Boys' Piano Recital

I'm really behind in my blogging.  We've had lots going on around here!  I will try and catch up over the next few days, so keep checking the blog for updates on what our family is doing!

The weekend of March 1,  Daniel and Sam had their piano recital.  I was very proud of them.  They memorized their songs and did a great job playing!  Daniel played the theme song from James Bond and the song, Don't Get Around Much Anymore.  Sam played the song, It's a Small World.  I thought they did great!  Here are some pics.

Last Weekend

A couple of short updates about last weekend.  Daniel's school sang at Sunset Christian Fellowship Church last weekend in Hillsboro.  Here are a couple of pics of that performance.

Then, that evening, we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Rose Quarter.  I have fond memories of my family going to see them, so it was fun to take my boys to the same event.  Of course, the names and faces of the players have changed, but many of their antics have stayed the same.  The boys had a great time and asked when we can go again.

Valentine's Day

Last Saturday it was Valentine's Day.  First thing the boys did after they woke up was to open their Valentine's Day package from Grandpa and Grandma in Idaho.  They were excited to get stickers and paper, and they quickly set to making a craft.  The boys also had gotten me some chocolates, and they gave those to me first thing as well.

Craft Time

I usually like to make the boys a special breakfast, but since we all had colds, I decided on having heart shaped biscuits instead (hopefully avoiding too much sugar).  They seemed to like them!

Heart Biscuits 

Breakfast

Later we went to Sabbath School and church.  And after we came home and had lunch, I gave the boys their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Youker and a small candy treat that I had gotten them.  It was all very exciting.

After lunch I took the boys up to the park.  Jeff wanted to run some errands and get things for dinner which he made for me later that night.  When he got back, he gave me some flowers.  That night, we fed the boys early and put them to bed a little earlier than usual.  Jeff then made us a nice dinner.  We had a cheese plate, fresh ravioli, caesar salad, carrots, and he made chocolate souffle dessert.  Then he really surprised me when upon exchanging gifts, had gave me a box of chocolates and a new laptop computer!  Yep, a laptop.  Our old one was literally falling apart.  This is of course the family laptop, but since he has his own iPad, I will mostly be using the laptop.  It was a nice Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Flowers

Basketball for Daniel

This January Daniel started on a 3rd and 4th grade city league organized through his school for basketball.  He has never played before and is very new to the game.  But he seems to have picked it up quickly, and he's doing well for never having had any experience.  His strengths are running, dribbling, the occasional rebound and passing.  He is still working on shooting and understanding the overall flow of the game, but he's working on it.  I'm proud of him for trying something new.  He seems to be enjoying it so far.  His team has played two games as of this post.  The first one they lost, but the second one they won. 

Warming up, he's out in the middle

Going for the ball

Either trying to make a shot or getting a rebound

His team in blue

Beach Weekend

This past weekend we went to the beach in Manzanita.  My parents came with us this time.  We rent a house close to the beach.  We've been wanting to take them there for a long time, and we finally had the opportunity.  The boys didn't have school on Friday, so we were able to get out there fairly early.  We got really lucky with the weather and it was sunny!  We spent the rest of Friday on the Beach.  The boys had so much fun digging in the sand, building tunnels and dams.  Saturday was also a nice day.  Again, we spent the day on the beach.  Then we drove to Cannon Beach and showed my parents Haystack Rock.  The tide was out so we did some tide pooling.  It was a nice weekend, and we had a good time.

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.