It was a VERY long day . . . but SUPER FUN!

My holiday fun continued with a little Black Friday Shopping with Kate!

Once again we were up and out the door by 4:30am.  This is our 3rd year, and we both love it so much, I think it is a tradition we will continue. 

Now it was time for some serious shopping.  I think that for most people, Black Friday is all about the deals.  Unfortunately for me, I am on a very tight time schedule.  I love a good deal if I get one, but the real goal for me is to get as many things checked off my list as possible. Gone are the days of leisurely strolling through stores looking for that perfect gift for so and so. I am all about getting as much done on that day as I possibly can.  Our next few weekends are packed, so its crunch time :).

Me and Kate

All smiles at 5:00am.

By the time I made it to checkout 2 hours later, my cart looked like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, it was overflowing.  Things kept falling off the sides and I was wacking people with my rolls of wrapping paper sticking out at every angle from my cart.

We couldn't talk Francine into going with us this year, "You are missing out sista, we will welcome you back anytime you want to go with us again". I think she got a little traumatized at Walmart 2 years ago when people were trampling each other and the checkout line went around the store.

Me and my bros!

Just to keep the fun going that day, I ran home from shopping, wrapped my nieces and nephews presents to send home with them and threw on my Duck gear for the big game!  I was so excited for this great game.  A little tired . . . yes, but it was well worth it!

Dad, Mom, Sean, Kevin, Me and Pancho

(with Chris popping his head up behind us)

It was fun to tailgate before the game with my family.

The Ducks gave us yet another exciting game.  I actually love how they play like crap during the first half and then come back strong in the second half.  It makes all of their games so much fun to watch (boy will  I be bummed if they don't make it back in the second half someday, I have begun to just count on it!)

We love our great seats that are just 17 rows up behind the players right on the 50 yard line, but they were a little wet for this game.  We got rained on the whole time!

The scoreboard with one minute to go!

It was so much fun to be there for this amazing win!

Pac 10 Champions and 11-0 record!  It was actually kind of sad saying goodbye to all of our seat neighbors until next year.  We have all become friends through the years.

Oh Yeah!

Down on the field after the game celebrating with everybody!

On the ride home from the  game, I was really feeling my long day.  I had been up since 4am!  BUT . . . then I got home and the Boise State game was on!  Another amazing game to watch (although I feel so bad for that kicker).  What a fun day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving could not have started any better!

When my brother and sister in law walked in holding my nephew Finn, we were all so excited to see them that it took us a few seconds to notice his shirt.  Then we all erupted in squeals and hugs!  We we are all so excited to have a new member of the family coming this June!

My adorable nephew Finn . . .

This little guy will be getting a new little brother or sister on or near his second birthday.  Kate's due date is June 14th (Finn's Birthday).

Here we all are checking out Finn's shirt and congratulating the soon to be family of four!

Kate, Kevin and Finn

Will Finn have a little brother or sister? 

I can't wait to find out!

My niece Annie and my sister in law Francine.

So cute!

Lucy and I, just after we found out that Lucy is getting a new cousin,

she was telling me how hard it is going to be to wait, she is very excited!

I LOVE Thanksgiving!

In fact it is my favorite holiday!  All of you Christmas lovers out there will probably never understand me, but to me Thanksgiving has all of the family fun, just being together, good food, coziness etc. of Christmas without all of the focus on gift buying.  Don't get me wrong, I love getting and giving gifts too, but I love the "family" part the most :).

Maybe another reason that I love Thanksgiving so much is that I don't have to do much. My Mom takes the brunt of all of the hard work every year.  Namely, cooking the turkey and pretty much everything else.  We are all assigned side dishes, but she definitely does the most.

THANK YOU MOM!

Oh and she sets a beautiful table too!

Thanksgiving has been reserved for the Murray side of the family for the past few years (I am hoping that it stays this way as our tradition).  That means that both of my brothers come down from Seattle with their kids, and we all spend the long weekend together!  This leaves my brothers free to spend Christmas with my sister in laws families.  I am always so thankful that we all get to be together!  We usually spend the day eating, watching football, playing games and talking.

