Snow Day

Jackson's "Oh Mo! face. aka Oh no!


View of the Neighborhood...

View of the street!

If you have not already heard, New Englad was hit with a "severe" snowstorm tonight and it is supposed to continue through the morning. We are supposed to be getting anywhere between 18-22 inches of snow, plus 60-80 mile winds in some parts. There is a road advisory in effect, asking people to stay off the roads. As of late last night most public centers like the YMCA, Museaums have been closed.

Thankfully Brandon is going to be working from home over the next two days as his drive is already long enough with the most ideal road continues. My worked closed the offices and our daycare also closed.

I guess this is really it! The New England winters we have been anxiously waiting for. Today, I wish I had also asked Santa for a good pair of sturdy (and fashionable) snow boots like these:

Oh, and I guess a pair of long johns would also come in handy since I HATE being cold. There is some light that comes from all of this...We dont live in a house-which means WE dont have to shovel our driveway or sidewalks. Nice! Yesterday, we stocked up on some groceries. Santa brought the kids some fun family games and we have a coffee pot brewing. I think we will get through this one just fine.

Sandy's Dog "Pack"

The Dog Pack is a tradition that was started by Brandon's family when he was a Child. On Christmas Eve the Dog(s) suprise the family with a little gift. No one knows how the dogs sneek out of the house, drive around to different stores or even pay for the gifts, but the wonder in the suprise is quite beautiful for the kids.
The kids faces were priceless this year (click on the pictures to enlarge). Sandy, our dog was super excited as she carried the "pack" full of gifts on her back. This is one tradition that we are happy to continue with our children.

Christmas Eve

There is nothing else that warms my heart up like seeing my children's sweet sentiments and innocence in action. This picture is a clear indication that although as parents we make a lot of mistakes, we are still capable of getting a few right here and there. Last night, the kids helped me make some sugar cookies for Santa. Issy spent a good hour getting little eyes, scarfs and buttons on the snowmen. Later she quietly wrote another note for Santa and left it next to the cookies. It reads:

Dear Santa:

I made these just for you.

I hope you like my cookies.

Your Friend,

Isabel

It just makes my heart melt. What a sweet child we are raising! I love the Christmas Time!

Merry, Merry Christmas!!!

We want to wish you the Merriest Christmas yet!


Love,

The Chopko's

Our Trip to Winter Wonderland...I mean Vermont!

We had such a great time at Smugglers Notch' Vermont! I am sure I am not the only one not ready to come back to reality.

It was nice being able to visit an area of the states that, we may have not ever visited, had we not moved to MA. I never in a million years thought that we would have been spending a weekend in Vermont. I am glad we did because I love it up there! As soon as we got in to town, the radio stations were playing english music, but the DJ's were speaking French Canadian. SO FUN! The towns were super cute, cute homes, cute little shops, awesome food. I just couldnt get enough.

On Friday, we took advantage of the late check in to rest up (aka re-coup from my motion sickness), get some dinner, and enjoy some quite time together!

The rest of the weekend we took in the sites ( like the Ben & Jerry's Ice-Cream Tour-Yum!), the great food, the night tubing, kids fun zone, etc. Izzy is at an amazing age where she can literally roll around in the snow and have a blast. Which is good, becuase that is what she did on our "time off". We just loved watching her play! Jax is a different story... If you remember, Jackson, has never really been a fan of the cold, wet stuff. He did warm up to it eventually,only beucase he realized that it was okay to throw snow balls at us. Funny!

Honestly, I do believe we made some beautiful memories this weekend, so I really hope that we can do this again next year.

Birthday Boy #2

I posted as many pictures as I could without bogging down the website, but this was our little ones Birthday in a nutshell! We ended up not having a party for him, only becuase he doesnt do so well around too many people and why overwhelm him on his special day?


As you can see, he had a blast anyway! Jackson was spoiled with a fun filled day at Kid's Wurld (no, I did not miss spell it twice, "Wurld" is the name of the place). Let's just say that this was the perfect place for a two year old to hang. Jax and Izzy ran around, bounced, laughed, stretched- basically they acted like they owed the place! Afterwards, we came home to find a package for the little one filled with ALL BOYS stuff. He had a blast tearing the presents opened, and enjoyed his ninja bike, cars and even his clothes. He looooved it all! When we were able to put his toys away (which was no easy task), we played his favorite movie...Toy Story 3.

