Family Christmas – Happy New Year

Christmas morning
and our tree.

Santa left everyone toe socks in their stockings.Oma and Cole are shown here.

Our eyes are puffy but we
are awake.

New robes, warm and fuzzy.

Jo trying out her new Hannah Montana light up drawing table. She draws just about every day now so this gift was a hit.

Cole practicing on his Rip Stick-G that Santa left him.

Two wheels seems tough but he does well along with the other boys on the block. Rip Sticks were a hot item from Santa this year.

We made our trip to Gma Marie and Gpa Norman’s for the afternoon meal and gift exchange. Once again I forgot to snap a photo or two. GREAT dinner and always a nice visit with family.

We then met up with the Ruiz Clan (Jill’s sister and family) at the Woodburn Outlet Mall for some lunch and exchanging gifts. Who knew there would be sales of 50% - 70% with another 40% off of the lowest prices? DANG IT! We didn’t spend too much but couldn’t resist the sales. Oh yeah, the gift exchange and hanging out with the family was great too.The gift from Gpa Dave and all the family and friends who drank Coke and sent him points was a telescope that we had to put together that evening and brave the 24 degree temperature to take a peak at the moon and a star or two! We will enjoy this gift for years to come as well as all the others.

Happy New Year!
Our New year’s eve was spent with Rachelle and Connie.

The kids were going to stay up to cheer the New Year
but Jo just couldn’t make it.She did try though.
Cole and Oma made it!No surprise for Cole, he is quite the night owl and made it longer than Oma too.

Our New Years Toast and Smoke!Renee, Mom, Rachelle, Connie, Janis and Andy.

(Don’t show our kids this shot, they will ask why I want to die early)

Jo woke early and happy! More happy to take Dasher for her walk with Connie. The country sure
fits this girl,
she is outside more here than any other place we go.






Hope your Christmas was Wonderful and your New Year will be even better than the last.
Love The BS Family

UPDATE to Christmas Eve.

I'm going to try and catch up on our posts over the next few days, I hope. More on this delay later.
SWIMMING JO!
Jo passed her last swim class and moves into Pre-Swim Team. We are very proud of her and we see she is proud of herself as well! Pre-Swim Team will teach competitive swimming in a non-competitive atmosphere while working on her strokes and endurance. She is excited to be in the pool three times a week for 45 min instead of twice a week for 30 min.
WhoooT!

Snow….SnoW…SNOW
Ok, we got quite a bit of snow but not near the amount as family and friends to our North. Jo, along with some neighbor kids walked down to our park, which has a small hill to see if they could get in some sledding.
Jo had a ball!

Falling over at the bottom was a highlight for her and always made her laugh.

Sleeping? Yes, she knelt down next to Oma and talked to her for a few, then crashed right there! Guess all the sledding wore her out.

Gingerbread BakingWho said they should always be men?
(they were yummy too)

Turkey DinnerMom was missing out on turkey leftovers so we cooked up a turkey dinner, had a couple friends over and ate like it was Thanksgiving all over again. The kids wanted the legs (who didn’t as a kid?) Eating with your hands, ripping the meat off the bone…LOVE IT!

CHRISTMAS EVE!We had Christmas Eve dinner with our neighbors again and like always we had fun. Most of you know Francis and Dale (right) from past posts here. We love them and always enjoy spending time with them. Kristy (left) is their daughter who spent the holiday with them. Old Jim (left) is just a hoot! He pretended to break a spoon while at dinner, I was horrified that he would do this and Oma thought, “Boy, Jim, you have a lot of guts!” He didn’t really break it but had both of us thinking he did. Said it before: We love our neighbors.

After dinner and the kids were ready for bed (yeah, right…Christmas eve…like they were ready for sleeping) they opened the gifts that they got for each other. Seems like this has become a tradition in our house.


Cole took no time at all to get his jeep out and raced it around the house. Only hitting ankles a few times…only a few.


Jo’s gift was a little more work and watching her pretend being a scientist was fun. We of course did something wrong at some point because no crystals formed. Work in progress; after all the light bulb did not light the first time either.

