The Long Lost Cookie Exchange Pictures

The Pictures from the Cookie Exchange are finally published! I hope you enjoy looking them. This is such a fun event!! This cookie exchange is so much fun I love to host it for my neighborhood every year! Everyone looks forward to not only the cookies but seeing old neighbors and meet new Neighbors. It a great time! Special thanks to my friend Morgan for all her help with the Cookie recipe CD's!

She designed it and packaged them! Thank you Morgan!!

The Little Blondie is Zoe, Morgans Daughter! My cookie Critic. (helpful hint: turn off the music above when starting this smiley box)

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Christmas Morning Sledding!

FYI You might want to turn off the music above before trying to hear the SMILEY BOX video

Christmas Day Scenario- You've got more than a foot of snow on the ground Christmas day. Everyone is snowed in for Christmas. What-cha going to do! GO SLEDDING!!!! This was the best Christmas ever! We have had such a great Christmas. Opening our Presents to falling snow. Having a Igloo in my yard and snow man Family that never melts, Inches fresh new snow every morning.

Here we are sledding on virgin snow at the local Golf Course right around the corner from our neighborhood Christmas Morning!

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It's Official -- It's a White Christmas in Maple Valley!

This slide show was taken around 1 pm on Christmas Day! Pictures were taken after we went sledding at the Elk Run Golf Course. THAT WAS FUN!! When have we ever had a foot of snow to sled on at Christmas... Never. This is as we drove home by way of Starbucks! Thought we'd share our drive with you! It just keeps snowing and snowing! Sledding pictures will be posted later! WE got some really good wipeouts! It as been snowing off and on mostly on all day.

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You don't see this everyday!!

Our neighborhood is always full of surprises. You don't see this everyday in MV. This afternoon between the snow flurries we caught a glimpsed at Santa walking down our street. He probably thought he'd get an early start before the North West gets totally dumped on tonight again.
For a half an hour it rained but the rest of the time we got a few more inches all day this Christmas Eve. Had planned to spend Christmas Eve with Family in Burien but decided we didn't want to risk getting stuck. The kids sadly agreed. We always enjoy Christmas Eve with Carles family.

After all the presents wrapped Carle and Jonathan played with the Polar Express!

Love this White Christmas!!!! We don't have to dream of one it's all around us!

It's Five O'clock Somewhere

Finally getting around to posting these pictures of the clock mural I finished the weekend before the cookie exchange. It really turned out to be a fun project! Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Sliding Slide show!!

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More Snow on the way!!.....

Grampa and Grandma Johnson Snow day!

Here is the Johnsons Homested in the snow!
Pretty as a Christmas card!





Grandma Elsie at the front door!

No worries! After taking these pictures Carle shoveled them out and cleared their walk path! They had quite a snow drift in their front porch area.

Snow Play

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SNOQUALMIE FALLS IN ICED CONDITIONS

The impending storm has us all getting ready like never before. We've had storms before but the way the forcasters are talking about this one it really is going to be a huge storm! Carle ran out and got a generator. He's been back and forth from Carols making sure that she has her generator up and running. Her neighbor has been helping also. Carle has been taking care of everybody today. We are keeping an eye on Grampa and Grandma Johnson as well to make sure they okay as well. And our neighbor with the triplets.
I do like storms but Just want the power to stay on! Is that too much to ask.

All Decorated for the Holidays!

Now that the cookie exchange is done I wanted to take a few snap shots of around our house!

My Friend Robyn is a profestional decorator and helped decorate our home. I've had so much fun decorating this year!

Schools closed till next year!

Well Schools been closed most of the week and late the other days. We are officially on Christmas break! The kids are loving the snow days here. The roads have over an inch thick of compact snow and ice on them! Great for sledding!! Not so great for driving.

The weather is staying in the teens and we are expecting a second winter storm on Saturday thru Sunday! High wind warnings. So we are battening down the hatches for more snow and really windy conditions! Mean while the kids are having a blast in all this fun snow!

FUN! FUN! FUN!!!

The boys all bundled up in their winter jackets!

Oliver sledding with the big boys!

My kids aren't angels but they sure make pretty snow angels!

Neighbor boys fort! It takes up their whole front yard! The walls are a solid foot deep and it is square with a door to get in. They spray painted it on the side.
Older boys of course! High school.

Nice cool crisp night!

Surprise Delivery

Wow! I got Flowers!! Well.....! I have to share them because they are for the whole family!

My friend Lori sent us Christmas Flowers! The are beautiful and perfect. Love the vase! Thanks Lori!!

(Notice I asked Carle to hold the flowers up for me and he just had to get Oliver in there as well. Now who's the dog lover now. Grin.,)

The Big Chill

An icy wind blows snow across a rural roadway in Enumclaw Sunday.

