Vacation in Whitefish!

 In the 10 years we have lived here, we have actually never spent a Christmas at home.  This year we thought it would be fun to have everyone come to us.  Sam and Holly were not able to, but Nana and the Yu's made it!  We had a great time.  It's really fun getting the kids together.  Jen and I really want our kids to grow up knowing each other, so we are trying to get the kids together as much as we can.  This is not easy when we live so far apart, but we are trying!  Nana was in heaven watching all of her grand kids in one spot!

 What to do with a bunch of kids in the house? Sugar them up!  We had fun making cookies, and decorating cookies.

 We have had a lot of snow this year, the kids had a great time playing outside!

 Cade loves to sled.  Because the snow is so deep, he has trouble walking- so he just says in his sled and waits for someone to pull him around.

 Bekah teaches Cade and Sophie how to do new games on the IPAD.

 Bekah and Sophie both got American Girls from Nana for Christmas.  They had fun playing with them together.

 We took the kids out to the cabin to do sledding- Montana style.  It was Jonas and Bekah's first time sledding behind a 4-wheeler.  Yes, it is a little ghetto, but it's fun.

 They're off!

 New Year's Eve was Jonas's 12th birthday.  Sophie was thrilled to be able to decorate/celebrate a birthday.  As long as she has a party hat/noise maker she's happy.

 We all went bowling to celebrate Jonas's birthday.  It was Sophie's first time- she thought it was a lot of fun. With the bumpers up, she beat both of her parents.  Not too surprising, I wish I could use those bumpers.

The week with everyone went by much too quickly.  It was a wonderful time, we cant wait to visit them in Ohio this summer.

Merry Christmas(s)!

 We continued our tradition of celebrating Christmas multiple times, which is always fun! First up was the McDermott Christmas.  We headed out to the cabin early in the morning in our pajamas so we could greet the cousins when they got up.  We have a fun tradition of opening presents and then sending the kids outside to play in the snow.  Playing in the snow has the added bonus of working off some of the Christmas excitement.  The kids all play really well together, its fun to see them all interact.

 Cade got a new ride-on toy.  The propeller spins around and it makes lots of noise and lights up.  He was a little scared of it all at first, but now he cruises all around on it in our house.

Sophie and Elly got princess crowns, which Sophie wore all day long. I told her she looked like a beautiful princess, and she was quick to tell me that she wasn't a real princess, she was just pretending. Good to know.

Cade got a new train set, which he and Sophie both love.  They play with it every night.  It's pretty exciting.

 On Christmas Eve, Sophie and Cade set up cookies and milk for Santa.  We almost forgot to do it, Sophie reminded us as we were tucking her into bed. We had to troop back downstairs to get everything set up for Santa and the reindeer. Whoops!

 On Christmas day, Cade was quite excited to get a Mickey Mouse (or mou as Cade says).  Mickey Mouse ranks right up there with trains/cars/and trucks.

Sophie's big gift was a Leap Pad set with games. Were hoping that she will enjoy having her own tablet, and when she outgrows it, it can be passed down to Cade. Its nice in theory. We will see what actually happens.
Christmas Day was actually really low key.  We were all sick, so we did a lot of relaxing, laying around trying to get better. We were really grateful that we did not have to travel anywhere.

Engineer Cade

Cade is rascally.  He is into everything, and busy, busy, busy. He also seems to just know how to work things.  One day I found him in the closet watching a dvd on the dvd player.  He had opened the closet, found the dvd player, got it out of the bag, put in a dvd, powered it on, and was putting the headphones on when I caught him.  Its pretty impressive, if you can get past the rascallyness of it all. He also knows how to turn on the tv- with and without the remote, turn on the computer, swipe to different screens on an IPAD, turn on the stereo, put in new cds, and press play. Perhaps he will be an engineer or do something with computers- he just seems to know how things work.  Not to shabby for an 18 month old.

Thanksgiving in Portland

 We had a fun trip to Portland- as always, it goes fast! We managed to get in some of our favorite Portland activities though- spending time with family, shopping, and visiting the zoo.  We love visiting and catching up with family, and as Cade is getting older, flying is getting easier. He will now sit and watch a show on the dvd player- a huge change from this summer! Hopefully traveling will continue to get easier and easier!

 We went to the zoo first thing in the morning, and it was a bit cold so we had the zoo to ourselves!  It was like a private viewing.  The kids had a great time seeing that animals up close!

 Sophie visits the polar bears.

 Cade sees fish that are bigger than him.

 The lions at the zoo just had babies.  They connected tv cameras to their room so everyone could watch them play.  It was pretty cute.  Sophie was fascinated!  Nana surprised Sophie with a stuffed animal lion cub, which Sophie named Cubby-shes very creative- and it has been her favorite animal since.

 Cade's favorite part of the zoo was the jeep that kids could play on-of course.   He is obsessed with all things cars/trucks/trains.

 We did a couple of new stops on our vacation as well- one was to Build-A-Bear.  We had been wanting to take Sophie for a while, but don't have any near us. She was thrilled to be able to make her own bear.

 Sophie with Jingles, her new Christmas bear.

We also took Sophie to her first movie- Frozen.  I realize that most children see a movie before they're 4.5 years old, but Sophie only recently has been able to sit through a Disney movie at home.  By "sitting" through a movie I mean getting up several times to play and then coming back to watch for a bit. But for this movie she got licorice, and popcorn. It was a big treat!  She did a pretty good job watching the movie, we will have to do it again sometime!