Cosmic Tubing into the New Year!

Since we weren’t getting very much snow down in the Portland area we ventured up to Mt. Hood to do a little Cosmic Tubing at SkiBowl. Uncle Andy and Aunt Mari brought their kids up too. Everyone had a blast! Most memorable though was Preston freaking out about his Doritos. Dad bought him one bag of Doritos and when dad opened it he flipped out, so much so that dad had to buy him and entire new bag of Doritos. Apparently he wanted one bag to eat now and one bag to eat later and sharing wasn’t an option. Oh the joys of parenthood.  

Zach got his permit!

Oh my this might be the most nerve racking thing we do as parents!  How are we already here? Thank goodness for empty church parking lots! There may or may not have been some colorful language in the car...teaching kids to drive a car is not for the weak.

 

Ryan's 7th Birthday!...

We celebrated Ryan’s 7th birthday bouncing and playing dodgeball at Sky High Trampoline Park for a few hours followed by cake, ice cream and presents! Ryan loves basketball, the Avengers, Red Robin Mac n Cheese, Star Wars, making videos known as his “Closet Diaries”.  His best friend is Isaiah Tolliver, and he is such a friendly kid that his teacher, Mrs. Swardstrom, always comments about what a great friend he is to everyone. Everyone loves Ryan!

The Christmas we started the tradition of playing LCR...

Santa came and filled the kids sacks with some fun gifts this year. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Britt came to town with Lauren to spend Christmas with everyone too, because they didn’t have anyone home this year as Maddi was on her mission, Parker was with Jaydra’s family in Utah, and Alec was with his girlfriend Cait in Idaho. So they came over Christmas morning to witness the little boys excitement for their gifts.  

Ryan got his Nintendo Switch, a gift we made Santa hold off on for as long as we could. Kate got a phone, another gift we tried to hold off on for as long as we could. Zach scored some Eagles gear to add to his obsession and Preston got some Buzz Light-year dress ups and Spider-Man toys.  

The biggest gift to our family was a Treager smoker. Smoking meat is becoming quite the trend and after following the wife of the Treager CEO, and seeing all the food she was making on their smoker, I thought we needed one for our family. Thankfully uncle Brandon was in town to help dad put it together.

We hosted Christmas dinner at our house. We also invited our friends, the McCauleys, over for dinner and to join the festivities. Justin entertained everyone with his trivia, and introduced the new game LCR to the family. Everyone brought $5 ones and gathered around in a circle to roll the dice at their chance to win the big pot of money at the end.  Zach scored the big money this year!  Everyone, especially the teens and uncle Andy, were huge fans of the new game.  I think we found a new tradition. Its safe to say that it didn’t really keep in mind the Spirit or true meaning of why we celebrate Christmas, but it did bring us all together and definitely spread lots of love and cheer.

 

A Very Honkey Donkey Christmas Eve...

We spent Christmas Eve at Uncle Andy and Aunt Mari’s house this year. Uncle Brandon also came to Portland to spend Christmas with us.  We all brought some sweet and savory food to share and per our yearly tradition the grandkids re enacted Luke 2.  Grandma Laraine bought a few new additions for her nativity dress ups this year. The donkey, that Preston wore proudly, was one of the new dress ups.  New baby Emmalee played the part of baby Jesus. Preston was very interested in a real baby Jesus.