A shot of our new house and new pup pics

In two more days we will be moving to the new house. Did I ever explain that? Well you see when we were moving here to begin with we were having some trouble finding a place, you can read about it here. It's not to long you should read it it made me kind of sad though, not sure why. What ended up happening is a coworker had a father who lives here and they had a home they usually use as a guest house when family and friends visit. It asked them to rent it temporarily till we could find something and they said sure. That is how we ended up with our beautiful view we have now. We have been looking but it took awhile to find something. So here we are 4 months in and we found a house we love about 3 weeks ago that would be available to move into January 1st! The house is bigger then this one and even Kelly's brother Josh who is still staying with us will have his own room till he moves. Much nicer then him sleeping in the living room on the couch like he is now! I know he is looking forward to it. It's more up on the side of the mountain and backs up into trees. No one lives behind us at all and the woods back there go on forever. The landlord said that they used to go out there a little ways back to practice shooting and to go hunting, Kelly and Izzak are more then excited about that. It has the 2 car garage Kelly wanted, a good size front yard for the kids to play in (and of course the pups), a play house in the woods to the side of the house and much more. We still have a great view of the Narrows as well! Here is a pic of the house.

It's been snowing pretty much all the time for days now and actually quite deep. This picture doesn't show it so well but it's about a foot+ deep in front of the house more so in other areas and they have plowed the driveway before the latest storm. Am I ready to move right now though? Nope not at all! But it will be fine....

On to pics of Kodiak.

Here is Kodiak playing with her momma.
She is teething big time right now.
Cute little pose
Finally laying down

Other then that all going we are doing well. We had a good Christmas and I'm glad to see things finally settling down for a bit though this season has just been crazy so far!

Hey look I found my camera!

Yep I found it! It was in the pants pocket of the pants I was wearing earlier in the day before I changed into my Christmas clothes that I got.....yes I'm a dork.....

So here you go. The kids on Christmas eve in their new Christmas jammies. This is a tradition for us. I always buy them new pajamas and they open those on Christmas eve so they open their Christmas presents in the morning in fresh new jammies! My parents did this with us when I was growing up and I always loved it so I have always done it with the kids as well. I have always gotten the girls princess jammies from the Disney store so this year I orded them online. Joshua is wearing Pirates of the Caribian sleep pants and Izzaks say Ford on them. Notice my skinny son? The picture doesn't actually show it really well but he has a pretty muscular chest for an 11 year old, always has.


My sad tree.....it was frozen solid when we got it and when we put it up it was a little crooked. I always let the kids decorate the tree so all the ornaments tend to be at their height. This was on Christmas eve before I went to bed when the gifts were all out.

The kids on Christmas morning looking very tired (it was 5:00 am). Getting ready to look in their stockings. Izzaks stocking is the one I made for him when he was a baby. It has a little teddy bear on it that I embroidered and even though it looks kind of little kiddish he doesn't mind because I made it for him Kenzie and Josh have stockings I bought and Maddies used to look like theirs but we couldn't find it after moving and when I realized that all I could find was one of the inexpensive kind. I found princess stockings to make for them today though for next year and will have to look for one for Joshua now that I can make for him.

Opening gifts!

Kenzie picking up Kodiak while opening gifts. I like to annoy people by making everyone open one gift at a time and only one person opening a gift at any time. They complain but I like to see everyones reactions to their gifts and besides it takes me forever to get them all wrapped it better take them longer then 20 minutes to unwrap them all!

More unwrapping, see the puppy under the couch?
Kodiak climbing unto the couch trying to help Maddie unwrap with Kiska under the couch near her feet
As Kenzie says her "most favorite gift she has every received!" Yes she told me that. She has been asking for an easy bake oven for the last several years. I finally gave in. We'll see if I'm kicking myself for it later. For now she has to wait till we move to try it out.
Kodiak and Kiska having breakfast.

Kids playing Littlest Pet Shop Monopoly at our friends house on Christmas.

How was your Christmas?

We had a good Christmas this year. I was worried because of not being with our families this year but it was actually fun. We brought home the puppies after the kids had gone to sleep so they could be surprised that they were here. Oh yeah when I say puppies I mean we decided that my brother in law Josh would be able to have his puppy also. We had to figure that out since he is living with us for the foreseeable future. Her name is Kiska so Kodiak will have one of her littermates when she first comes home. That will probably make the transition to our house a little easier on them at least. Anyway the puppies did well and the kids were very excited to have them here for Christmas morning. They woke up about 5 am! My kids always wake up early Christmas morning they are so excited. We made coffee for us adults who were barely awake and the kids opened their stockings and the first gift, when the power went out! That was fun.....I was ready to just go back to bed till the power came on but the others didn't want to so we lit some candles and waited for the power to come back. Fortunatly it was only out for about 30-45 minutes then all was good and we had light again. The kids finished opening gifts and the puppies loved playing with all the wrapping paper and ribbons! The puppies are almost completly paper trained which was nice only a couple little accidents to clean up.

After the gifts we cooked the cinnamon bread my friend had sent us home with as a gift and had breakfast. The kids opened up some of the gifts to play with and we just relaxed for a little bit. I had baked two blueberry pies the day before and on Christmas day I made 2 pumpkins and 2 cheesecakes (Kelly's favorite) got everyone dressed and went to our friends house for Christmas dinner.

