An Oregon Christmas

I know, I know... it's been forever! Talk about technical difficulties lately. We had camera issues over Christmas (i.e. our camera finally died and when we opened up the new camera box Santa brought us for Christmas, that's literally all it was! a box, no camera!) Needless to say we finally got a new camera but I had to gather pics from other people's cameras which is always a little tricky (but thanks Cathy and Chrissy for getting me those pics!) AND I forgot my memory card in the picture printing kiosk at Rite-Aid which had our ever-so-precious Macy's Santaland pics on it! We seriously stood in line for like an hour-and-a-half and I've got nothing to show for it! So, I guess that's my excuse for not blogging since Thanksgiving -- lame, lame, lame. (whatever... I can blog whenever I want to blog... cuz it's my blog... so there!)

Anyway, we headed out to Oregon for Christmas this year and had a really great time. Even though we always said we'd never fly across the country with 2 young kids (especially around the holidays!) we did it anyway. The boys were at really good stages to fly and luckily the flights were uneventful (we even missed the huge snow storm that shut down NY airports for the whole weekend... LUCKY!).

We spent 2 weeks with Jon's family for Christmas and had a great time catching up with them. It was only the second time they had seen Gabriel, so it was fun for them to get to know him (even if it was at 5am every morning because of the time difference!) Noah loved the masses of attention he got from everyone and Christmas was really fun for him this year. I was worried we would have similar issues to Halloween (i.e. huge build-up to the big day and then melt-down... but he was pretty stoked about all of his presents!)

We had loads of Oregonian fun: cutting down our own Christmas tree, a ride on the Polar Express to the North Pole to see Santa (i.e. the Mt. Hood Railroad at Hood River), trips to the zoo, the Children's Museum, and the Science Museum, and lots of family fun in the rain, snow, and sun! (who said it only rained in Portland?)

**Noah did seem very confused by the weather. He kept saying, "is it daytime? do I have to go to bed?" because it could get so cloudy and gloomy during the day. The funniest part was when we were flying back to NYC, we took off in Portland and finally got above the clouds... Noah said, "look Mommy, it finally stopped raining!" HA!** I felt like I was in Forks, Washington the whole time...

Thanks to the fam for a great visit!

Here are the pics...

(isn't this so Forks, Washington?!?)

Bella.... Edward?

a fine Horey family tradition!

the fam...

the star!

spotting the North Pole

Santa finally made it to our car!

Gabey's first Christmas present!

Noah not nearly as excited about the dinosaur playset as I thought he should be!

baby-elf on the loose!

a little elf-fight...

awww... an elf make-up hug!

Jon opening up our camera... box.

oopsie!

elf-nap with grandpa!

(too much excitement on Christmas Eve)

I call this: "baby-elf-robber"

(watch out... he might be coming down your chimney!)

Christmas Eve dinner with Mike & Amber

birthday cake for Jesus!

storytime with grandpa

trip to the zoo

a little New Year's Eve bowling!

SNOW!

lots of kitchen time with grandpa!

trip to OMSI to see the T-Rex exhibit!