Snow Day

We had a lovely time on Thursday. It had snowed just enough to cover most of the yard and school was closed. It was cold, but not freezing, and beautifully sunny. Not like regular Portland weather at all.


I took the girls out to play in the snow. They thought it was excellent to come right up to me and throw snowballs in my face while I tried to take their pictures. We trampled all the snow in the back yard, then headed to the front.


Anna used a Winnie-the-Pooh shovel to clear the slush off the driveway. Becca got out the sand toys and we filled them with snow and made snow-shapes and a snow-castle.


When Becca's hands got too cold we headed inside.

Becca's Dance Class

Becca and Anna are taking dance classes at the rec center right now. They both love them. Becca has been a little hesitant to participate in hers unless I participate with her. The teacher said that was just fine if some of the kids had their moms dance with them. There were about 3 of us the first week. The second week there were only 2, me and one other mom. The third week there were at least 30 parents sitting on the bench at the back of the classroom and just me dancing with the 15 kids in front of them all. I was a little self-conscious. I'm not as flexible as the teacher and sometimes not as coordinated as the 3-year-olds. This last week I convinced her to let me take pictures while she danced. We'll see if that works again next time we go.

 

Becca Birthday Party

Becca had a little birthday party on the 29th of January. We had 3 friends over and played Hullabaloo and Bingo. Then, we broke out the cupcakes. We must be out of practice because we forgot to put the candles on until after she had eaten off all the frosting. Then we had to stick 3 candles into the naked brown cake.

 

Daddy helped her blow them out and she ate a little more of the cupcake for fun.

 

The friends who made it to the party were Jack, Rachel, and Claire. She loved the gifts they gave her.

 

Becca's 3rd Birthday!

 

Today was Becca's third birthday. My baby is 3! Amazing! We had a nice day. I had to go grocery shopping, so I let Becca pick out a toy to buy. She chose those crazy 'velvet posters.' She LOVES to color with markers. She ended up getting 4 posters to color and a big handful of new markers to color with. It was heaven. Of course, after a few minutes of coloring she asked Anna to take over and color for her. Anna was pleased with that.

 

For dinner Becca begged to go to Sweet Tomatoes, William's favorite place in the world. We had a good time. After eating a little salad together we let her open some of her gifts. Then we ate a little desert and headed home to open the rest of the presents.

 

She was really happy, especially with the magnetic dolls from Grammy. We had a little trouble getting her to bed in the end. I made her a batch of GF, DF, EF pumpkin muffins with frosting. But they were still hot at bedtime. So she got all ready for bed and then headed back down to try one. She loved it. At least until the frosting was gone. But that's how she feels about any cupcake.

William in the Airport

William really wanted me to film this and post it online. Here it is! I say in there that it's at the SL airport, but it was really here in Portland.

Christmastime 2010

We didn't take a lot of photos during our trip to Utah at Christmas. It wasn't that we didn't enjoy seeing our family. We just all ended up sick. Really sick. I'm still sick as I write this a month later. Several of the family members were sick when we arrived and we took it over. Anna and I got sick a couple days after Christmas. Fevers, coughs, runny noses, body aches. It was pretty miserable. We took a lot of tylenol and cough syrup and did a lot of resting.

 

 

While Anna and I were miserable, Kip took William and Becca to do things with the family, like this trip to the Mrs Fields Cookie Factory. They had a good time.

The flight home was tough. We all were congested. Our ears were miserable in spite of the gum.

I got my first experience flying next to someone who was terrified of airplanes. It was interesting trying to help him relax. I've never been afraid of flying. I've always figured that I am such a bad driver that statistically the chances of me getting hurt on a flight are way lower than the chances of me getting hurt in the car. And so far I've almost exclusively hit stationary things. And flying is so much faster than driving. Yeah, I'll take an airplane ride over a cross-country road trip with young kids any time.

We made it through the flight just fine, although we were a lot later than we should have been after having to wait through plane de-icing. It was good to get home and continue to recover.

Christmas 2010

 

We had a nice Christmas Morning. We forced William to let us sleep in until 8. He counted the minutes from 7 on, then burst into the girls' room to wake them up. Down we all went and opened gifts.

 

Becca was thrilled to get chocolate in her stocking and thought it made a great breakfast.

 

That afternoon, we packed our stuff and headed to Utah. We got in a little late, just in time for another gift-opening ceremony. It was great to see all the family.

Thanksgiving in Utah

We started our drive to Utah on the 19th of November. We drove all evening and stopped in eastern Oregon at midnight. We found a hotel and settled in for the night. The next morning we slept in then headed off on the second leg of our drive. We got to Kaysville that evening, just in time to soak in the parent's spa before heading to bed. We spent a quiet Sunday there and on Monday headed to the Children's Musuem at the Gateway to spend some time with Kip's mom. We all had a great time.



On Tuesday the rest of the family arrived in Utah - Aunt Robin and her kids, and Aunt Wendy and Uncle Willem and their reformed stray dog. Plus, we had a 'blizzard.' At least, that's what the news predicted it to be. In the end only 3 inches of snow fell and it wasn't that terrible.



We did another trip to the Children's Museum on Wednesday. Uncle Craig met us there with his two older kids.



