FALLing into WINTER...

I say falling into winter but it was more like running into a wall head first. (Can you tell this is my favorite time of year!) We actually did have some fun along with the crazy weather.

The rest of October was filled with gathering pumpkins and Halloween, which is Joe's favorite holiday!

We went to the pumpkin patch with the Torres Family! It was right up the road from their place and they usually have good pumpkins there. We got some cute family pictures in too while we were at it!

How stinkin' cute are these two! This might as well have been the cover of a kids clothing magazine!

For Halloween this year we wanted to go with a family theme so we chose The Incredibles! It took a while to get all the pieces together but we looked pretty good. We had a ton of compliments while walking around Federal Way doing some Trick Or Treating with Jon, Julie and the kids. :)

I was super excited for November to come because we were doing family pictures!! Amy is a dear friend of mine and an amazing photographer so if you live in Washington you should have her do your pictures!! She has a website and a Facebook page that you can check out. I absolutely love all the pictures she took but if I had to narrow it down these are my favorites.

and one more.....

Ok, ok I won't bore you with any more pictures of my beautiful family!

After November was finished we move on into out crazy winter we had out here in the PNW but we'll get to that in a minute. December was actually a lot of fun!

This was Jack on Christmas afternoon... somebody slept in!

Oh I almost forgot, the Christmas tree fell over!! That was crazy. My mother-in-law does such a wonderful job meticulously placing every ornament, winding the ribbon around the tree and flocking it with the perfect amount of snow. So you can imagine her devastation when she walked out to see this. Luckily only a couple of ornaments broke and since it was Dec. 12th, there was time to set things right. After re-decorating we ended up weighing it down with sandbags so it wouldn't happen again.

Ugly Christmas Sweaters!! A group of us started wearing ugly christmas sweaters to the ward party last year and now we've decided to make it a tradition. I guess ours don't count because they look like they just came out of an Eddie Bauer magazine. We'll have to step it up for next year!

After Christmas Joe and I decided that it was time to cut Jack's hair. I'm not going to lie we were both pretty sad to see his beautiful curls go but he was starting to look like a girl... A little before and after action for you here!

After a fun filled December we move into the month that I hope will never go down like this again!! Mid-January we started getting a bit of snow so we went out and built a snowman super fun right and then....

BAM!!! 

18 1/2 inches in less than 24 hours and on top of that a freezing rainstorm. Combining the two equals: No power for 8 days and having to run off a generator, friends without power and generators with a new addition that need our help, getting creative with cooking on a wood stove, the men having to snowshoe in gas for the generator (there were trees down all over the road), oh and missing a few steps on the stairs when in the dark and rolling my ankle that ended up the size of a golfball! Super fun!

This was our snowman the next day. Poor guy!

One of the most devastating things that happened was Julianna and Dan's wedding tree breaking under the weight of the snow and freezing rain. No, this isn't a premonition of things to come. They are a wonderful couple and stronger than any tree! <3 you guys!!

Luckily no one was hit by a falling tree and the only damage that was done was to structures that we weren't residing in. Let's just say we were all glad the storm was over and were ready to move on to a warmer January.

Which did happen a week or so later so we headed up to the zoo and something cool happened along the way. I won a radio contest!

We'll save that story for the next blog update! Goodnight all!