I will leave this post with a breakfast conversation from our home.
Jo: Cole, what would you do if my face was on fire?
Cole: I would sit on your face and fart because a wet fart would put the fire out.
Jo: (looking up and pondering this for a moment) Mom? Would a wet fart put out a face fire?
Mom: Well, the wetness would put the fire out but not the gas part.

Stuff – Oma’s Older – Snow!

Our friends Martha and Tracy invited us to join them for church, celebrating Advent. So there was a lovely church service followed by a potluck, lots of crafts to partake in, and socializing. The kids strung a holiday necklace, decorated graham cracker houses, rolled candles and Jo made a cinnamon roll wreath with Tracy! (yes, to eat)Socializing? Well Mom knew a couple folks other than Tracy and Martha but Oma knew quite a few more! More than once someone walked up to Tracy or Martha (while I was standing next to them) and asked “I hear Jill Smith is here? And where are her children?” Tracy or Martha would point to the kids, a comment would be made and then off they went to say hello to Jill. College and Track folks.

Asked the kids if they enjoyed church (their first time attending) They both said “I LOVED it!” Especially decorating the houses. We explained that the service was the church part; the rest was just a bonus. (condensed version here) They then said “Oh, that was nice too”.

Oma Starts New Chapter
Jo was able to give Oma her birthday gift before work so she was able to wear her new dragonfly earrings.

That night we enjoyed a new Sushi restaurant indulging in all sorts of new versions of one of our favorite foods. We didn’t over eat, however, because we still had to drive across town to Sweet Life to pick out our own birthday desert and sing Happy Birthday to Oma.

Our Tree

We were to head south for part of our weekend but with the weather folks saying “snow” we grudgingly stayed home. Instead we picked out our Christmas tree and decorated it. The holiday feeling is complete now with the smell of pine in the air! Whoohoo!

FIRST SNOW!I think Oma is more excited about snow than the kids. Her pattern for years now has been to wake up, run out and take a photo or two of the snow on the ground before it’s disturbed and then back in to wake up the kids with “IT SNOWED!”. She actually let the kids sleep until they woke on their own this year.

They wasted no time getting outside to play and ate some breakfast next door instead of coming back into our house. HaHa

SNOW DAY for ALL!
(Sorry Connie and all those who have to work knowing we are out playing)

Jo Teeth and Cole Hoops

All I want for Christmas …Cole’s first basketball trading card.

Our Holiday Weekend

Spent the weekend with the S side of this BS Family. Great trip with lots of visiting and if you’re a kid, a ton of playing, wait…the adults played too!

Started off Thanksgiving morning with a 3.5 mile
Turkey Trot around Lake Sacajawea Park.IT WAS COLD!

Most of us trotted and walked around about half the lake but Oma and Cole trotted / walked the whole thing! Carol said that Cole deserved a
Turkey Trot t-shirt for his effort!

Here our future Chef Lanna was helping Nanny with the turkey and stuffing. I’m sure Lanna was telling Nans to not miss a crumb of stuffing inside, no wasting stuffing when it tastes so good!Dinner Time!

Still a kids table or breakfast bar in this case.Adult table. YUMMY!
(Just put a turkey in our freezer for this weekend,
need some leftovers)

The kids were up early, awake late and played hard every day.Jo tried to stay awake for a movie but just couldn’t keep the eyelids open even though chatter and movement were all around her.

Geocaching!
What is this you ask? Well let me just copy and paste what the Geocaching site says. “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.”

FIRST
We have to learn how to type in the coordinates into Nanny’s gps.

Jill gave it a try….I think you click...no...


Then Dan gave
it a shot…Maybe this?...no...

Carol…helped?

Tina gave it a try…

Damn thing…

Directions?

DIRECTIONS
PLEASE…

This is suppose to be fun!

(a little reading goes a long way some times)

Whewh…We did it! And off we go hunting!And our FIRST FIND!We searched out five this day with a lunch stop in the middle which was easy to get lunch seeing how one of the cache’s were in the middle of town.

This is our last find of trinkets and trash. We wrote our names on the paper inside the cache’s and the kids swapped out some of their own stuff for other stuff they thought was better.

What a GREAT family activity. And for most of us I’m sure it’s the closest we will ever come to finding real treasure. In the meantime we will continue finding our own….Off to buy our own gps and more treasures!