Portland Party

We were invited to our friend Ryker's 2nd birthday party.  Ryker and his family live in Portland.  Originally we were going to make it a family trip but we later learned that Ryker's dad, Karl, was actually going to miss the party and be up in Tacoma.  We did some negotiation and I left Ollie home with Brad so Brad could hang out with Karl for the day.  

I took Brody & Colt and drove down to the party.  It actually ended up being a very pleasant drive with the 2 boys.  The only hard part was the last 20 minutes when we were all anxious to be done. 

As always, we had a great time at their house.

Annika & Colt eating lunch.

They rented a bouncy house and were able to put it up in one of their rooms.  The kids played in this for 90 percent of the time they were there.  It wore them out for the ride home. 

They had an Elmo & Abby Cadabby themed party and had this cute cake to go with it. 

The birthday boy posing for a picture. 

We gave Ryker this Hess truck which is the same truck Brody & Colt got for Christmas.  

 Annika & Brody were the balloon woman and the balloon man and they were selling their balloons.  Brody's balloons were $60.00 and Annika's were $4.00. 



The boys had such a fun time!  Thank you Ryker! 

Happy New Year!

The day before New Year's Eve we still hadn't made any plans to do anything.  (I have always thought New Year's Eve was a lame holiday for many reasons that I won't explain here.)  Now that I have small children who wake up at an early hour --even on the weekends -- I would prefer to fall asleep on the couch and then be woken up at 11:59 so I can ring in the New Year.     

Brad wanted to go to a New Year's Eve party that we were invited to.  I asked him who would watch the boys and he said to ask one of our regular babysitters.  She is a sophomore in college so I was certain she would be busy.  Good News for Brad, bad news for me.  She had no plans that evening. 

So, Brad and I went to the party.  I had a fun time meeting people I didn't know.  It was a fun time hanging out with Brad and ringing in another year.  

We are so incredibly blessed with many wonderful things and look forward to all that God has in store for us this year!  Happy New Year! 

This is a nice self portrait of the two of us. 

Grandkid Picture

We were able to get a picture of the grandkids and Grammy & Fafa.  It took a lot of work to get them all looking at the camera and smiling.  But they sure are cute! 

We added Nanny and Brian and Brad but it got even more challenging to get everyone to cooperate.  At least we tried!

Christmas Dinner

We spent Christmas afternoon and evening at Brad's cousin's house.  They did a fabulous job hosting and the boys just love their (2nd) cousins.  It was a great evening!

Look at this cute kids table.  I wanted to eat here too!

Their (2nd) cousins are girls.  Colt found this outfit among their dress up clothes.

All the kids at their table.

The kids rode these little bikes/scooters (I can't remember what they are called) almost the entire time we were there.  The older kids did a great job sharing but Colt had a hard time understanding what it meant to take turns.  Hopefully he will learn when he gets a little older. 

Ollie and the reindeer

Christmas Morning

Our kids were up about 7:00 in the morning and were so excited to see that Santa had come.  Except he did leave a few crumbs but not to worry because Brody ate them. 

Colt in his new Elmo pajamas opening up one of his gifts.

We tried to get a family picture but the lighting wasn't very good.  Oh well, at least we tried. 

A few days before Christmas Brody told me that he really hoped Santa would bring him a robot.  Yikes!  I forgot to help Brody get that message to Santa.  So with some last minute scrambling (and through the help of Craigslist) we were able to notify Santa of Brody's wish.   Here are a few videos of Brody's present from Santa. 

When all is said and done...it may not be the most age appropriate toy for him but we are hoping he will grow to love it. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent at Nanny's house.  It was a busy, chaotic night of opening presents but the kids had a blast and were worn out and ready for bed.

Brody actually woke up about 11:30 and we had not set the cookies out so we let him help us put cookies out for Santa and carrots out for reindeer.

Santa's Visit

We were just finishing up our Christmas Eve Dinner when we heard a knock at Nanny's front door.  We were all so surprised when we saw Santa because we knew he had a busy night.  He said he wanted to take a quick stop to say hi before he finished up the rest of his job. 

Brody and Santa

Colt was very scared of Santa and covered his eyes the whole time. 

Santa is getting his gifts from his big red bag.

The second Santa walked out the door Colt perked right up and was ready to open his present. 

Brody received a robot from Santa

We had to explain to the kids that Santa was going to stop by again later in the night.