Day 734

Parker's hair was getting a little 1970s shaggy, so it was off to the neighborhood Sit Still for a haircut. This time Parker chose to sit in the yellow taxi chair, but just like last time he was a seasoned professional at sitting still. After his hair cut, the whole family headed over to Clackamas Town Center to see Yogi Bear. Though the kids enjoyed the movie, it was torture to sit through - I even tried to fall asleep, but couldn't because all of the horrible dialogue was keeping me awake.

Day 733

I finally finished my Alaska Album! Eighty-six pages later and only 6 months after the cruise and I am done. Thankfully, Mindy and Carrie are willing to accept belated Christmas gifts from me.

Day 732

After 12 weeks of training, Les finally did six miles on the tread mill with an average of 10 minutes a mile. In less than a week he leaves for the Florida Keys to participate in a 3-day relay race called Ragnar. Go Les!

Day 731

My new Becky Higgins Project Life kit arrived, so now I have a place to put all my daily photos from 2010!

Day 730

Kaitlyn's big present from Santa was her very own Disney Princess bike. With all the tricycle experience she has from day care, she hopped on and was pedaling like a pro.

My present from Les was a Flip Video that shoots HD video - so here's a little video of Kaitlyn riding her bike around the kitchen and hallway. I haven't quite ventured into editing video yet, so this is the raw footage.

Day 729

After we finished opening Santa's gifts, headed down to Neskowin to celebrate Christmas with my family. We stayed the night at the house of a generous neighbor, so we were able to spend Boxing Day with the family too. Uncle Mike taught Parker how to play the card game War - and I was pretty impressed with how well Parker picked it up. Must be time for Les to start teaching him Texas Hold 'em.

Day 728

We celebrated Christmas morning at home with the kids opening all their gifts from Santa (Other was helping). The one thing that Parker had been asking for since the summer was a "DS." (For a while we had him convinced that the little electronic game from McDonald's was a DS, but then he started asking for a "Real DS.") Clearly Parker was on the Nice List, because Santa got him the red limited edition 20th Anniversary Mario DSXL - plus several games and a carrying case.

Day 727

(This space reserved for the family Christmas photo my sister-in-law took on Christmas Eve. It was great because she had the camera all set up, so as soon as we walked in the door - we did pictures. Now I just have to get a copy . . .)

Day 726

While Les was finishing up the family's Christmas shopping, I took both kids to the Oregon Zoo to see the ZooLights. We met up with Andra & Wendy and the entire Kidd family. I couldn't believe how busy it was! I thought we were lucky to pick a night that ended up being mild and dry - but apparently so did 4.2 billion other people. The line to get in was long, but the line to ride the train was over an hour long. Needless to say, we didn't go on the train. The kids were pretty good and Parker got along very well with Sarah. But trying to wrangle them by myself was miserable - my camera didn't even make it out of the bag. I should have brought the wagon, because neither child wanted to walk. Eventually, I had enough and we called it a night - leaving our friends to finish the tour.

Day 725

The kids followed along with their first Advent calendar this year - a Lego one. Behind each door was a small kit (no more than 15 pieces) that they could follow the picture to build. The mornings were all about Elfy, but every evening after dinner they could hardly wait until it was time to open a new door. Parker would then get all the previous days' toys out and play with them for 15-20 minutes. Kaitlyn wasn't too interested beyond finding out what was behind the evening's door.

Day 724

Parker was very pleased with himself as he showed off his cookies to Dad and Sissy the next morning.

Day 723

After spending all day making cookies at her house, Carrie valiantly agreed to help our family make some Christmas cookies. Unfortunately, Kaitlyn threw a tantrum then fell asleep during her timeout - so she wasn't available to help. However, Parker did an excellent job with cutting out and decorating the sugar cookies.

Day 722

Yes, the Santa hat is cute, but what I can't figure out it why she has the wine bottle cozy on her arm . . .

Day 721

I couldn't be happier with the kids' Santa picture this year - even if it did cost me $2.50 in bribes plus candy. We showed up at Clackamas Town Center just as Santa was going on a break, so we had to loiter in line for an hour - which we managed to do with know child or parent meltdowns. Kaitlyn nearly had a last minute panic and kept trying to put her hands in her mouth, but Santa was great at putting them at ease.

Day 720

I like to have the kids help put ornaments on the tree, consequently we only put on a few each evening and most of the really fragile ones don't make it onto the tree. The kids did very well this year with the ornaments with loops, but couldn't quite make the ones with hooks stay on the tree.

Day 719

Thanks to a couple of ridiculously rainy weekends, we decided to go with a fake tree this year (my Oregonian heart shrank just a little), but I did make Les go to 4 different stores until he found one with multi-colored lights. (I just don't care for trees with all white lights).

Day 718

Here's our Christmas card (one of these days, I might actually get them mailed).

Day 717

Parker lined up their two chairs as their "sleigh" and then hitched both Rudolphs to it. Next he donned his Santa hat and put a pile of toys in Kaitlyn's lap, so they could deliver presents to all the kids on the nice list.

Day 716

My office chose to forgo the standard Holiday Party and have a bowling extravaganza instead. Kaitlyn was immediately gung-ho, but it took Parker a while to warm up (you'd like rolling a ball to knock things over would be right up his alley . . .). A good time was had by all and with 7 under the age of 10, it was indeed a Christmas miracle.

Day 715

Kaitlyn and I went to Safeway to pick up the week's rations and I came across the cutest Rudolph stuffed animal. - the nose lights up when you squeeze the ear. I thought the kids would share one, but after a couple of aisles, I realized there was no way Kaitlyn would be sharing. Thankfully they were 50% off - or how I like to think of it, buy one get one free.

Day 714

(It's kind of hard to tell because she's got her feet resting on the baby doll's face, but) Kaitlyn was very patiently reading her Disney Princess book to her baby and she would even turn the book around to show her "audience" the picture. It was super adorable.

Day 713

Miss Carrie came over to hang with me and the kids while Les was out winning money at his Friday poker game. It doesn't look like Kaitlyn likes her at at, does it? Great smiles girls.

Day 712

On my way to pick up lunch, I braved the pouring rain to stop and listen to a local elementary school band play some Christmas tunes down in Pioneer Courthouse Square. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the tree had these great twinkling lights this year.

Day 711

Here's where the kids found Elfy this morning . . .

Day 710

This year we adopted an "Elf of the Shelf." His name is Elfy and every night he travels to the North Pole to report to Santa if the children have been naughty or nice. Then every morning when the kids wake up, they have to find him in his new hiding place. Neither Kaitlyn nor Parker will do anything in the morning before they've found him - they get so excited.

Day 709

Lester went all out decorating for Christmas this year, both inside and out. The kids especially liked this sleigh out on the front porch and they enjoyed climbing in it every day while waiting for us to unlock the front door.

Day 708

A quick iPhone pic of my new hair - cut and color courtesy of Stacy.

Day 707

Parker, Kaitlyn and I headed south to help celebrate Rhiannon's first birthday. Kaitlyn was especially exuberant at signing "Happy Birthday."

Day 706

One the the joys of Christmas time, candy canes.

Day 705

Be still my heart, Kaitlyn is eating salad!

Day 704

Here's a cute picture of the kids I snapped while setting up the tripod for our Christmas card picture.