Thanksgiving day went well, with a lot of good food in spite of my random dietary restrictions. The GF pie crust was wonderful, if you wanted something as a cement substitute. The insides of the pies were still good without it.

Been Booed?

At Halloween, we were Booed. I debated for several days who to pass it on to. The rules state that you must act quickly, but I'm not good at that. Finally I decided on two neighbors, one a church member and one not. I made the cookies and plated them. After getting the kids to bed, I slipped out of the house and over to the next-door neighbor (non-member). Their house was mostly dark, but a light was on in the upstairs master bedroom, so I knocked loud and ran for it to hide behind one of the trees in my yard. I waited for a while but they never came. So I headed across the street to hit the next neighbor. They didn't seem to answer either, although they have teen-agers, so they were probably just out. I went home feeling like a cookie-dropping failure and started cleaning the kitchen. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was the next-door neighbor.

"Was it you?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said, not wanting to outright admit to it, but figuring it was pretty obvious. She told me what had happened.

When I "pounded on the door like a mad-man," their 2 golden retreivers had totally gone ballistic. J. came downstairs to see what was up and, looking out the window on the door saw no one there. The dogs didn't stop and the knocking had been pretty demanding, so he started to think the worst - someone was prowling around their house. He checked all the doors and then called the neighbor one house down, a guy with military training and equipment. J. told R. his fears and asked the neighbor to come check things out. R. gathered up his gear and headed over. He did a full circuit of the house before coming up the front porch and observing the plate of Halloween sugar cookies. He had quite a laugh. Then, he knocked on the door and showed them to J.

So, is doorbell-ditching to leave treats a "Mormon" thing?

Halloween

 

I worked hard this Halloween on creating Avatar the Last Airbender costumes for the kids. They got their first showing on Friday, the 29th of October, at the local shopping center's trick-or-treating. We met the Istooks and went from shop to shop collecting candy. We were lucky to have clear dry weather.

 

That night was the Fall Festival at the school. The kids enjoyed it but didn't last long.

Saturday night the ward did a Trunk-or-Treat. We decked the kids out again and headed out to collect candy in the drizzling rain.


William was Avatar Ang.


Anna was the tough earthbender Toph.


Becca was an adorable lemur Momo.

Anna's 5th Birthday

Anna turned 5 on August 7th, 2010. She had a nice little cake and ice-cream party with her favorite people, Weilers and Istooks. We ate and opened presents and played with her new things.

She really liked the pink princessy things she got.

 

Work Party, Aug 3, 2010

Kip's work reserved Rood Bridge Park in Hillsboro--complete with bounce-houses, balloon artists and food. We arrived later than we wanted to but had a great time and got to see some old friends. the kids enjoyed playing and eating.

 

Becca loves her Dad.

 

Anna loves her Mom.

 

 

Ward Campout

The ward campout was July 23-24 at Stubb Stewart State Park by Vernonia (meaning on the east side of the Coastal Range). We borrowed Rachel and Josh's tent, as usual, and, after a too-long detour to buy the girls sleeping bags from a Craigslister, we reached the park and pitched our tent.


Kip made a fabulous dutch-oven dinner of sausage, potatoes and eggs.


The kids enjoyed playing in the field and on the play structure with all the other ward kids.

That night the wind blew like it was trying to carry us away in our tents. I stayed awake listening to it tear at our tent until Kip finally got up around 3:30 and took off the rain fly. Sometime after that I slept and the next thing I knew Becca was laughing and poking me in the face and the hot sun was shining down through the uncovered top of the tent. Aaah, morning. No hot-chocolate for us - our friends who had planned on making it couldn't keep their camp stove lit in the wind. And it wasn't cold enough to want it anyway.

 

After a wonderful breakfast provided by the activities committee, we decided to go for a hike.


We found some interesting trail markers - little printed foot images taped to Popsicle sticks and placed along the trails. We followed them and found a bucket full of white poker chips. We let the kids each take one, hoping there were so many there they wouldn't be missed. The kids were thrilled.


Later we discovered that the poker chips were the end of a scavenger hunt put together by the people at the Cowboy Days festival. We drove up to check it out before heading home and the kids got to learn about fancy western horse riding. Becca especially loved it and was cute riding her horse. It wasn't always right-side-up, but she still enjoyed it and got a lot of laughs from other festival attendees.

Legoland

On June 26th we headed to Legoland. William is an absolute Lego fanatic and couldn't spend enough time at Legoland. It's actually my favorite theme park, too. It's more about the creativity-factor than the thrill-factor, and that's more my style. I'm not fond of being scared and I'm afraid of heights, so little cute lego-themed rides and attractions are just right for me. Our group included Grandma Dianne, Cory and Ang Killpack and their kids - Jovin, Mayer, Pearce, and Tjay - and, of course, our family.

 

Kip followed the smart-amusement-park-goer rule to head straight to the back of the park and work to the front, so we started with the driving courses.

 

William still had a long wait for the older-kid course, but the young drivers got to go right away.

 

Becca rode the helicopter ride while waiting for William to finish his drive.


We rented strollers so that 6 of the 7 kids could ride through the park. Of course, that meant that 4 of the 5 adults in our party had to push. But it was tons better than carrying or dragging tired kids around for mile after mile.


At the end of the day, the kids hung out in Duplo Land and Becca and Pearce managed to get pretty wet.