My Boys.

I love how much they both love each other!

Van started solids this week.
Is it me or is time going by too quickly?



The verdict is out on how much he really likes rice cereal, but it is fun watching him try to eat it.



Speaking of growing up. Van recently learned how to roll over front to back and back to front. He also is in love with his Jumperoo!

Joey is still as silly as ever. Josh was working on the front door and Joey dropped everything he was doing, grabbed his tool belt and was right by Dad's side to help him out.

Snow!

This week we have had quite the dumping of snow. Literally!
We had a little bit on Saturday and enough on Sunday to make the drive back from Yelm a little dicey and to make a snowman family on Monday in snow flurries.
Tuesday night was the big night though! Almost all of the west side of Washington State was gearing up for one of the biggest snow storms in a long time.
We are talking big, like we would get the amount of snow in one night that we would normally get in a whole winter.
CRAZY!
It snowed most of the night and into Wednesday morning giving us about 6-7 inches of snow.
While we played in the snow on Monday, it was really the only day that was doable to do so.



Cool Snowman family!



Joey loves snow!


Tuesday was wet and slushy while Wednesday was cold and deep.
Today, Thursday is bitter cold and ICY! All of the snow has turned into ice. The tree branches are.....


Notice the left off sentence?
Well today is next Thursday and as I was writing then, we lost power.

Remember when I said the snow has turned to ice? Well all the snow ridden branches on the trees also turned to ice and those heavy branches knocked out power to about 230,000 of us! We were out of power for almost 2 days. The first day was fine. It was kind of fun. We all snuggled up in front of the fireplace as a family, played cards and went to bed early. I woke up fully expecting the power to be back on, but it wasn't. Josh had to go to work so that left the boys and I to ourselves. Joey was getting antsy, Van was fussy and I was going crazy in a dark and cold house. So I packed up the car and attempted to get to my parents house for heat and electricity. I barely made it out of our street. Our cul-de-sac is on a hill and there was so much snow piled up and the city doesn't plow residential streets, so there were big blocks of snow everywhere. My first attempt was pathetic so I backed into the driveway and waited while I watched my neighbors (who were smart and parked their car on top of the hill) walk down to their house. I didn't want them to see me so desperately try to get out and fail. So I used the little area we had shoveled and cleared in our drive and gunned it out. I don't know how but my car glided up that hill like God was pushing it up for me. I never felt so desperate to escape.

Thankfully our power came on the next morning. In the grand scheme of things our situation wasn't too bad. We failed to secure our food in a our fridge and freezer and had to toss it all. But other then spoiled food we were incredibly lucky. We have friends who were out of power for 120+ hours!

Look how all the branches are bared down by the weight of the snow! All day we could hear the limbs breaking.



This picture turned out beautiful but it also shows how all the snow turned to ice real quick!

Crafts

In an effort to be more unique with gift giving and to save some money I attempted to make some of the gifts we gave this year for Christmas.

I like sewing, but am not really great at it. I have the basics down, but I struggle with sewing in a straight line and I have no idea how to hand sew, even though I've been shown numerous times. These infinity scarves ended up being really easy to make but it was hard to get the concept down to begin with. I ended up "sewing" the last two inches of seam I couldn't complete on my machine with seam glue. Best.Stuff.Ever.
I like that scarves are light weight and are more springy in color. These scarves made great gifts for several girls on my list.



The wreath came to me in one of my mid shopping sprees at Joann's. Originally I was going to make this wreath wrapped in ribbon, but the beautiful bold colors of yarn caught my eye and my creativity took over. I matched some fat quarters to make the rosettes and sewed the hanging ribbon. This gift went to my Mother-in-Law for her blue room.

The jars were complete spur of the moment gifts. After wrapping the wreath in yarn I realized the possibilities were endless when it came to yarn wrapping. I used old canning jars and spaghetti jars to wrap yarn, ribbon and twine with. The back two jars went to my Mom since she likes blue and the skittle ones of course went to Andrea.



I am glad to say I have quite a few Harry Potter lovers in my life. Both pieces were ideas I got off of Pinterest. The framed art is nearly the same with the background words being lines from the books. The glasses ones went to my brother and sister-in law, Jason and Katy. They loved it so much they decided to make the theme of their nursery, Harry Potter. The other art went to my future sister-in-law Ashley.



The light switches are a personal favorite. I used Harry Potter font that I downloaded this summer to make our movie premiere shirts and my Silhouette program to cute the words out of vinyl. "Lumos", in Harry Potter terms means to use your wand as a flashlight and nox means "off". Hence the light switch. The black letter one went to Jason and Katy and I used the other part of the vinyl transfer to make one for myself using glue and glitter.



I really had a lot of fun making the gifts, but next time I need to allow myself more time. Nothing like finishing up gifts last minute on Christmas Eve!

I have been fidgeting around with a new to me program called Picasa and have been having fun making colleges. Since I have been putting one together for Van's first year of pictures I thought I should make one for Joey. I only wish I was more creative back then or I would have put Joey in some kind of matching pose and outfit to really track how he grew in a year. But...oh well.



*click on the picture to make it larger

4 months!

Time is going quickly!


16.3 pounds
26.5 inches

Look how big Van is getting!

Christmas!

Christmas time was crazy this year!
Well not really, but Josh and I definitely felt pressed for time the couple of days before the 24th and 25th.
Josh took his "Santa" duty pretty seriously this year and I dedicated every free minute to making some of the gifts.
We started out the the Christmas Season trimming the tree and decorating with lights out doors. The latter took over 3 weekends to do because someone kept adding to the display. =)







Of course a visit to Santa was in place, including a presentation of Joey's "collage" Christmas list.



A Christmas lights drive with Hot Cocoa.



Check out this awesome light display we found. The picture doesn't do it justice.



Joey handed out his very own Christmas Cards and candy cane to his preschool friends.



And we can't forget to the Christmas Pageant his preschool put on. We were so proud of his singing skills.



It got a little weird on Christmas Eve Eve when Josh set up his wrapping station. Is it bad that he wraps gifts better than I do?



No Christmas Eve at the Callon's is ever complete without a Family Shooter.



Goofy Callon's.



Santa came by on his sleigh to recheck his nice list before setting out to deliver presents.



We couldn't forget to leave milk and cookies out for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.



It was a "Silent Night, Holy Night" for Van when he fell asleep under the tree.



Santa was nice enough to leave a thank you note to Van and Joey.




Joey was pretty excited to open Santa's Gifts Christmas morning. Although if you ask him he was more enthralled with Grandpa's gifts. Verdict is out on how "Santa" feels about this revelation.



Van even joined in on the fun of a lobster and steak dinner. Not really. But he did watch us enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner.