Christmas In Portland (beware…this is a LOOOONG post!)

The night before we headed to Portland, we let the boys open their presents from Grandpa and Grandma Miller. I got some video of it so that my dad and Sharon could see them open them. Here are the videos and the one picture I took of Jacob. He was soooo excited to open this present because he had been looking at it for about a week.

We headed down to Portland on Wednesday morning to start “the rounds” of people to see. It’s funny how we drive 300 miles down there for the holidays, yet we still manage to have to drive around to everyone else to visit. I guess that’s just how it is when you don’t live close :( We started off the visit with lunch at Grandpa Dave’s and Grandma Weezy’s (Joe’s dad and step-mom). We had a really nice visit with a yummy lunch made by Elouise and we exchanged gifts. The boys LOVED their toys. Here are a few pics from that…

We then headed to my parents house to plant ourselves for our “homebase”. Joe went and met a VERY old friend that he had not seen in almost 10 years and I decided to brave the Christmas Eve Eve service with my family by myself with the boys. I was pleasantly surprised and they were REALLY good. Jacob doesn’t know how to whisper so I was really worried about how that was going to work. My mom and I tag teamed him and it worked out well. The next morning we woke up and got going so that we could go visit “Uncle” Stevie and “Aunt” Tami. They are expecting their first baby in June so we are REALLY excited to find out what they are having this week!!!! We had a nice time chatting and they were very generous and got the boys a few things. I forgot to take pictures while we were there, though. DOH! It’s okay, though because we saw them later in the travels and I got a few pics then J We then took the tired boys home and got them down for a nap so that they were refreshed for our Christmas Eve dinner at my Uncle Phil’s house! It’s been a while since we have done Christmas Eve with that side of the family. Pretty much since my grandma went down to live in Canby. It was sooo much fun! The boys had fun and the food was good and it was really nice to see everyone because it had been a while! And they were all in one spot, so that makes it REALLY nice for us!!! My Aunt Janet (Phil’s wife) got out a special book to read to Jacob and he LOVED it! I think we may need to make a special trip over there later this year to play again…Here are a few pics from Christmas Eve…

After we got home from my uncle’s house, we put our cookies for Santa and carrots for Ruldolph out on our special Santa plate along with a glass of milk. Jacob was soooo excited to get it all set-up. I got a few pics with them, but it was almost 11pm and they were BEAT…here are a few of those pics…

At some point that night Santa came to visit the house because when we woke up that morning (at 8am), the stockings were FULL and the cookies and carrots were gone!!!! Here is a video of Jacob discovering all of the new stuff…

And then we opened our stockings and the rest of the presents that were under the tree. The boys were SPOILED this year by family!!!!!!

The fun continued while we opened presents. The boys were SPOILED by everyone this year!! I had to come home and throw old toys in a storage tote so we had room for all the new stuff. Now I have toys to rotate, though so that is good J Here are the present opening pictures…

We spent the rest of Christmas Day just relaxing. It was our first year of NOT driving all over the place on Christmas Day and this will definitely be a yearly thing from here on out. The boys got to stay in their jammies and play with their toys and take long NEEDED naps and have an enjoyable rest of the day with the family. Joe and I were even able to relax for a bit and that was a FIRST. It was nice…

The day after Christmas we went to Joe’s brother’s house to see them and Grandma Doi (Joe’s mom). It was a lot of fun to let the cousins play and hang out. We had some Papa Murphy’s pizza and opened some presents. It was nice and relaxing and enjoyable :) Here are just a FEW pics from that. I didn’t get a chance to take very many…

We got the boys back to homebase and down for their naps and then when they got up, we met “Uncle” Stevie and “Aunt” Tami for dinner at Chevy’s (it’s a MUST while we are down there) and then we headed out in our WARMEST hats and coats to brave Zoolights. It was COLD and WINDY, but it was a lot of fun and Jacob is STILL talking about it. We were there late enough that we only had to wait in line for about 30 minutes for the train, so that was nice. I think that is the way to do it if your kids can go later. Here are a few pics from that…

We ended up staying an extra day so that we could spend time with Scott and Linda (Steve’s parents) and Joe’s Uncle PeeWee and Aunt Sharon. We had a really good time seeing them, but we were so exchausted at that point I just stopped taking pictures :(. All in all it was a REALLY good Christmas and the boys were so much fun this year. We were very glad to come home and sleep in our own beds, though. Jacob actually slept like a LOG and for a LOOONG time (like 13 + hours at night and almost 3 hour naps during the day) for the entire week following! He was definitely trying to catch up on his sleep! Joe had that entire next week off so we were able to get some things done around the house and that was nice too!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and if we didn’t get to see you…maybe we can next time we are in town!