Christmas 2016

Nutcracker
Tara took Aria and Zade to go see the Nutcracker at the Hult Center. Sarah, who sometimes babysits the kids, was performing in it, so it was fun for the kids to see her perform.

Christmas Eve
Derek and Nicole invited my parents, Kari's family, and my family over for Christmas Eve.  (Annette's family is out in Florida). Nicole set up a spectacular gingerbread house building station for the kids, and they went to town.

After that Nicole read from Luke Ch. 2 about the birth of Christ, and the little kids exchanged presents, and Grandma and Grandpa gave the kids presents too.

That night we came home and re-enacted the Nativity, which is a tradition in Tara's family.

Christmas 2016
Aria and Nova woke up early in the 6am hour, and Zade was up by 7am to dig into Christmas. Unfortunately, little Ryzen has the flu, so he did his best to enjoy the day.

I asked the kids to grab the present they were most excited about for this photo. Aria got an Ever After High doll, and a figurine of a fairy riding a unicorn, Zade got a Lego Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars), and Ryzen got a remote controlled race car. 

Ryzen and Nova also got a little ball pit, which they both enjoy.

Nova was especially excited to receive her own baby doll, which she quickly began taking care of, by giving it a bottle and binky.

Ice Storm

Zade loses his first tooth

Zade was ecstatic to lose his firth tooth. It had been wiggly for a while, and Tara talked him into letting her twist it out (much to his father's chagrin). It worked though. 

Art

Aria drew the following picture, which she was so proud of, that she made photo copies of it and began coloring them all. :) Here's just one.

Ward Christmas Party

With the holidays here, we just can't stop running into Santa. :) 

Floors

The prior owners of our home apparently had many cats that peed all over the carpets. We ripped out the carpet and had to paint the subfloor with Kilz to contain the smell of cat urine. Finally, we got a new floor installed this past week. It's nice to have a floor again. Here's just one of the rooms that was finished. 

Flying Friends

Tara looked out the back window and saw this. And then the just flew away...

Ice Storm

On Wednesday this past week there was a big ice storm, that knocked out power to our house for around 5 hours. We felt fortunate to get power back so quickly, as some families in Eugene still don't have power 4 days later. Although the ice can be precarious, it does make for some nice pictures. 

Christmas Tree

Sticking with tradition, we went to a U-Cut farm to get a Christmas Tree.  Usually we have no trouble finding a nice tree, but this year, the farm we went to in Veneta had hardly any trees over 5 feet, so we had a hard time finding a tree. After a long search, we ended up finding one the owners had cut earlier that day (a Nordman). 

 The kids didn't like how picky their parents were this year when it came to picking out a tree. :)  Despite that, they managed to smile for the camera.

Last week I added a photo of the 100+ geese in our yard. I thought that was a lot, until this week when hundreds of geese showed up in our yard and our neighbors yard. A lot of them couldn't be fit in this picture, but if you zoom in close, you'll see some of the mighty swarm.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

We started off the holiday by heading down to the river where Tara did the 4 mile Turkey Trot. She logged a time around 34 minutes. Afterwards both of the boys did the 200m dash. There was a turnaround point at 100m into the dash, and poor little Ryzen missed it and kept on running straight ahead past the turnaround point. Dane had to go run after him while holding Nova to help him get back on track. After a little consoling, he was fine. :) 

We held a Thanksgiving meal at our house, and Dane's parents, Kari's family, and some family friends came.

In addition to eating a small army of pies that Dave made, the kids enjoyed gobbling up these little turkey's they'd made the night before.

The girls had fun coloring  the table cloth.

The boys got together and played some new games (Camel Up & 7 Wonders).

More Family

Shara's family came up to have Thanksgiving with Stephen's clan. She and Stephen stopped by for a day and the kids got to hang out. 

Christmas Tree Lighting
We took the kids to the Christmas Tree Lighting in the 5th Street Market in Eugene. Since the temperatures are still in the 50's, they had a snow machine going to make it more festive. :) The kids also enjoyed sitting on Santa's lap.

Return of the Geese
When we bought our house there were a couple geese hanging around the yard. They disappeared within a short period of time. Well, now they've returned, along with 100 of their closest friends. Literally.

Hot Springs

Hot Springs

The weather has been great so we went out to Terwilliger (Cougar) Hot Springs with the kids. There are 5 pools that cascade into each other, with the hottest pool being around 105 degrees Fahrenheit. We all enjoyed soaking in deep in the forest. 

 

There's even a waterfall on the hike to the hot springs.

A nice sunset from our backyard.

I took Tara to the Oregon Electric Station. It's a fun restaurant partially constructed with railroad cars.

Little Nova is starting to pull herself up on things, but she's still not walking. She generally refuses to let us help her practice by pulling her legs up into the air when we try. We've even gotten her a walker, which she also refuses to use. Oh, someday that girl will learn.