We had a lot of fun. I had given her my Christmas money from my mom to buy my gifts because I don't like to buy my own gifts. I like surprises. She did great and I got 2 pairs of pants a shirt and a lightweight casual jacket. Kelly had given me new jammies a new warm coat and a cordless keyboard, mouse and speaker set for my computer. I have so many wires comming from my desk from everything it has been driving me nuts so that was really nice!

We played Mexican Train Dominoes while dinner was cooking for a couple of hours and ate lots of appetizers. For dinner we had prime rib and all the fixins'. It was a really good dinner and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We did take back the puppies since we need to wait till we move into the other house next week to keep them home. Our landlords in this house didn't want us to have any dogs. This house we are in was just a temporary thing until we could find a house we liked here because Kelly wasn't able to find anything when we were first coming up. Our new house is up on a hill and has a great view of the ocean as well. I promise to upload our new view pics when we move there!

Anyway I have tons of pictures but can't seem to find my camera so you will have to wait for those until I find it.

Hope you all had a great Christmas! I did.

Christmas pageant

Sorry the photo quality isn't good my camera is acting a little weird for some reason.

So yesterday the kids were in the Christmas pageant for our church yesterday. They did really well and all of them were involved in this one.

Here is Kenzie in the front bending down she was a cute little shepherd

Izzak was a wiseman
Joshua was King Herod.

Kenzie again as a shepherd. She is the fuzzy one second to the girl in the front pulling her headpiece out of her eyes.

And of course my little angel Madison. Hmmm do you notice her halo is a little crooked?

They all did really great and everyone enjoyed it.

We are getting excited for Christmas tomorrow and Madison is checking the NORAD Santa tracker every few minutes to see where he is now!

More snow play pics and 4 week puppy photos.....

......cause I'm to busy to actually type a post! hehe.......

Sledding on Thursday

Joshua has a hat that he refused to keep on...
Izzak sledding on his skateboard without wheels....
and Kodiak at 4 weeks...isn't she cute???
This is how Kelly likes to carry her. She loves it! He puts her in there and pretends he is going to take her home.

Snow Day!

The weather forecaster forecasted maybe and inch or two of snow over night last night.

Well he was just a little off.....we got over 1 foot instead and it's been comming down all day so we have nearly two feet of it on the ground right now. Usually the school doesn't call a snow day but the roads were really bad this morning so they did. Kelly didn't want me going anywhere driving so the kids and I stayed home and played in the snow instead. Check out our pics!

Fun Monday a little late

Todays Fun Monday is brought to us by Kitten from Kittens Homeschool.
This is what she requested for today.

"Today for Fun Monday I thought it would be neat to hear about the story behind your home and the road you live on. It doesn't have to be historical, maybe just something that stands out to you. It would be nice to have pictures to go with your little story. I also would like to know who has the oldest house. Whoever has the oldest house will get a little Christmas treat from little ole me."

Well I don't really know a lot about the history of our house or street. I do know that the owners originally bought it as a beach house and that is what they usually use it for except obviously right now since we are staying here. We are actually moving in about 2 weeks but will still have a great view then! We live north of town and there really isn't a whole lot out here except the homes and a gas station everything else you have to drive into town.

Also I did this one for an excuse to show new winter pics of my house since people had asked I post when winter came!

Most of you who have read other fun monday posts of mine showing my house such as this one.

So if you go there you will see what this below looks like in the fall. We do get snow all the way down to the beach.

To the side of the house.

Another beach shot.

Just above the stairs going down to the house from the trail to and from our garage and house.

Our street to the left

Our street to the right.
Nothing really exciting about our street other then we used to have a firestation on this street and it's not there anymore but the one out on the north end is named after our street either way.

And of course a pic of the kids in the snow when I could still pose them before they started throwing it at each other!

Also a couple of people have asked about the puppy and what kind of breed she is. Actually she is kind of mixed but her mother is a Blue Heeler or Australian cattle dog with a little border collie mixed in but she is mostly blue heeler. The father was a husky. She seems to be taking mostly after her mother showing both blue heeler and border collie markings. Her legs and lower half of her body were white when she was born but are now showing the blue colors but on the top half she is more border collie.

New puppy pics

Kenzie holding Kodiak

The puppies are starting to eat solids now!

Kelly putting her in his hat teasing that he is going to take her home.
The puppies are all teething so the other day I bought a couple of chew toys for them to have so that Kodiak would have something familiar to take home with her when we bring her home. Everone laughed at me when I bought a set of baby key rings but they are all the puppies favorite toy.
Kelly getting licked by Kodiak. She loves to lick on people and if you bring her close to your face she will go nuts.

Sorry I'm not posting much lately. It's just really busy with the holidays coming. Also I haven't been in the best of moods for posting either. This will be the first year since we have had kids that we won't be able to go to our families homes on Christmas and that makes me really sad. Usually we will be so busy on that day visiting everyone I didn't mind it though it was part of the day. This year we are going to be at home, although we may go to our friends house for part of the day. Also Kodiak will be 5 weeks on Christmas so we are going to bring her home for a couple of hours since she is kind of a family Christmas gift. The kids don't know that yet so it will be a surprise for them. The other thing that has me down is that all the families are sending money for Christmas gifts so I am trying to find gifts for them and us then figuring out which is from them and which to have from us it just seems like a lot of extra work. Also I like the surprise in seeing what everyone gets and that is kind of lost when I'm buying gifts for everyone from everyone else. Does that make any sense? I know this is the hardest one probably and the holidays without being around all of our families will get better as we make our own new traditions but at the moment I'm just kind of sad.