Happy 4th Birthday Alex!

Alex turned 4 on December 30th!  Instead of having a party this year we just celebrated as a family.  I took his request for a dolphin theme to decorate and plan around, and we just made a fun day out of it!  He had a great day, and loved everything.

First, I decorated the Christmas tree that was still up in the living room, but void of Christmas decorations.  We hadn't had a chance to get the tree out yet, so I figured we might as well use it!  I'm going to decorate for new years too.

He came out in the morning and had a big smile on his face.

We let him open 2 presents in the morning.  The one from Grandma W., and one from us (which was Dolphin Tale).

Here he is opening Grandma's "big bag."

This kid loves anything with cars in it!

I put on Dolphin Tale while the kids ate breakfast...

Then we headed to the pool to swim like Dolphins! This kid is seriously a little fish in the water.  Usually he swims all over with a life jacket.  April decided to teach him some swimming without it, and he loved it!  She said he was getting to the point where he was starting to jump in without her ready. (These pics from the swimming pool are from my phone)

Alex loved all the dolphin decorations.  I couldn't believe it when I saw these dolphin/sea life party supplies at the dollar store!

Later in the afternoon I took him over to a friends to play.  He had fun (no pics).  Later in the afternoon his brother made this "city" for him to drive his new cars on with masking tape.  He loved it!

We had a little 4 year-old photo shoot.  Yes, his nose looks terrible.  He crashed and burned just the day before his birthday on the carpet while pushing a car.  Little boys, gotta love them!

He can get that tractor moving, he loves that thing!

I love how these pictures came out, skinned nose and all.

Then it was off to Red Robin for a birthday dinner!  They remodeled the one that we usually go to.  They added some really fun things for the kids while waiting.  These hamburgers were just fun to sit on...

They had a huge chalk board...

Still waiting to get seated.  Turns out they didn't even have our name down!  Not sure how our name disappeared (they use ipads to keep track), but they fixed it and were able to get us seated without having to wait another 20 minutes.

My kids loved the chalkboard.  They pretty much monopolized it during the whole 30 minutes we were waiting to go to our seat.

This picture cracks me up...

We had fun playing with the balloons and static electricity.  It is super dry and cold outside right now, so it was easy to make some hair rise with a balloon.  Alex has the best hair for this.  It is so light and fine.  He enjoyed his birthday sundae.

Then, we went home to have cake and ice cream to finish of his birthday!

He opened the rest of his presents.  Thanks to Aaron for wrapping them all!

I did a 20 questions birthday interview with Alex, and loved his simple and sweet answers.

Alexander's 4 year old interview

~What is your favorite color? Yellow

 ~What is your favorite toy? My car set

~What is your favorite stuffed animal? dolphins

 ~What is your favorite thing to sleep with? my teddy bear

~What is your favorite fruit? apples

~What is your favorite cereal? "Frosty" (frosted flakes)

 ~What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? sausage mcmuffin sandwich

 ~What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? pizza!

~What is your favorite dessert? ice cream

~What is your favorite drink? pop

~What do you want to eat for your birthday dinner? Macaroni and cheese from Red Robin

~What is your favorite animal? dolphins

~What is your favorite book? Elephant and Piggie (any of them)

~What is your favorite song? Jingle bells

~What is your favorite game? Hungry hungry hipppos

~What is your favorite TV show? Curious George

~What is your favorite movie? Dolphin Tale

~What is your favorite thing to do outside? Drive my tractor

~Who is your best friend? Thomas and Bentley

~What do you want to be when you grow up? "I just want to be 4!!"

I love that he doesn't want to grow up too fast.  That's okay buddy, take your time!  Love this little boy, and I love that his day was special.

Desiree

Christmas day!

Christmas came and went so fast this year.  I feel like I miss it already and I just didn't get a chance to do everything I wanted to, but at the same time I'm glad to move on. It's a weird mixed feeling. Part of me wants a do-over.  I keep reminding myself there is always next year though.  And, we had a pretty sweet Christmas morning that came together beautifully, so I'm very grateful for that.

The kids came out in their usual line up. Some year I will have to compare these pictures from all the years.  It's fun to see how they have grown each year.

First they found Olaf, who had made a mess of the table, and who delivered the family gift of a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Feb.

Then, it was off to find stockings! This is Alex with his stocking...

Aric getting into his stocking...

 April's stocking is easy to spot, it's the only pink one...

Aaron found his!...

