Ringing in the New Year

This new years we were invited to the beach with Callie’s family. We headed out on a snowy Thursday afternoon and as we started up the coastal range the traffic came to a standstill. As we slowly moved along we were passed by 3 ambulances and several police cars then we came to the actual cause of the delay. There was a 6 car pile up one of the cars being a police car. The roads were slick. After that we had a close call of our own when the car in front of us started sliding sideways and we couldn't stop. It took an extra hour, but we made it. The next day we all headed out to the Tillamook cheese factory. We had some yummy ice cream cones. Then we went to see a light house. We couldn’t go in it though because there had been some vandalism recently. It was a beautiful day! We did pass another car accident though, they had hit some black ice and rolled their car, so scary! Then the kids had fun ringing in the new year with pots and pans. Nathan wasn’t a fan of the noise!

A little snow

It snowed just a little bit, but that is all Olivia needs to make a snow man. She is always the first one out the door rolling snow balls for a snow man. A couple hours later the snow was gone, but her snow man was still there.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went to my parents for some traditional Christmas chili. Casey made some fun Christmas jello jigglers. After dinner we played some “minute to win it” games then Callie’s and Logan’s families joined us to act out the nativity and to watch our Christmas lip syncs.

Christmas Acitvity

Usually we go to the festival of trees in Portland but this year Casey didn’t get any tickets from his office. So we decided to still go down town and see Santa at Macy’s and see the Pioneer Square Christmas tree and have dinner. It has been years since the kids have had their pictures taken with Santa, and last time they were all screaming so I wasn’t sure how this would go. The girls kept telling me this wasn’t eh “real” Santa, Nathan was kind of excited, and Cody was nervous. He is sucking on his fingers because he was so nervous. He doesn't usually do. The we headed to Pioneer place to see the tree and have dinner. After dinner we looked up and it was snowing in the mall! They had a machine on the ceiling that made little foam bubbles that looked like snow coming down! The kids loved it! And I have to say it looked pretty magical!

Christmas Festivals

I went in to Olivia’s class for their “Winter festival”.  They got to go from room to room doing different crafts. Callie also came to be with Porter. Porter was a little reluctant to have his picture taken with his cousin, so Callie had to get in the middle.

Olivia and Gabby

Then, I went and picked Cody up and we went back to school for Brooklyn’s party. They were making graham cracker houses that had to be symmetrical. They put a “line of symmetry” down the middle and made them the same on both sides. They even had an extra one for Cody. He was delighted!

Brooklyn and her girlfriends!

Olivia thought she had a pretty cute outfit on and wanted me to do a photo-shoot of it. Cody jumped in and was also doing some modeling of his own!

He was REALLY in need of a haircut! Wow!