Story Published: Dec 14, 2008 at 5:23 PM PST
Story Updated: Dec 14, 2008 at 10:22 PM PST
By Scott Sistek & KOMO Staff
A truly frigid night is in store all of Western Washington as a weather system continues to dump cold air into the region from Canada, bringing a threat of icy roads for the Monday morning commute - and for many more commutes to come.Lows will drop into the teens for much of the Western Washington lowlands Sunday night and Monday morning. And in Whatcom County, lows could drop into the single digits, accompanied by strong gusty winds. A High Wind Warning is in effect until early Monday morning for gusts as high as 60 mph. Strong winds were also forecast for the western Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Cascade foothills, where gusts could reach 40-45 mph. The combination of cold, ice and a Monday morning commute has prompted the state Transportation Department to issue a warning to motorists about using utmost caution as they get out on the highways.Crews are sanding and plowing roads, but conditions still could be treacherous in many areas - especially on hills or secondary roads, the transportation officials said.And the bitterly cold conditions won't end with the morning commute. The week ahead could go into the record books as the longest stretch of freezing weather since the infamous arctic blast of December 1990.Despite mostly sunny conditions over the next two days, daytime high temperatures will struggle to reach freezing.And more snow could fall on Wednesday as a disturbance moves through the region, possibly bringing widespread accumulations of 3-6 inches.Forecasting models have been consistent in bringing another reinforcing blast of arctic air in that storm's wake for Thursday and Friday, and it could be even colder than the frigid temperatures forecasted for earlier this week. Long range models then hint at a few periods of potential heavy snow again into the weekend before, and week of Christmas.

Our First Yellow Snow!

Our First Yellow Snow! LOL

Oliver and Jonathan frolicking in the snow! Oliver even though he can't handle the cold very well loves the snow! He is so funny out there!

These pictures were from Yesterday and we got more fridged weather today. We are expecting More of this all week.

It's 22 degrees out and extremly gusty winds! Our Sam "the snow man" is (blow up kind) is having a hard time standing up. The wind is really blowing out there! I don't mind this weather as long as the power stays on I actually love cold snow storm nights! I just much rather have the power to stay on to hear my Christmas music and have my hot chocolate with marshmellows handy as I lay wrapped up with my blanket by the fire with my dog on my lap.

SO speaking of cold... I had to finally bring in my hanging geraniums in side. Because of the sudden change of season, I had to give in and decide that they would not be part of my front porch decor for Christmas.

Sad but true.

Carle and I are finally over our horrible cold and yucky congestion. Finally can sleep at night. I've been really in panic mode for over a week now! To much deadlines to make! Since thanksgiving I haven't' been able to finish my murals in my house because of Trips to Portland, visits from my dear friend Tari and trips to see Tari! Got to love that I've been doing trips. I guess you can't feel too sad for me. But getting sick and helping other friends that have been very sick has got me really behind if I wasn't already. I spent this weekend finishing painting my house which included a large Clock mural on my ceiling. And I have four days till my cookie exchange and I still haven't' baked my cookies yet.

The cookie exchange so far has over 43 variety's of cookies coming and thanks to my friend Robyn she helped me decorate my house for the event. I've also got my Friend Morgan helping me with the cook book CD that I hand out at the exchange that has everyone recipes on it with pictures. I don't know what I would of done with out the two of these ladies!

I just have to finish setting up and doing the labels and bake my own cookies and it all should be good. I've really excited this year I have a reporter from the Covington reporter and a photographer coming to this event! They are doing a story on community. No joke! I don't make these things up! Of course this year it seemed I had a shorter deadline and more commitments than last year before this event. But after this weekend I'm feeling better about it all getting done.

The boys have also been doing Swim camp! Private swim lessons at Tiger Mountain Aquatics Center everyday for two weeks. Check out Jared and Nathans blogs for lots of great pictures.

They just completed their camp on Friday so that's one less thing to run around for. And right before the cold winter storm. I hate to drive up Tiger mountain in this weather.

Emily has still been dedicated to Fast Pitch Softball. Emily and Carle have been Practicing four days a week and swimming Wednesday nights with the team for conditioning. I'm so proud of her! She as been getting A's and B's in school attending all team practices, and sometimes, when she has time babysits for the neighbors. It should be some good games/tournaments by the time spring ball comes!!

All the kids except Jonathan have created blogs and they are so into it they bug me constantly to update them. Nathan is bugging me now to put Christmas music on his blog and Jared want transformer music on his.

Anyway that's where we are in life right now! Stay tune for more snow pictures and cookie exchange pictures! Should be a very eventful week!!

New Bloggers

Be sure to check Jared, Nathan and Emily's blog. They have been adding some really fun stuff on theirs.

Portland and the GIRLS!!

Dianne, Laurece, Rachel, Julie and Dawn in front!










Emily and I went to Portland to meet some Friends and their daughters to shop Tax free!


We try to do this every year! Last year we couldn't because the train tracks and the highway was flooded over. So it had been two years since some of us had seen each other!

Here we are Walking thru the park to the Loyd Center Mall!
















Here is Emily and My friends Daughters Brittney, Kalie and Jordan on the Ice skating rink in the Mall!
















The Girls posing at the mall!










We had so much fun and enjoyed everyones company so much! We also got a lot of shoping done! My friend Dawn wins for getting the most shopping done in one weekend!

Unfortunatly I came home from the trip with a bad sinus infection and have been on the mend eversince. Trip to the doctors today should help me get on the mend faster. Tomorrow Painting and getting ready for my nieghborhood cookie exchange on the 18th!