Holiday Cheer

We are so proud of Cameron for helping to deliver meals and presents to 5 families in Sebastopol who wouldn't have had holiday groceries or presents for their children otherwise.  I am so thankful for him to see first hand it is better to give than receive….he -along with this other group of kiddos - impacted several lives last Saturday morning.  Way to go Cameron (bonus…got to do it in this fire truck!)

 Clyde - 16 & 1/2 years old …that like 115 in doggie years!!  enjoying the tree & lights

 Grandma Sylvia and the boys collected this huge bunch of mistletoe - whew that's gotta be good for a make-out session not just a kiss!

 the boys made Christmas cookies for several friends

 hard at work

I love the holiday season!

Birthday/Sky

I celebrated my birthday Monday.  The kids (with Grandma Sylvia's help) made me this awesome sign.  Lucky me….so sweet.  Here we are ready to head out the door Monday morning.  Who knew Cameron had a 101.7 fever :( poor guy-needless to say we laid low that evening!

 Talk about lucky me…Eddie surprised me with these awesome flowers (in a very romantic way I might say) - wow…after all these year, it must be love!

 We have been having the most awesome sunrise & sets around here this week.  Got this shot on my way to work.

 Eddie got this on his way home.

Beautiful!

HOOPS

Basketball

Both Cameron & Cooper are playing rec. basketball this year.  It's the first time either has ever been on a team.  The season runs from November until the end of February  (Bye-bye weekends - the past two we've had to be on the court at 8:15am!).

It's been fun watching them learn the fundamentals of this sport.  They both seem to be catching right on and are great teammates!

Cameron going for a shot in his first game (his "home" games are in Eddie's old middle school gym)

 Cooper has been a key player on his team

 score

 what's up with #42 - is he really in 3rd grade?!

 #54 blocking

 got the rebound (he got 5 in one quarter last weekend)

They really work these kids.  It's great for Cameron because he is planning on playing for his school in the spring.  Having the fundamentals will make that an easy transition.  Cooper's going to be on fire by the time he gets to middle school!
WooHoo Boys!

Moving along to Christmas

Well maybe not Christmas but a Christmas tree!

Christmas sure is sneaking up on us this year.  I have not evan started shopping and there is like 12 days left.  Ugh, normally I have most of my shopping done before Thanksgiving.  Oh well, it will keep it exciting I guess!  

We did manage to get our Christmas tree last weekend. We have so many "choose & cut" tree farms in Sebastopol.  We forget that not everybody has them in their own backyard - one of those things we take for granted!  Anyway, we braved the crowds and headed out to a local farm.  We tromped around the place up and down so many rows of trees and then, like usual, we ended up picking a pre cut they trucked in from Oregon.  What can we say??, we like the Noble fir better than the Douglas.  Besides it's already cut so that makes it easy!

Here we are as our hunt begins….

 cuties!

and the winner!

It looks so cute all decorated in the house.  Now we just gotta get some gifts under it.  Get busy Santa!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, got to fill your bellies with great food and spend time with people that make you smile.

We had a great time over here.  Eddie's cousin - which we haven't seen since we lived in Mississippi - is in the Air Force and just got stationed in California.  Yay for us, we got to spend Thanksgiving together.  They, his cousin and his wife and 3 kids, along with Grandma Sylvia came up for the day.  The last time we had seen them they didn't have any kids!  It was so fun getting to play with all the little kiddos all day and to visit with Mick & Heidi.  We had a great time cooking together (well I didn't do much cooking but I did help with the wine), catching up and eating a wonderful meal.

Here's a shot of the "boys"

 the girls - well the grown up one's anyway

 the little Norris kiddos 'breaking bread' together

 hey even Billy made an appearance.

What!?

Gooble, Gooble -

Happy Thanksgiving (late) everyone!

Happy Birthday Cameron

Cameron celebrated his 12th birthday Nov. 27th.

We started the celebration with a laser tag party with a group of friends from school.  The kids all had a great time playing and eating.  

 The morning of his big day - which happened to fall on the first day of our Thanksgiving break - he chose to go to this country breakfast.  They load you down with food at this place!

 No birthday of Cameron's would be complete without a trip to the John Deere store.  We spent a lot of time there checking out all of the tractors.

We also went to another tractor yard and the Tractor Supply Store.  I guess you can all figure out what Cameron loves!
HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY CAMERON!

A quick hike to the beach

We made a quick trip to the beach last weekend.  Took a short hike and ran around on the sand for a little while.  It was so warm and beautiful out there.  (you can never be sure of the weather out there but we hit this on the perfect day!)

 Roxy pulling a Miley Cyrus!

We have been hearing coyotes every night up in the apple orchard behind our house.  We saw on on this hike.  Couldn't get my camera on it quick enough but it stood and stared at us for a minute then wondered off into the thicket (thank goodness) - It was cool for the kids to see what they have been hearing every night.  Anyway typing this as I am quickly getting behind got to be out the door in 15 min so BYE for now.

I did it!

I actually made a video.  Thought about putting it on you tube but thought we'd try it on here first.  I actually think it may play/link better from there but lets see…….

OK I gave it a test run, it's tiny but still pretty cool.  If I do upload it to you tube I will try to link it that way and see if it's any better, but for now enjoy.  I actually can't believe I figured out how to do it!

MUD

Time to get dirty!

The kids were so irritated at us last spring when we did the Russian River Mud Run without them.  So, we signed up for round 2 last weekend.  Just so happens it was the ONLY day of the year the sun never came out - so we froze our buns off but damn did we have a fun time doing it.  Cooper did great on the course and can't wait to try it again (hopefully on a warm day!)  He was a trooper!  Cameron kicked butt - it would be fun to run it with him for "time" and see how well we could place - they did good with 21st & 22nd this time.  We all had a blast and Eddie got the entire run on video.  I'm going to try and get crafty and edit it down and put it to music (that should take about a year!)  

Go Team MUDDY MOWERS!

Boo

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

On our way to the carnival at Cooper's school with Willie from Duck Dynasty & Travis Pastrana

 some face painting

 Eddie & Cooper trying to win a cake

 Cameron & his friend Grandma

 carving time

 met up with Billy for some dinner

 and trick-or-treating

 home with his candy and awesome jack-o-lantern

 success

Hope y'all had a great Halloween!

A little time for fun and hanging out

Just a guy and his dog!

Roxy loves going to work with Eddie (and I love it when they surprise me on my lunch which is what they were doing here :-)  )

 A quick trip to Lake Sonoma

 Cooper's friend called when we were pulling out of town so he hoped in the truck and headed to the lake with us.  Here they are tubing and Cooper says "dad was driving crazy!"  His feet caught the water and

 he's in the drink!

 They loved it..

 a little TV time

 and some cozy cuddling before school

geez Roxy, a little spoiled huh?!