go to OMSI. When we got there, it was PACKED! Apparently, there was a Star Wars feature going on. It was crazy. All of the parking lots were full, and there was a line of about 100 people just waiting to even enter the building! We turned right around. I just can't believe how crazy people are over Stars Wars. I just don't see it at all. Anyway, we wanted to go to the zoo, but since the weather was so "touch-and-go", we ended up at the Children's Museum, which is such a great place. They have rooms upon rooms of great activities for the kids. I think the boys' favorites were the water room and the play grocery store/diner. We got some good ideas for Christmas gifts.
Well, gotta go get my baby girl.... :)

Today was Alexandra's blessing. She wore the same dress that I did, made by my Grandma Heiner. It has been worn by all of the girls in the family- Me, Tara, Whitney, Sadie, Shae, and now Alexandra. She looked beautiful. After her blessing, I was told about something extra special happened during her blessing that I will save in her baby book just for her....

The boys had a blast the other day at my parents' house. Eric was there mowing and blowing leaves. And he let the boys lend a hand :)

Halloween has come and gone, and I'm finally going to get some pics posted on here. Elijah went as Buzz Lightyear last year. This year, he decided that Ethan should wear his old costume, and that he should be Woody. So they were quite a cute little pair. Alexandra's costume was a little fairy- so cute. The kids spent almost the entire day in their costumes. They dressed up in the morning, and Elijah headed off to school. It was Elijah's day for show and tell, and he wanted to show Alexandra in her costume. It was so cute, and he loved it. They stayed in costume after school and during lunch, afterwhich Travis came home, and we headed off to both grandparents' and Shane & Megan's houses. We had planned to come back home, do some neighborhood trick-or-treating, then go to the church trunk-or-treat. But, the kids already had enough candy and plenty of fun visiting everyone, so instead we hung out for a little while at Shane & Megan's while Elijah passed out some candy. Then, we took the kids for a quick trip around to some houses before heading home. Elijah loved passing out candy the best, I think, and would sit by our door at home wating for people to come. We got a short visit from Eric and Hannah before the kids headed off to bed. All in all, it was a good halloween. The only thing I really missed was pumkin carving- I can't believe I forgot!! Anyhow, the kids had a great time, and I can't wait until next year, when they can all 3 walk around trick-or-treating together!