The cousins always have a BLAST together!

We also try to help my mom in the kitchen.  Pancho is usually a better helper than me.  I am just lost when it comes to cooking.  Kate, Francine and I were talking about how my Mom has been enabling us.  None of us has ever had to cook a turkey.  I am 40 years old and I would not  know what to do!  I'm not complaining though.  Mom makes the best Thanksgiving Dinner ever, we end up eating the leftovers for the whole weekend.

The kids played in the hot tub quite a bit.  The boys were outside playing football quite a bit too.  My nephew Will just loves playing sports with his big cousins.

My Dad got us all lined up for some family pictures.

 . . . and here we all are, the whole gang!

My Aunt, Uncle and cousins from Salem came down and had some yummy Turkey with us too, it was a full house.  They were the ones that got forced to photograph all of us with every one of our cameras.  They were very good sports :).

We always go around the table and everyone says what they are Thankful for, I have so many things!  I have been very blessed and I thank God every day for all I have been given.

Believe it or not, we actually had about half of the people that we usually have for Thanksgiving this year.  Sadly, our Portland relatives couldn't make it this year.  The good news was that the kids finally got to sit at the big table with all of the adults.  Annie and Lucy were very happy to be included.

All in all it was such a fun four day weekend with my family, we always have such a great time together!  I am so sad to see it over. I guess that I will have to wait another year for my favorite holiday :).  Christmas isn't so bad though, especially since I got 90% of my shopping done on Black Friday.  More to come on that  in my next post . . .



It's The Best Day Ever!!!!

I have always loved snow days, but I have to say, my love for them has reached a whole new level now that I am teaching!  It is an amazing feeling to think that you have a full 12 hour day ahead of you filled with making lunches, packing backpacks, driving to 2 schools, correcting reports, correcting tests, teaching, meetings, sports, etc. and then to have it all taken away!  Nothing on your scedule for the WHOLE DAY!!!

I haven't had a free day like that since summer!  Even more fun, was that Pancho was stuck at home with us (he couldn't make it to Seattle).  We were all home for a fun family day together.  It started off with the  kids playing out in the "snow" (about 1 inch of it) for 2 hours.  Then, they came in for Hot Chocolate and we baked chocolate chip cookies. I even got to take a nap in the afternoon and then after a delicious family dinner, we watched a family movie together.

  A perfect day!

Sam and Cam

Of course we had half the neighborhood playing in our yard for most of the day.

Max filled this storage bin so he could build a snowman.

Our street!

Our house in the snow.

We have my parents van right now, because my van is in the shop.

Playing!

Three cheers for no school!

A Big Smile for the snow!

Pancho with his new Toyota Camry.

Thats right, Pancho got a new (to us) car!  Those of you who know us well, know what a HUGE step this was for Pancho.  Windows that roll down, a lock that works, a radio that works . . . its amazing! ha ha

Sam always seems to be the the one laying in the snow.

Ta Da!

Here is the pathetic little snowman that they built with all of the snow they collected.

Lucy, Max and Cameron

Max was the mastermind behind the engineering of the snowman.

I was so  happy that I got up at 5:00am on Sunday to finish correcting the 51 Historical Biography Reports that were due last Friday.  At around 9:00am when I finished correcting, I also went grocery shopping for  Thanksgiving, and got the house ready for my brother and his family to come down from Seattle to stay with us!  Had I known that I was going to have a free day this week, I probably would have saved some of that work for today! 

I have to admit, I am getting selfish now.  I am  PRAYING for another snow day tomorrow too.  O'Hara only has a half day anyway, and I am already in the Thanksgiving Spirit.  It is going to be really hard to go back into work mode.  Can't we just make it Thanksgiving Break now? 

Happy 10th Birthday Sam the Man!

He has made it to double digits!