Thank you to everyone who sent all those nice gifts, left those nice voicemails, and sent birthday cards. We miss you and wish we could have been together!

Big Hugs from the Jacksonian (aka Jackson).

Ninja Wheelie Time!!!

Thanks Pappy & Nanna for sending Jackson the Ninja for his Birthday! Hahaha!

First Snow of 2010

First snow...well, sort of. A funny new word we hear a lot around these parts is snow "flurries" and that is what we saw today- lots of snow Flurries flying about sporadically throughout the day. It didn't stick, but you could see a faint layer building up along the streets. Today, the high was 22 degrees and wiiiiindy. Ack! I am not trying to be a wimp, but personally, I don't EVER remember being this cold in my life! The locals say that December is just the preview for the things to come...if this is the case....I am extremely nervous about what January and February will bring!

Bring on the mittens, boots and hats! Throw in a cute scarf and some hot cocoa into the mix and I am in Winter heaven!

2 years old!

Happy Birthday my sweet Jacksonian! You are the most amazing two year old in the world. What a lucky woman I am to be your Mom! We love you soooo much!

Thanksgiving Day Pics

Pictures have not been my Forte lately....Obviously. Apparently I was a bit preoccupied with all the cooking that I didnt get a single "blog worthy shot", however these are the three I did get.



Issy and Silvana were playing with books and barbies. They were so quiet and cute. Girls.

At one point, I attempted to take a shot of my kids...Ugh. Didnt happen. Our little Jax is a busy kid and has no time waste.

After dinner, he rested and enjoyed a little football with the boys. Cheese!


What a ham!

Long Weekend!

Our Thanksgiving weekend was fabulous! On Thanksgiving I invited a friend and her family from work to celebrate the holiday with us. We had dinner and then we played some games. It was a lot of fun and it was even nicer to have friends to share the evening (and the 14lbs of turkey) with. We have turkey coming out of our eyeballs =) Today, we took advantage of all of the stores being opened and we went out and bought some ingredients for Homemade Macaroni. Brandon is whipping it up and can't wait to taste something different.

The rest of the weekend was super laid back. We cleaned house, took care of some errands and topped off the weekend with some Black Friday shopping (just not at 5 am).





Our other BIG News:




We enrolled Issy as a Daisy Girl Scout! This is her second week going, and she absolutely loves it! Two of her best friends from school are also in her troop, so it really helps to keep her excited. This afternoon I ironed on the first patches, and I am happy to report that she is official a Daisy!

Our First New England Thanksgiving!

Today, I am thankful for being able to wak up to a house full of people who I love.

I am thankful for my husband, who takes care of us, supports me, and has always been an amazing father!

I am thankful for each of my kids becuase there is no words to describe how beautiful they have made my life since there came into our lives.

I am thankful for our family far away. Without YOUR support, there is no way that we would have had the courage to journey to this new place.

I am thankful for our health, our jobs, and all of our friends.

***

Our menu today (I know you are dying to find out) is Turkey, Heavenly Potatoes (it's a Chopko recipe and yes, these potatoes are HEEEEAVENLY). I am making my version of Tyler Florence Homemade Stuffing (sorry I couldnt find the recipe to link it), and a buttery Brussels Sprout concoction. Issy and I made a pumpkin pie this morning! Our house smells delicious!

Right now, our turkey is taking up every cubit ft of our tiny oven...and we are waiting for our friends to show up about 3 pm. Besides missing our family in Idaho, everything is turning out just as I imaged! I am so friggin' excited/thankful, happy!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Days are sneaking up on me!!!

Does anyone else feel like the holidays are sneaking up on them or is it just me?

This week I am throwing a Thanksgiving Party for the Elderly I work with. Most of them go out of town for the holidays, so we throw all of the holiday parties early to make sure most of them can come eat and socialize.

