OMSI & Cup Stacks

Our friends Ruth and Donald have recently moved to the Portland area.  We are so glad to have them move closer to us.  We enjoy spending time with them and both their kids and our kids have a lot of fun playing together.  A couple of weeks ago, Ruth joined us for an outing to OMSI.  We hadn't been there for a while.  The older kids were in school, so it was just Simon and Ruth's two youngest kids, Ethan and Tyler.  The kids had fun playing in the sand and water and other various things.  We really like going to OMSI!

Simon & Tyler

Ethan

Simon goes shopping, a boy after my own heart.

Tyler

Ethan

 

 

A few days later, Daniel was competing in a Cup Stack competition at his school.  He had to qualify a few days before, which he did.  They compete by grade, and the winner of each grade gets a trophy and the second place winner gets a medal.  Also, there is a trophy for the fastest person in the school.  Daniel thought maybe he had a chance for second place, but was pleasantly surprised when he walked away with the trophy for his class.  He was super excited.  We were so proud of him!

Warming up

Competing

 

The winners

Daniel and his trophy

Week of New Year's

During the week of New Years, I had the boys home with me for one more week before they went back to school.  So I tried to do some fun things with them.  On Monday we went to a place called Sky High Adventures.  It's a big warehouse type building that have trampolines.  The boys got to jump and get some exercise.

On Tuesday I took them bowling.

On New Year's Eve, Jeff and I met up with our friends Hannah and Ryan.  They are currently living in New Zealand, but they were visiting Portland for a couple of nights.  We went out to dinner and had a nice visit.

Christmas Day

Continuing on with my recap of our Christmas, on Christmas morning.    Sam got up first, but he waited till everyone else was up before going into the living room to see what Santa had brought.  After everyone was awake, the boys went in and opened their stockings and saw what Santa had left them, which was a large lego shipping freight boat.  At this time we also opened our gifts from our family in Coeur d'Alene.  The boys got Razors (scooters) and a maze ball from their cousins, and my parents got them gift cards to Target along with some sweet treats.  It was a wonderful morning. 

Later that day we went over to Jeff's parent's house and had a lovely Christmas dinner with our extended family here in Portland.  It was a very nice day.

Sam Discovers the Lego

Simon Gets His Stocking

Opening

More Opening

Sam with the Maze Ball

Opening the Razors

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas this year.  We celebrated it several times with lots of family and friends.  I'll start with Christmas Eve.  We hosted and had Grandma and Grandpa Youker over for dinner and presents.  We had cheese and chocolate fondue.  It was yummy!  Then we exchanged presents.  The boys got some fun, nice things, and we had a fun time. 

All 3

All 3 With the Grandparents

Daniel, Getting Cup Stacks

Simon, Opening Play Dough

Daniel, Checking out his B-Ball

Sam, Opening a Machine