As good a day as any

Yesterday wasn't the beginning of the new year. Nor was it even the beginning of a new month. It was, however, the day that I decided to get up off my booty and hit the gym. It has been many years since the last time I set foot in a gym (Claire was a baby), so I was a little nervous about it. Once I took the tour and filled out some paperwork, I was ready. I actually had a really great time. No kids, no messy house, no thinking about anything else except for me. I'm using a free pass for a month, so we'll see if I can stick to my goals. If all goes well, I will probably continue with a real membership. Wish me luck! I will need it. :)

Hooray for the Snow Dance!

Last night we of course did our trusty snow dance; although I am a little perplexed as to why it gets more complex each time we do it. Not only do our pajamas need to be inside out for the crazy spinning in circles, but the pillowcases needed to be inside out AND we had to flush ice cubes down the toilet. Really? Who comes up with this stuff?

The kids are convinced that it works because sure enough we woke up to snow. Not a lot, but enough to get out of school. I had to stall them until 7:50 because they were dying to get out there. It's a good thing we went out early though because by 10am it was all melting.

They had a great time playing with a bunch of neighbor kids. I even took the baby out for a few minutes. He was happy to be outside. All Grace wanted to do was eat it. Claire made snow angels and threw lots of snowballs at me. Then we all came inside for some hot chocolate.

This may be our last snow of the winter, so it was fun to get out and enjoy it

Zoo Day

The zoo is not usually on my list of places to go during the week, but with Monday being a holiday, and the zoo offering free admission, it was hard to pass up. Thankfully Chris had the day off of work to enjoy with us. We rode the Max thinking that it would be crazy busy, but we were pleasantly surprised. Not only were the crowds pretty minimal, but it was sunny out, and the animals were actually awake and moving around! It was by far one of my better experiences with the zoo. The kids had a great time. It was totally worth it to run around looking for the next animal. Grace had to see the "giraff-esss". When we got to the elephants there was a keeper there who had some kind of food for one of the elephants. It even did a trick for everyone and then flung the food into it's mouth. It was feeding time for the bats too. I would not want that job! This lady was ducking through their enclosure dodging bats and poo to string fruit onto the vines. As soon as the fruit was on it was immediately attacked by a swarm of bats. It was pretty fun to watch, but yeah, not for me. After a few hours we were all exhausted. It was a blast though, and I'm so glad that the threat of rain didn't keep us away. We are after all Oregonians.

6 month stats

It's hard to believe, but Neil is already 6 months old today! He is such a sweet baby, and loves to be tickled especially when undressed. He can sit without support for several seconds, roll over from his side, and has started eating rice cereal. So far he is on track for making plenty of sounds and gooing a lot. We haven't seen any evidence of teeth yet, but the drool machine is up and running. As you can see, he is a great eater and therefore is plenty chunky. I love his kissable cheeks and chunky legs! Here are his 6 months stats:

22lbs 3 oz

27 1/4 inches

18 in head circ

He's in the 98% for weight, and 78% for height. He's my big boy, and I love him to pieces!

Vegas Adventures

It's hard to believe that Christmas is over...we had so much fun and stayed super busy for 2 weeks straight. I apologize in advance for the length of this entry.

We began our trip on the day school let out. It was a mad dash to get through Oregon before a winter storm hit. It payed off, we had mostly dry roads the whole way to Utah. We stayed the weekend with our really great friends the Wilde family. It was so fun to see them and play games late into the night. Thanks guys for letting us come stay with you!

The next Monday we made the drive to Las Vegas. We were hoping for nice sunny weather, but instead the first several days were really rainy and chilly. At least our kids all did really well in the car. We spent lots of time making cookies for Santa, shopping for last minute gifts, and going to see Christmas lights. The men decided it would be fun to have marshmallow guns, so off to home depot they went to get the supplies needed to make 25 guns. We had several giant marshmallow gun fights. Claire really liked that. She enjoyed shooting her uncles especially.

One of the rainy nights we went out to the strip to see the sights. We went into the Bellagio and walked through the atrium that was decorated for Christmas. The fountain display is also a must, and this time we walked through the M&M world. It was 4 floors of M&M stuff. I never could have imagined that there was that much stuff with M&M's on it.

We took the kids to a place called Bounce U. It was a big building full of inflatable play structures. They had a blast and got lots of wiggles out. We also took them to see a Christmas display at another casino. It was about 15minutes of music and creepy fake animals with orange eyes moving around. Claire really liked it, but Grace was a little scared of the wolf and bear. I can't say that I blame her.

