Making Christmas Cookies

Rolling out the dough with mom.
Taste testing an entire cookie!
Waiting for the finished product.
Covered in flour.

Decorating the cookies- by this time mom got wise and removed the shirt.

First Real Snow

Last week, we had our first real snow (where there was enough snow on the ground to play in it.) David loved it as you can tell by the pictures.

I think that he is actually ready for it to snow again because he came out of the closet tonight with his hat and mittens on.

David loved snowballs. Danny made a snow angel and then David attempted to do the same. He plopped down in the ground but as soon as he felt a little of the snow on his neck, he jumped right back up. I wish that I could have captured it on camera but Danny and I were laughing so hard at the look on his face that I could barely hold on to the camera much less snap the picture.

Friday night was our big youth Christmas party which I was on the planning team for this year. I pretty much spent all of last week organizing games, volunteers and a huge feast. Our theme this year was Pirates and we started the event with a huge scavenger hunt with ten locations. At each location, the pirate teams competed for gold coins. At the end of the hunt, they met up at a local Inn where we served a massive Pirate feast which they ordered based on how many coins they had collected. The dinner included turkey legs, potatoes, rolls, whole cakes, etc (all of which had to be eaten without any utensils). It was a blast! I am happy now to be on the other side of it and get back to somewhat of a more normal schedule.
We hope that everyone is enjoying their Holiday season!

Let the Festivities Begin!!!

Christmas Pictures

I thought that I would give everyone a recap of past Christmas pictures just for the fun of it!

Christmas 2005- David and Honey


Christmas 2006- Honey, Sam and David

Christmas 2007- David and Sam

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Sidenote: David's new name for Santa Claus is the Beast. We are starting to see a trend here! Although that one makes a little bit of sense to me with all the hair and fur that Santa wears. I am just not sure where the baby brother fits in to the thought process.

Oregon Coast

This weekend we are enjoying a short vacation at the Oregon Coast with Chris, Jenni and Sam. We are having a lot of fun playing and exploring. Here are some pictures of our experiences so far...

On the way over we stopped at Williamette Falls and hiked up to the bridge that overlooks the waterfall. David played "chase" all the way up and then down again. You would have thought that he would have been tired by the time we put him back in the car, but he continued to cry "Chase, chase" as we loaded him back up for the remainder of the journey.

Despite the rain, David loved watching the waterfall splash into the pool at the bottom. It felt like we had all played in the waterfall by the time we were on the road again.

Here we are at the beach. David's new favorite place! He discovered that he can run and run without an end ever in sight to the beach; little boy heaven!

Aunt Jenni joined in the hunt for seagulls. David was bound determined to obtain one of these birds for his very own.

More than once Aunt Jenni had to scoop up the intent little hunter just before the tide hunted him down!

Sand turned out to be a marvelous and at the same time frustrating experience. While it is fun to play with and run in, it can be a little clingy like an annoying friend with no sense of boundaries.

David and Sam were happy to jump in the bath tub though in order to rid themselves of their pesky sand friend. It was a weekend of lots of baths after trips to the beach!

David and Danny had lots of fun chasing and tackling and anything else they could think of on the beach. Father son time is the best!

On one rainy day, we headed over to Newport to explore the Aquarium. David and Sam had lots to play with and look at despite their parents running them from attraction to attraction in the pouring rain.David especially liked the tunnels that traveled right through aquariums full of fish!

He was a little intimidated of the giant sting ray though. It looks gigantic as it swims right over the top of you!

David and Sam watched the seals swim in circles and jump out of the water for a long time.

David is not a fan of huge crabs even if they are pinned to the wall. I guess you never know when a monster like that would hop down and try to eat you for lunch!

Out of all the fun things we did on the trip, the boys' favorite activity was "Dad Racing". There is just not a whole lot that compares to the sheer delight a young boy finds in playing with his father!

Family Night

This last Monday night, we decided to go to the Corn Maze. For those of you who don't know what a corn maze is, you probably need to experience one for yourself. They take acres and acres of corn field and create a maze through it that can take you hours to work your way through. We only went on one phase of the maze and we actually did pretty well! The funnest part of the corn maze though was what they call the Courtyard. It is an area full of fun toys to play with. They even had a box of corn to play in!!!

Trucks and Corn! How does it get any better than this!!!

David and I rode the cow train together.


We also raced the ducks!

Danny and David had fun on the Go-carts. David now wants one for his next birthday!

The funnest part though was the jumping pillow, of course!!!

David was so wore out from playing that he almost fell asleep on the hayride at the end. It is crazy how corn can turn out to be so much fun!

My Birthday!

Today I turned 2 years old and we celebrated all day long!!! First we woke up early and mom made my favorite breakfast: homemade biscuits and jam. Then we headed out to the Pumpkin Patch to find me and Sam a pumpkin.

We rode on a hay wagon pulled by a tractor out into the fields of pumpkins.
Grandpa and I discussed farming and such as we rode out to the pumpkin fields.

Sam was in search of the biggest pumpkin.

Here it is... the largest pumpkin we could find for Sam!


Mr. Pumpkin weighed in at 147 lbs!!!

Sam and I rode the tractor train during our intermission.

I found some pretty big pumpkins as well, but settled on a medium size one to take home. I couldn't carry the big ones.


King of the Pumpkin!

Me and Dad exploring the pumpkin fields.
After the Pumpkin Patch we headed home so that I could take a nap while mom and dad prepared the party. When I awoke there were balloons, cupcakes, pudding dirt cups (made special by my dad), and a jump house!

This is the cupcake tree my mom made me.

Here are all of my friends enjoying the cupcake tree.


I took lessons from Nicole on how to eat a cupcake. She is a pro!


Here is Nicole coaching me on her cupcake eating techniques.

What a wonderful birthday! Tonight I went to sleep with 5 new trucks. Thanks everyone for making my birthday the greatest day ever!!!