Christmas "catch-up" begins now...

Our baby is due is less than two weeks (GASP!) and I have a ton to do.  One of those things is to get caught up on here.  Not nearly as important as most of the other things on my list, but still.  These posts will probably be brief, but I do hope to get some of the last month's happenings documented.  Here goes.

We got our Christmas tree on December 3rd.  One of our neighbors offered to let us cut one off of his property.  He has 7,000 Christmas trees planted that haven't been groomed.  However, he'd discovered that someone had been sneaking on to his property and grooming two of them.  He told us we were welcome to one of them. 

Side note: It was a big deal that he came to talk to us.  He's a recluse who's avoided us over the years.  (Once I stopped to talk to him at his mailbox and he backed away with his hand over his mouth.  It was awkward, to say the least.)  Anyway, he was super friendly the day he came over and said he's dying of cancer.  :( 

Since we hadn't been able to get the tree during Thanksgiving weekend (we ran out of time and it was rainy), getting one at our neighbor's was perfect.  Nate and Judson walked over with the wheelbarrow and Cooper and I drove (because it was well below freezing AND I didn't want to have to carry her).  In all, about a ten minute adventure.  Perfect for this year!

Decorating the next night

Judson thought he should add more ornaments each morning, so the tree ended up being LADEN with ornaments.  One branch literally had eight ornaments on it.  The kids loved it, so I left it that way.

First snow of the season

We had a couple of VERY cold weeks here (as in, HIGHS in the twenties, which just doesn't happen in the Pacific Northwest.  It was mostly dry, but we did get some snow one day.  It took me all morning to muster up the energy to bundle us all up to head out.  (For some reason, Judson wasn't too excited about it, which definitely didn't help my ambition.  Of course, once I got him out there, he was in heaven and would've stayed out all day.)

I didn't get many pictures, but you get the idea.

 

He didn't fall, but I can't remember what he was doing.

Thanksgiving weekend

We headed to my parents' on Thursday morning.  Actually, we went straight to Morgan and Anna's for a delicious brunch and then transitioned over to my parents'.  Our whole weekend was pretty low-key, which was just perfect.  My mom and I even managed to watch TWO Hallmark movies.  :)

The kids played so well together.  I know I say it a lot, but it is such a blessing to have them so close in age and location.  They simply adore each other.  So, get ready to see lots of kid pictures.  :)

Pre-Thanksgiving dinner pictures:

Pretending to be mad

I look sort of giant here, but I'm not really!

Macy brought her jammies over and it just so happened that we'd packed the same ones for Cooper.

The next morning, we headed to downtown Portland bright and early to meet up with the Nelsons at the Macy's parade, which started at nine.  It was a much bigger parade than anything we've been to, and we had a lot of fun.  (I think the Black Friday craziness helped keep the crowd down...there wasn't any traffic at all.)

Had to take pictures of the trains for our train guy.  :)

We ALL got Frango chocolates.  Score!

We stopped at Starbucks to use the bathroom and buy coffee and Grammie set the kids up with hot cocoa and a snack.  :)

My mom got the kids new jammies so we could attempt a picture to include in her Christmas cards.  Here are a few cute ones.

On Sunday before we headed home, these three had a parade down the hall in Grammie's shoes.  I didn't get the camera out until they added to their outfits (with help from Grammie, of course). :)

You can't really see them, but Cooper wouldn't take my mom's shoes off for a very long time.