I am also working on a retirement luncheon for a maintenance man who has worked for our company for 18+ years. The problem is that I just found out he was retiring this past Friday/ Just this afternoon, I also found out I was put in charge of organizing his party (which is scheduled for) next Tuesday. Hmmm....If you have any ideas..please let me know.



Last time I checked Thanksgiving was still happening. I told my kids that I was going to come up with the best Thanksgiving dinner ever...and I will. Just don't tell anyone that the only thing I have managed to buy for our extra special Thanksgiving dinner is the turkey. Between the turkey and the 10 hours worth of Food Network shows saved on the DVR, I am sure that I will be able to figure something out. Right?!

Just in case your head is not spinning yet, my little Jackson's birthday is also right around the corner. The week after Thanksgiving to be exact! Thank goodness we at least picked up his present early. All we have to do now is figure out what we are going to do on his special day I am secretly hoping is that it snows,that way we can take the kids sledding all day. He would absolutely LOVE that!

Snowman Families

Snowman Families
I am loving this xmas time idea! What a fun tradition to start!

Scentsy

I signed up to become an Independant Scentsy Consultant last week. My starter kit was sitting on my front door step when I came home from work on Friday. I tell you, it was like Christmas morning. I love Scentsy so much!!! The kids and I spend about two hours Friday evening going through everything in my kit, smelling all the scents, and talking about which ones we liked, and which ones we LOVED.

Not only am I excited about starting my own busines, but I am also looking forward to meeting new people. The people I know who sell Scentsy have only been doing it for a short while, but have been very succesful.

You've never heard of Scentsy before? Well, let me tell ya...Scentsy is a wickless, flameless alternative to scented candles. One smell and you will be hooked, like me! The Scentsy system uses a warmer that safely heats the scented Scentsy wax at a very low heat. The scentsy wax easily out lasts those large retail candles. The best part is that since the wax is being burned at such a low heat, it will is safe around children or pets. No more worring about turning candles on around the house. There is a wide variety of scents to choose from, over 80 different Scents to be exact. Large variety of burners too, Full size burners, Mid-size burners and even smaller ones that plug-in directly into an outlet- perfect for kitchens and bathrooms.

We have items for your cars, gym bags, antibacterial hand sanitizer and much more.

Please check out my Scentsy website for more information about our Scentsy Product. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.

Enjoy!

Areli & Doug - October 16, 2010

These two pictures above came from Jammie Elkins Photography...They all turned out amazing, please check out her photography blog!

I just realized its been almost a whole month and I never did post wedding pictures of my sisters wedding. Ugh...I am horribly behind here...Ahh!

They were married in the Boise temple and had an amazing reception in the Evening! Everyone started dancing as soon as the music started, and kept on dancing well after the party had ended. I loved being there to celebrate with the family. I am so happy for these two and wish them the very best on their journey together.

Just Pictures...

Happy Halloween

(This was my inspiration)

Meet Bam Bam & Pebbles Flinstone...

I had so much fun making both of these costumes. They were easy to make and Issy loved having so much input on what she was going to wear this year. The weather has been 70 degrees this whole month...unfotunatly just yesterday the weather decided to cool drastically. Poor kids.

Here is the picture of the their first trick or treat door. Jackson loved getting candy, but didnt like meeting to chatting with new people. He loved saying bye, but he missed out on a lot of candy because he was so shy. Issy on the other hand, LOVED trick or treating. This was her best year yet...we ran from door to door and had so much fun seeing her bag fill up. So fun.

Pumpkin Patch

This year we decided to head south to Johnston, RI to pick our perfect Pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. The farm had everything you could imagine to entertain two kids for an entire afternoon. We started at the petting zoo. I am pretty sure we all fell in love with the donkeys. They are just too close to horses and their eyes beg for an extra handful of food and pats on their heads.
Later we played in the corn box, which they kids loved. We got lost in the corn maze...slid down the giant irrigation tube slide a few dozen times before ending our trip at the pumpkin patch. We had a blast!
Brandon wont admit it, but I think he has more fun carving pumpkin than the kids. This year he helped Issy carve an awesome warewolf, while Jax and I helped by carving out the guts and cleaing up. two days later, our pumpkin had hairy mold and we were forced to toss it before taking pictures. Bummer.