More snow

Our winter wonderland continued through X-mas. Jay even got to stay home from work most of X-mas week. The kids had fun sledding and staying inside playing games. As you can see even the mini was starting to disappear in all the white. Thank goodness it only lasted for the week and then it was gone.

Snow

Here's some pictures from the first big snow storm that we had. This is the storm that stopped the kids from going to school the week before X-mas. Everyone had a great time playing in the snow, Kaiya was a bit bewildered by the cold white stuff but managed to walk around in it.

Basketball

John had a great season of basketball. He really enjoys shooting and is pretty good at it. We are working on the passing and dribbling next season!

Christmas Tree

We found a local X-mas tree farm just down the street. The kids had a great time decorating it this year. Jay was the manager and sat on the couch with a glass of wine!

Gingerbread House

The kids had a great time with Grandma V making a gingerbread house. As you can see every peice of candy made it onto the house. After a few days Miss Kaiya managaed to pull some of the candy off, but the house remained intact for the holidays.

Welcome to our newest addition...

I'd like everyone to meet Joey our newest family member. He's a 11 week old yellow lab puppy. So far so good, he's had a few accidents but we're getting there. He loves to torment Jinx and Einstein. I still can't believe we brought home a puppy, I think Jay just wanted to even out the male to female ratio in the house.

Thanksgiving

Another wonderful Thanksgiving in Medford. We had 29 people there this year (a bit fewer than last year) The peanut hunt was as crazy as ever. Jay/Kaiya found the winning peanut and got the quilt that Grandma Maria made.

Medford

We spent Thanksgiving in Medford and celebrated Jay's Grandma Maria's 90th birthday. Jay and Chloe also got some birthday gifts from Jim and Cassie. We all had a wonderful time.

Jay's B-day

Jay turned 33 this year. We spent a nice quiet evening with the family. We went out to dinner and got a Cold Stone Cake. As you can see Kaiya really enjoyed it.

Uncle Tooter ... oh I mean Sgt. Reese

Jason came over to pick up a new police vehicle (Dodge Charger) and stopped by and talked with John's class. The kids had a great time listening to the difference between state patrol and the local police. Their favorite was when they got to go out and look at his car. It was quite cute to see all these 6 year olds enthralled with all the gadgets on the vehicle. I think they were most impressed by his "big gun" otherwise known as a Shotgun in the car. Thanks again Jas for stopping by John's class loved it!

Chloe's 5th B-day

We had a two day event for Chloe's B-day. On her birthday she got to open presents from all the family and pick where we went out to eat. She actually chose Applebee's (thank goodness we skipped Chuck-E-Cheese). The next day we went to Build-a-Bear with four of Chloe's friends. They all got to pick out an animal and a little outfit. It was quite an experience, then we had B-day cake at the mall!! Notice the lovely monkey cake that Ronni and I made for Chloe, we had a little trouble getting the feet frosted correctly but Chloe loved it anyways.

Halloween

The kids had a great time trick-or-treating. Kaiya was suppose to be Princess Leia but refused to wear the hair so I put her in the duck slicker instead!

Pumpkin Patch and Carving

We visited our first Pumpkin Patch in Oregon and realized how spoiled we were in California with Avila Farms. The kids still had a fabulous time picking out their pumpkins and eating donuts. We also went to a friends house for a pumpkin carving party, where we ate too much and made a huge pumpkin mess. The kids even had cute little arts and crafts projects that they had set up. As you can tell this year we branched out to more intricate pumpkins.