Grab some coffee and catch up!

I know, I know, I'm not the best at keeping up on this blog. Facebook is pretty much all consuming for me, so whenever I get online intending to blog, I end up on FB screwing around and wasting time. I have all but forgotten about Myspace now though, so at least I only have one huge time waster.
So let's see, I last left you with the pending birthday party for Lauren. Yeah, that was over 2 months ago, so I'll do a quick recap of November/December/January.
The birthday party was absolute mayhem, but pretty fun actually. There ended up being almost as many adults as kids, so we had our own party upstairs while the little Hannah Montana wannabees hung out downstairs. They were all, for the most part, very polite and got along with eachother. The only problem was the noise level. Whew, girls are LOUD.
Thanksgiving was great, as usual. We spent it at the Chilcotts and had delicious food and good company. We got to see Josh's grandma and pseudo grampa, who we see about every 6 months to a year even though they only live in North Plains.
December came and brought my new favorite day of the year. That's right folks, SantaCon. If you don't know what Santa Con is, here's a brief summary: drunk Portlanders roaming the streets and bars dressed as Santa. There were the occasional reindeer, elves and other Christmas related outfits, but for the most part, it was a sea of red and white. So Much Fun. We plan to take part every year until we die.


Also in December was my poor baby boy's birthday. We haven't had a party yet, due to a very full calendar and inclement weather. Oh yeah! Inclement weather! Or as the News Stations called it, "Arctic Blast 2008". It was actually crazy, we had over a foot of snow...in Hillsboro! This is completely unheard of. The most I've ever seen here is about 3 inches. School was shut down for a whole week, inconveniently the last week of school before Christmas break. So in all, they were home for 3 weeks. I was really glad to see that come to an end. I love them dearly, but 3 kids in a house this size for 3 weeks with nowhere to go...not so much. I couldn't even get my car out of the driveway without a lot of shoveling. You see, the kids shoveled the driveway for Josh's car to park, but didn't think about where they were putting the snow. It all ended up directly behind my car. Then the freezing rain came and made a shell of ice all around it. Awesome. We had a lot of fun with the snow though and we got to experience a white Christmas, which was pretty neat.
Speaking of Christmas, it was great. In years past, we have donated gifts to the Childrens' Relief Nursery in North Portland. It has always proven to make us stop and think about what's really important. This year topped it by a landslide. We were able to donate gifts to someone in our own family who was in serious need. It's such a good feeling to be able to help.
We also did a homemade Christmas gift exchange between the Mac side of the family. Each person drew two names and had to make a gift for those two people. You then got two gifts in return from two different people. It turned out to be the most meaningful gifts I've ever seen under the tree.

Our most awesome gift though, was from our own kids. A few days before Christmas, Hayden was standing in front of the tree marveling at the amount of gifts already there. He said, "Mom? Where is Santa going to fit his gifts? There are so many there already!" I said, "He'll find a place for them, don't worry." A few minutes later, the kids were talking amongst themselves. They came to me and said that they don't need any more gifts than what they already have under the tree and that they wanted to write a letter to Santa to ask him to give their presents to some kids that needed them instead. I almost cried I was so proud of them. So they wrote the letter, and put it out with the cookies and milk on Christmas Eve. In the morning, they found a letter from Santa, thanking them for being such amazing kids. Along with the letter, Santa left two jingle bells from his sleigh. Pretty cool, huh?
New Years was spent at home this year. It was one of, if not the best New Years we've had. My parents, Haley, Scott and Amy came over. We ate, drank and played Apples to Apples. It was really refreshing to just hang out and not have to deal with babysitting, dressing up, driving home, hangovers, etc. At midnight, we all did the countdown in the living room and then for some strange reason thought it would be a good idea to run around the block. Like I said, we were drinking. The dog came with us too. She thought it was the best night of her life. Running around in the rain at night! Sweet!
On Saturday, we went to see Revolver, a Beatles tribute band at the Venetian Theater in Hillsboro. The first couple of songs had us nervous. The sound system was messing up and the guys who were on stage were just not the Beatles. But...a few songs in, and a couple glasses of wine, we were at a BEATLES show!! It was so much fun! A few of us ended up dancing up front like crazy groupies. I kept thinking it would have been hilarious to have brought an extra bra or panties to fling at the stage. It would have made me laugh anyway.
So there you have it, we're up to speed. I promise to try to be more frequent in updating.