Opening presents

We took a quick break to eat some donuts, then we moved onto the presents...

I love Aaron's face in this picture.  He looks appalled, but he's really surprised, and happy.  He was hoping for that particular gift.  It was "the one thing he really wanted."

Alex is youngest so he starts the present opening circle (we like to go one at a time, and make it really special)...

Some presents hadn't arrived yet, but were on their way (we seem to have one of those kind every year)...

 Alex with his pile...

April with her pile...

 And, Aric with his...

 Aaron's loot...

Mom's pile...

Apparently I forgot to get a pic. of Dad's pile. 

It was a fun Christmas, and I'm thankful for all that we had to give the children, and all that was given to us from family and friends.

Desiree
 

power outage

We had a power outage a few weeks ago, and as I was running around in the kitchen trying to gather lights, and candles little Alex asks me what I'm doing.  I say "I'm trying to get some candles so when it gets dark we will have light."  He says ok, then runs off to get something...he comes back with 2 candles in his hands, a 2 and a 5 birthday candle, and shouts "I have candles Mommy!" 

That's the true meaning of Christmas

I feel like we haven't done as much as we usually do during the Christmas season.  I just haven't had the energy, and for the last 2 weeks cannot seem to kick this cold.  I didn't even get all the decorations out this year.  We were lucky to have gotten down the Christmas tree before it was too late as well! 

That's life, and it all really doesn't matter in the big picture of life anyway.  What matters is making this whole season more meaningful, and full of great memories.  I feel like we really did that tonight (Christmas eve).  I decided that we needed to spend our evening acting/reading the story of Christmas.  I was inspired by buying 2 costumes at the LDS bookstore, Joseph and Mary.  I don't know if we'll ever have a Mary that actually fits that costume, but we have it!  I hope to add to the costumes in the coming years, but for tonight we made it work. 

 Alex played the angel, April played Mary, Aric played Joseph, and Aaron played both the donkey and the shepherd.  Our baby Jesus is represented by a teddy bear, and swaddling clothes a towel.  We will definitely make some improvements next year, but this was truly a sweet experience.

Daddy read the narration, while the children acted it out.

 

There were songs in between some of the parts.  It really made to the whole evening so special, and I just love to hear my family sing together.

 Oh my, I just love it!

"And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Our 2014 advent calendar

Now the kids are asleep.  Here is a peek at what they will see in the morning!  So exciting!

 Desiree

2 Christmas recitals

The 2 older kids had Christmas recitals last weekend

April played her violin...

Aaron played the piano...

  And we all survived sitting through a few hours of musical talent!

Desiree

Christmas lights in Keizer

About 15 minutes down the freeway is a neighborhood light display that we enjoy every year at Christmas time.  This year we finally walked it instead of driving.  I've been wanting to do this for a few years, but it was always easy to just stay cozy and warm in the car.  Plus, it's kinda long and I was never sure if the kids would really be able to make it that far.  And, we did run into the potty problem about halfway through with the youngest.  It was a lot of fun though!  It was nice to really get a good look at everything, and I feel like we experienced the lights so much more.  We even sang some carols along the way.

Our walk started out kind of crazy though. One of the first houses we came by at the start had this cool Polar express train set-up. Well, of course our littlest little boy went right up there to look, and I didn't realize that his foot had gotten caught on the cord.  See those huge bulbs right in front of him? (in the picture below)  Yeah,before we knew it the sound of glass shattering echoed through the night, and one of those huge bulbs was toast. I couldn't believe it! My heart sank, I felt so bad. I never thought we'd break somebody's light display.  I was mostly worried about being able to replace it. Well, we went up and knocked on the door to apologize and ask how much we could pay them for it.  The people were so nice and understanding.  They said those lights stopped working anyway, so we didn't owe them anything.  We helped clean it up, and ended up having a really nice conversation with them.  So thankful for nice and understanding people!

I loved that it was actually a pretty decent night for weather too!  It wasn't freezing, or raining!  A double plus for Oregon.

Aaron really liked this runway for Santa...

Cute gingerbread house!

I really liked these white silhouette creches.

We tried to steer clear of any lights at the edge of the lawn during the whole walk, but he was too cute sitting here.  I had to take his picture before telling him to please get away from the lights.

Amazing!

If I had a light display I think I'd like to include the Eiffel tower.

This house is pretty and for sale!  Sometimes I think it would be fun to live on this Christmas light route.

It was a fun family night.  I think we'll walk it every year if we can. 

Desiree