One of my favorite days was when we went out to Hoover Dam. It was gorgeous outside and warm enough to be in T-shirts. It was so nice to walk around in the sun! The new bridge was crazy high! We walked across the bridge and then went down to the dam to take the dam tour. The dam elevators went really fast, and with only 2 stops on the dam tour, it wasn't really worth it. They took us inside to see the dam turbine room and over one of the big pipes of water rushing through the dam. I really liked the dam stuff, and if you didn't guess, there were a lot of dam jokes. The whole time, the kids did really well, although they would have been happy to just walk across the dam..which is what we finally did in the end. Afterwards we drove to the Cactus Gardens to see a Christmas lights display. It was really pretty, and Claire ran around the whole time wanting her picture taken with everything. At least she isn't afraid of pictures anymore.

On Christmas Eve we had a BIG family dinner with all the yummy fixins and then the traditional family home evening. We sang carols, played bells, listened to cousins play guitar, read the Christmas story from the Bible, and even enjoyed a surprise visit from Santa. My kids weren't really sure what to think about that. Claire got into it eventually, but Grace didn't want anything to do with Santa. Even when he had a small gift for her, she wouldn't go near him to get it. It was kinda funny.

Christmas morning was the magical mayhem that it always is. There were people and presents everywhere, but somehow we managed to watch each other open all the gifts. Claire was sooo excited to see her unicorn pillow pet that she had asked Santa for. It was fun to see her reaction to getting the one thing that she really wanted. She's finally old enough to make Christmas fun for me again. Grace also got a pillow pet, although she didn't care as much about it. All the kids had tons and tons of gifts to keep them busy for the next week. We all got great stuff and had a fun day relaxing and playing games.

The next week was full of more activities. We went to Darrin and Sharon's house for dinner after taking family pictures. It was super yummy mexican food. Another sunny day we spent out in the desert shooting off rockets, 4-wheeling, and shooting guns. The girls really liked shooting the guns, but they were afraid to push the launch button for the rockets. Go figure. They also really liked riding around in the razor. There was a little drama...two of the people that were with us took their truck out for a joy ride on the dry lake bed. A few minutes later I watched them flip their truck, landing upside down. I called for help, and took off to go help them. As we got to them they were crawling out of the truck. Thankfully they had been wearing seatbelts and didn't get hurt. The truck, however, was seriously messed up. It took some time to get it flipped back over and in the process a tire came off. They had to call someone to come tow it out. It was a little scary.

On another nice day we took the kids to a mini grand prix where everyone could play. They had big cars for the adults, and even small ones for the kids to drive. There was also a roller coaster, slide, and airplane ride for the kids. We all had a blast! I think the girls liked the giant slide the best. We all went on it several times. Afterwards we played their arcade games and won tickets to buy the all important "prizes". It was a really fun day!

Our Christmas vacation was full of great food too. We went out to eat at Yoley's, Claim Jumper, Bachi Burger, Islands Burger, and Max Brenner Chocolate. If you ever find yourself in Las Vegas I highly recommend going to Max Brenner for dessert. They had a huge dessert menu full of amazing chocolate creations. It was so hard to choose! We had great food with the family too, and I'm sure we've gained a few pounds.

Overall, our vacation was a blast! Thank you Grandma for hosting a great Christmas gathering! We are still recovering from all the late nights playing games and chatting.

5 Months

Today my baby boy is 5 months old! I can't believe how fast time goes by these days. It seems like only a few weeks ago that we were bringing him home from the hospital. Although he still seems so little to me, he is definitely growing BIG! I think he's about 20lbs right now, which is making it very difficult to haul him around in his infant carrier. The really fun part of getting older is how interactive he has become. He is quite ticklish, and it's hilarious to listen to him laugh when you tickle his sides and belly. He smiles at lots of people, and has started making lots of noise. The best is the way he looks at me...as if he is saying with his eyes how much he loves me. I can tell that he is a happy baby and loves to be near his family. We are so lucky to have such a sweet boy!

Award Dinner

Last night Chris and I got to get all dressed up to attend the Nike Maxim Awards Banquet. The Maxim Awards are given to groups and individuals who are nominated and selected for exemplifying the different Nike "Maxims". It's a pretty big deal. Hundreds of people are nominated, three are chosen as finalists from each category, and then the winner is announced at the fancy party. This year it was held at the Portland Art Museum. Out of 11 Maxim categories, Chris was a finalist for 2 of them! We got to have a yummy chicken and potato dinner complete with salad, bread, and dessert. It was nice to have an excuse for dressing up for our date.

We had a great time, especially since Chris won in the category Maxim 5: The Consumer Decides! He won for creating the iPhone GPS App for tracking runs for Nike+. Apparently it has been a huge hit in the market. Way to go honey!!