Sam is finally 10 years old, he has been counting down the days minutes and hours since Lucy's Birthday one month ago.  He has always had such a hard time with the fact that Lucy is younger than him, but she gets to have her birthday first!  Now it was finally his turn to be in the spotlight, and for the middle child, that's a BIG deal.  If this party looks like deja vu, its because it was exactly the same as Lucy's party but with less "girly" stuff.  He had 4 close friends come over for dinner, games and a sleepover!

This picture makes me a little teary.  He is looking so grown up to me lately. 10 sounds so old!

Once again, my Mom was a life saver and brought over  most of the food as well as her homemade cupcakes (from scratch).  Mom and Dad came over the night before the party and brought the food and they brought Sam this cool nerf gun.  Actually it is a nerf "automatic rifle" that shoots out about 2 or 3 bullets per second! 

SAM LOVED IT!!!

We all thought it was so funny that cute, sweet little Grammy, got her grandson an automatic rifle . . . so we made Grammy fire off a few rounds.  It was pretty funny to see her shooting that big gun!

The next day, the friends started arriving.

Lucas, Colin, Sam, Ellie and Jack.

I had gift bags all ready for the kids with the new Kung Zhu pets in each bag.

Sam holding 2 Kung Zhu's (just in case you arent up on the latest toys).  They are these little gerbil things that make noise and move around.  The kids had a blast with them, they built a whole village complete with battling arena for them out of cardboard boxes. They spent at least an hour battling their Zhu Zhu's.

I am not sure if you can even see Grammy's cupcakes under the Hot Wheels cars, but Sam wanted a Hot Wheels theme, so Grammy stuck a car on each cupcake!

Singing Happy Birthday!

Poor Sam, had to wait until after the VERY intense Oregon Duck football game was over before we could tear ourselves away from the TV to do cake and presents.  Are my priorities messed up?  I don't think so!  That was a big game! ha ha

Colin, Sam and Lucas

Sam and Pancho

The McCarthys stayed to watch the game with us and Liz brought her kids down from Salem, so she just spent the night too!  I wish I would have taken more pictures of the adults, but really we were all just glued to the TV.  It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with Liz, and get caught up.  Our lives are so busy now!

Ellie and Jack gave Sam this Steelers Jersey.

He just loves the Steelers, so he was so excited about this jersey.  In fact, as I am typing this, Sam is going on day 4 of wearing this jersey (sleeping in it too).  I am hoping to get it off of him tomorrow so I can wash it!

Another big hit was the Hot Wheels Criss Cross Action Track.

They all sat there racing their little cars over and over and cheering when they crashed.

One last group shot of the party group.

These guys had so much fun together, cars, wii football, zhu zhu battles, and nerf gun wars, what more could you ask for?

It is still hard for me to believe that my "Sam Sam" is growing  so fast.  Even though Sam can challenge me sometimes, I love this guy with all my heart!  He is so into football right now.  He plays it outside, plays it on the wii, watches it on TV, reads books about it, writes stories about it, and talks our ears off about it constantly.  He has so many friends both at Springcreek and O'Hara, he seems to be getting invited on playdates every weekend.  I almost need a personal secretary  to keep track of his social schedule. School is definitely NOT Sam's favorite thing, but somehow he gets glowing reports from all of his teachers, and he always has a story to tell about something that happened at recess (his favorite time of the day).  I can't wait to see what the future holds for Sam, he is such a good boy with a big heart .  . . and I LOVE him so much!

Lucy is playing Basketball!

Wow, we went from only wanting to do gymnastics to soccer and now basketball.  I am so glad that Lucy is trying some of the team sports (even though I had to push her a little bit to try them).  She had a great time playing soccer and now she is loving basketball.

She definitely has the height for the sport!

This picture totally reminds me of myself playing sports.

Always sitting on the bench, but having a great time talking to all of my friends, with no idea who won or lost the game at the end.  Ha ha.

Yup!  This one looks familiar to me too!

Always trying to keep up with the girls who really knew how to play!

I am not going to totally pigeon hole Lucy into being her Mommy's protege yet though (although I still see nothing wrong with being the happy, chatty, bencher!)  Lucy is showing some real potential.  This was only her first game EVER!  Go Lucy!