Playing in Portland

We took a trip down to Portland Monday before Christmas for Grandma Knippers' 60th birthday. Tuesday, John, his brother, and I went skiing/snowboarding (the snow was great - I want to go back!) while the kids got to have a fun day with Grandpa and Aunt Laurel.
Wednesday, we went to "Safari Sam's" gym. Tunnels, slides, rope ladders, similar to the idea of a Mcdonald's playland - just way bigger and better!

Kate went up to the top floor just like the big kids (and big adults).

Even though we were there to celebrate Elaine's birthday, she had to work during the days. But she didn't miss out on all the fun. Olivia and Jackson made up a song as they "rode" this bear, fell off, repeated about 30 times. And Katelyn's hanging upside down while playing with Grandma in the background.

John had to be back for work Thursday, then his family came up here Saturday and Christmas was extended a day for more presents, treats, and playing. (Legos, xbox, and lots of playing new games - thanks for all the game suggestions - we got some fun ones)!

Olivia and her Indiana Jones legos from Mike.
I skipped Christmas day so I'll get back to that later.

Visiting Dasher and Blitzen

On Christmas Eve, we went to see some reindeer.

Feeding apples to Dasher. The other two didn't want to stick their hand by that mouth until they saw Katelyn the brave do it.

Jackson needs a haircut for Christmas.

Kind of lame family picture.

They loved watching this little donkey.

And I liked watching this girl.

Then we went inside and saw the trains - I think I was as entertained by it as the kids were. They also have a pond with koi fish that they watched for a while.

It's at a nursery here in Seattle - they have the reindeer here for the month of December - until they have to leave on Christmas Eve to get to work. This year they also had a donkey and a camel.

Good Games?

I want some good ideas for games to get my kids (or us) for Christmas to use for family game nights. We can only play so much Dora the Explorer CandyLand, the hippos aren't so hungry anymore, and we've used up about all the good hiding spots for hide-and-seek. (Okay, we haven't even had that many game nights yet, but we could use some new ideas).
One that has been a favorite for our kids about age 3-4 is Fisher Price Little People "Bingo with Eddie." We've played lots of rounds of Eddie since my mom gave it to Olivia a few years ago.
What are some games you play with your kids? Or some that kids can play on their own, too?

Note to family members - You'll be glad to know that I taught them to play "Grunt Piggy Grunt" the other night.

Where did November go?

I mean, we found time to finish off most the Halloween candy, but . . . November flew by. So much for getting our Christmas shopping done early.
John was gone interviewing in CO. Then my sister came.* Then we were all gone to AZ to look into a job. Then to Portland for Thanksgiving. Then back for the big race (earlier post).
And to Abby's comment about that - don't feel bad. They were supposed to run 25 miles on their own - a mile at a time, during the two months before race day. Then they ran the last 1.2 miles together on race day. But they could also count walking to school, playing soccer, etc. for thier miles. It's a good thing we walk to and from school, because she didn't so much like to do her runs. But at least she got an XL t-shirt to show for it (after waiting in line for about an hour behind hundreds and hundreds of other kids after the finish line, the smalls were out). Guess we should have ran faster.

At a park in Northern AZ.

Thanksgiving at John's parent's house - and not a lot of pictures!




Trying to get a good picture for Christmas cards - I subjected them to this when my sister was here, and again in Portland. Still didn't get any great ones but I'll mail some out anyway (not this picture).
*Good thing I don't have a surprise visitor seeing my house today. That'd be embarrassing. Kind of like once when John and I were crashing into each other in the hallway as we were trying our fastest to take armloads of stuff to throw into our room before the home teachers came in right after church). What I meant to say is, that would never happen here.


"Cheese."


And suddenly it's December. And cold!
That's our street corner in the fog.

Seattle Kid's Marathon

Here's Olivia running the Seattle Kid's Marathon last weekend. I think she really just wanted to do it because she heard you'd get a goody bag at the end of the race. And I think she did more laughing with her friend Danny than running.

Here's a link for a way better picture that I don't want to pay for:

www.asiorders.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=48614&BIB=1240&S=230&PWD=

Surprise Visitor

My sister Michelle must have gotten sick of my years of comments about her needing to come visit. I didn't really think she could come, but I bugged about her it anyway. Then, last week, she showed up at my door. Actually, she was with John when he came home from work. She surprised me for my birthday! It made me so happy!

And Sadie got to come, too.


Everyone said we look the same, just like old times. But here she is looking cuter than me.
We rode the ferry over to Kingston and played on the beach, got some really good food, and walked around the little town.

Olivia looks like she is pant-less,

because she's doing this.

The sun finally came out for us on the last day they were here.

It was so fun to see cute Sadie, too, even though she didn't like us too much. I think she looks a little like Katelyn (above). Maybe it's the brows.

We went a few other fun places, but I have to go get packed for our next adventure. We're flying out tonight to look into a job.

Thanks so much Michelle!

More Halloween, and MORE CANDY

Katelyn thinks trick-or-treating is pretty fun.

These were the easiest homemade costumes ever.

Three capes - one from a really cool Batman birthday party,

one piece of spiderweb fabric with a ribbon sewed onto it,

and for Katelyn's I used one of her jackets for a hood pattern, made a cape and put them together. The only other things I sewed were the ribbon on the witch's hat, and a Batman sign onto a shirt (I turned one of his shirts backwards and sewed Batman on. His cape covers the truck print on his back, so I didn't have to buy a new gray shirt).

