Happy New Year!

What was in that ice cream CJ had at dinner? She started to do silly things with the napkin. Seriously though, the malted milk ball ice cream was yummy and the pizza good, too. We had dinner out and went to bed early. Missed all the balls dropping, fireworks, etc. Maybe next year.

Bribery at its Finest

CJ had asked Santa for a panda pillow pet, but Santa didn't leave one. We've heard that Santa had called around shortly before Christmas and could not find one. CJ's been a real sport this week, going on many boring errands. She's been rewarded with more ice cream than one kid needs - especially in December. So when Mama needed to run some more errands today, we talked about looking for a pillow pet. We happened by many Fred Meyer stores in our travels and stopped in a few to look at their post-holiday pillow pet collection. No one had the big panda, but we found a tiny zipper pull panda at one store and later grabbed the wee panda from another store. The good news is that they were on sale. CJ's pretty happy with her finds as you can tell by that grin in the photo.

Ready for Camping

Today CJ put together the Lego Camper she received as a gift for Christmas. It comes complete with a bike and surfboard and the sides open for access. The little people even have a few different areas where they can rest for the night. Tomorrow the log cabin awaits!

Bendaroos

With a little help from Mama and Daddy, CJ got an ice cream cone and a turtle made of out Bendaroos. Thanks Grandma.

Christmas Dinner Guests

While we were tiptoeing through our day slowly, CJ's cousin and his parents opened their gifts and drove a few hours to come to our house for Christmas dinner. Besides eating, the kids opened presents, had a band (solicited donations for their music), built a masterpiece out of C's special light-up building blocks, and had several Bop It XT competitions. CJ was glad to have company for the holiday!

Merry Christmas Continued

After a break for breakfast, church, getting dressed, starting dinner, etc. we went back to the tree and opened a few more items:

Slow and Steady

Once again CJ went for unwrapping gifts at a slow and steady pace, only after watching some tv and having a few people ask her if she checked to see if Santa came - luckily he had!

Early Gifts

We generally open a gift or two on Christmas Eve. CJ opened up some pajamas (which were desperately needed!) and Little B got some glucosamine treats. Look how relaxed she is in the picture - if only she knew what was in that package!

Mama was happy that we noticed that Santa Claus is Coming to Town and The Year Without A Santa Claus were on tv this evening so we stayed up a little late to watch them. The Heat Miser is one of the best holiday characters and we're always surprised when people don't remember him.

Wonkaland

We heard that the Willy Wonka play at the children's theatre was really good, so as a special treat we went to see it. Willy Wonka is one of Mama's favorite movies. The play was great. We were happy to see some friends at the intermission (CJ was happy that they were serving mini cupcakes since they ran out of warm chocolate chip cookies) and afterwards CJ took some pictures with the cast. Here's what the Oompa Loompa's looked like:

And here are some squirrels:
For some reason CJ didn't want to hang around to meet Willy Wonka or Charlie or Grandpa Joe. But she did get an autograph from Veruca Salt!

Holiday Photos from Peacock Lane

Grandma came to town today and we had a clear night so we decided to take our annual stroll through Peacock Lane. I think it was definitely the most crowded that it has ever been, but we still managed to have fun and got a few good pictures of the lights:

Colorful Cookies

CJ loves decorating the holiday cookies. She's even patient enough to take the time to look through the sprinkles and decorations and place them one at a time on the cookies, to make her color patterns.

They turned out pretty well:

Happy Half Birthday

Oops - almost forgot to post this one. We skipped the cupcakes this time and picked up these yummy chocolate mousse filled cups topped with fresh berries. Yum.

Risky Business

Our usual answer is "someday" when people ask if we're ever going to get another dog. Most likely we plan on just having one dog at a time in the future. But it still seems a bit risky to go for a look around the humane society.

Today CJ and Mama dropped off our family's gifts for the animals. We took some time to visit the cats, the rabbits and birds, and even the dogs. The chocolate lab that was advertised as being part of the running group had already been adopted.

So we left the goodies and then headed home to spoil Little B. And tell her how lucky she is to have a family to take care of her.

Straight Up

This year's paperwhites are standing straight up. Usually they fall over on themselves and have to be tied up, but for some reason these are pointing straight up to the sky. Nice.

Baking Day

Besides running to the store to get gifts for the humane society and finally getting our cards in the mail, CJ and I also made nuts, marbled fudge and almond butter blossoms. Yum.

Seeing Santa

CJ donned a fancy dress and gathered up her holiday wish list and we headed downtown to see Santa. She wanted to head back to Macy's and we were unaware of the big beard controversy so we were surprised by the lack of lines and also the new bright red wall background. Daddy was able to meet us for her photo. Santa really loved her homemade card with a drawing of him. CJ said Santa wanted pictures of all the kids so he can recognize them when he goes to everyone's houses to drop off their gifts.

When Daddy went back to work, CJ and Mama went to grab a warm drink and happened upon a little dance performance at the square. Not a bad morning.

Girls Night Out

The girls had a good, but late night out. We enjoyed dinner and then saw an evening performance of the Nutcracker. CJ was eyeing the beautiful tutu's, but still says she prefers gymnastics over dance class.

The Candy Casa

Have you heard that home construction projects can be stressful? Well our annual gingerbread house decorating started out that way. We had some frosting consistency issues, but after a bit we worked it out and moved on with this holiday tradition. The finished product may not have been our best, but CJ was happy with it.

PJ Day

Today was PJ Day at CJ's school. The morning started off with her class reading their special color poems to the parents. Parents then shared some of their writing with the kids. Parents were dismissed and the children went to the classrooms for a day of reading with their sleeping bags or blankets and their little stuffed animals.

In the afternoon the class had a party. Activity tables were set up for snowflake-making, painting, pomander balls and the most popular table was the gingerbread decorating table. A nice way to end school before the holiday break.

Candy Canes and Eggnog

If you run the Holiday Half, you will be rewarded with an unusual mix of goodies afterward - a bell (instead of a medal), a candy cane, black bean soup, eggnog, beer, lottery tickets. Luckily we were rewarded with another dry day in Portland, although it was a bit cool and cloudy.

Lions and Tigers and Lights Oh My

On a sunny day with rain forecasted for the weekend, we decided to make our annual trek to zoo lights. Of course it was clear and cold, but this year we didn't have any snow. Many other people had the same idea, but our zoo membership got us right in. CJ wanted to do the train (which we'd avoided up until last year), so Daddy got into the line for those tickets while CJ and Mama found our way to the long train line. We were excited when we moved far enough to see the 30 minute wait sign, but not so excited when we finally made it to the 15 minute wait sign after half an hour. The zoo has improved the waiting experience and even had entertainers twirling lighted hula hoops as we wound our way to the train. After over an hour we finally got seated on the train for our 15 minute ride. CJ thoroughly enjoyed it, but it didn't leave us much time to look around the rest of the zoo. We enjoyed a hot chocolate and a few more lights before heading home.

Bridge Pose

Here's CJ practicing her bridge at gymnastics.

Festive Decorating

CJ grouping ornaments together like friends on the tree:

CJ's stocking made by Grandma W:

CJ decorating the dog:

The Whole Way

This year CJ ran the Jingle Bell Run the whole way. Mama ran with her and was surprised that we didn't pause at all as we had in prior years. CJ kept her pace and wound through the other kids to get her goodie bag at the end of the 1K run. Once again we had a cold, but dry day and the sun even came out for us at the end as we watched the 5K start. We celebrated CJ's performance with warm drinks and bagels afterward.