Olivia showed me a witch coloring picture that she wanted to look like. So I went to Goodwill to try to find a plain black dress for her, and happened to find the perfect one, and it happened to be her size.
We did well in the candy gathering. First, there was trick-or-treating along the street of businesses by us Friday afternoon (and lots of other kids in Olivia's class were going, so we had to, too, right)? Saturday we went to our stake's trunk-or-treat and got full baskets. And, I'm a little embarrassed to say, we still took our kids out to some houses in our neighborhood after that. Just to a few of the older neighbors we know. And a friend in Olivia's class. And the houses on the way to his house. And then just down to the one with the cool spider in their yard and back.

Maybe I like the trick-or-treating part as much as them. "Should we go to this street, too? What, your feet hurt? Hurry, go get more candy!" Maybe it's the memory of wishing I could collect as much as my brother always got in his pillowcase on Halloween. Or maybe I just liked seeing Red Riding Hood waddling up to the doors. But of course once we get home with all that sugar, I don't like them to eat much of it and keep telling Olivia to stop asking me if she can have more.

What to do with all that candy? They each took some of their candy and we put it in a bag to give to kids who don't have very much candy. (Charitable, huh? Anyone know any candy-needy children? Or should John and I just keep eating out of that bag)? Then, they had to eat some. And make some candy soup.

Spooky

More to come. We're busy eating candy right now.

The Kate

She's a chef

She's an artist

She's a Jackson

She's a plumber?

She's . . . someone who stands up while riding horses . . . a rodeo queen?

She's (as Olivia says) a cutiepants.

Saying their parts

I told my mom I'd record these two practicing their parts for the Primary Program we had on Sunday.
Jackson says, "I can help my family bake food. When I am playing, I can give Katelyn some of my toys to play with." Then, you can see how he really feels.

Preschool, sports class, only mom to play with

Here's Jackson on the first day of preschool. He didn't want a picture, he wanted to get to preschool. He's closing his eyes, but still saying cheese for me. He made sure to wear his favorite shirt. It's faded and old, but it's his kung fu tiger shirt, and so, favorite.

He is also taking a beginner sports class. (Actually "Lil' Tweeker Sports" is the name, but I don't always like to say that). So far they've done track, t-ball, and bike rodeo. Here's Jackson in the lead. Did I crop another kid out of this picture to make it look like he's in the lead? No. (That was another picture I did that to). Did he cut a couple cones to get into the lead? Maybe.

Every day, Jackson and I have about 3 hours together while Katelyn sleeps and Olivia's at school. He wants to play "talking cars" about every day, but I have a hard time getting into that for long. Or he gets his "guys" and gives me my "guys" and says it's time to start the game. I'm supposed to make them talk, but apparently I'm not too good at that either. "Mom, that guy's actually not funny." Every day he tells me has a really good surprise to tell me: "It's _______'s real birthday party today!" (a different stuffed animal each time). Today it was duckie's real birthday party. So he got a gift bag and my job was to help pick some of his toys to be the presents. As I find some, he says "Ducky doesn't like that toy. Or that one. Or that one."

Anyone have some more ideas on what to do together when you don't have the imagination of a four-year-old? (This doesn't make me sound very fun - he does like to play with me - sometimes).

About Me Poster

I like the "I am a star because" part, but she has some other good answers, too.
(Click on it if you want to read it).

Jackson's Party

I'm not really sure where Jackson came up with the idea for a penguin party, but that's what he said he each time I asked him (I had to keep checking to see if he'd change his mind).

Yeah, this happened a few weeks ago - there is a reason I didn't post it earlier (just waiting on pictures from someone else's camera). But I say I don't need a reason to not post right after things happen, since I normally don't anyway.
To make the party penguin-ish, the plan was to swim in cold water, slide on ice, carry an "egg" (rock) on their feet for a race, eat penguin cupcakes, and then they got a couple penguin party favors to take home. Just in case you're looking, there aren't a lot of penguin party favors out there.

It looked like rain was coming, so we didn't put their swimsuits on. I told them they could get their feet wet. They got their clothes wet, too. Sorry party parents.

I can totally understand why Olivia and J. have their skirts pulled all the way up at this point. Grown-ups never get to do anything.

Here's the sliding on ice part. No one else there had done this before. I guess if you have snow to sled on, you don't need ice blocking, but I remember some fun ice blocking YM/YW nights in AZ. Going pretty fast, crashing into each other at the bottom, going back for more . . .

This time, we were trying to push kids down on the ice, while trying to keep them from falling off. That kind of hurts your back. A little more with each kid in line, in fact.

John didn't believe me that it really works, and I couldn't even give a good demonstration because I wasn't wearing very good ice-blocking clothes. Otherwise, you'd see me flying down this hill, of course. Ice in Arizona must be more slippery.

Jackson does have a penguin stuffed animal that he likes, but he hadn't ever talked about penguins before he said he wanted this party. So his penguin is my party decorations. I also tried to get black & white balloons, but the "black" balloons blew up purple and the floral guy couldn't find anything else.

Penguins cupcakes - or maybe baby owls? Familyfun.com does it again.

Sadly, this is one of the best pictures I have of Jackson from the party. He doesn't like the camera, but he did have some smiles on his birthday, really.