Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Polly and Eric and sledding

solo run

Mom and Esther hanging out trying to stay warm


Elliot


Dad and Adrian on the "butt buster" hill


Hamming it up!


The girls: Miranda, Polly, Esther


The approach


Aunt Polly and Elliot


The Pirate look...argh!


Darin and Adrian

Darin spread eagle

Uncle Eric and Adrian on a tupperware lid


Elliot's one and only run on the hill

Trash can lids are pretty good in a pinch


Yeah!!  Aunt Polly and Uncle Eric made it up from Salt Lake City despite the horrible weather!  They got a nice pocket of no snow all the way along the interstate, Praise God!!  Then it dumped and we got to go and have a real blast sledding on a perfect hill 2 blocks from our house!  Another perk we didn't know about when we bought the house.  Eric has a cool camera that he documented our trips down the hill and getting ready at home.  Elliot only went down once and then couldn't be convinced to go down again.  Adrian had a blast going down with all combinations of people.  After the first day of sledding on trash can lids, we got some toboggans from Target.  They were fun, but the real fun happened after Grandfer bought some flexible flyers.  We raced down on our bellies and avoided the bum jarring bumps on the hill that jostled your tailbone, spine, and head.  Adrian rode down on my back piggy back.  What fun!  Thanks, Dad!  Even Esther braved the weather on the hill to come cheer us on.  If anyone is interested in sledding without going to the foothills, the bird sanctuary on Maple Grove and McMillan is AWESOME!

Advent



We have a family tradition of advent where starting the 4th Sunday before Christmas we read a little devotion and light the 4 candles, one per Sunday, Promise, Life, Love, & Hope.  Here our good friend, Marita, captured Advent in process as well as some more wig fun with the boys.  We love you, Marita!

Pre-Christmas activities



A little more "sfrankles" (sprinkles) will do nicely.

Adrian intently decorating his candy cane.


Me and Kristi- one of my best, if not THE best friend I have here!  You rock, K-Rock!



We had fun decorating cookies with our friends, Peter and Kristen.  I think the boys ate more sprinkles and icing than went on the cookies!  Also we decorated cookies with Kristi.  What fun!  Then we had our Boise "family" over for a pre-Christmas dinner with all the pretty plates and candles.  

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Sweet Esther


Another pretty smile.

Here's a picture of Esther wearing her "Thanksgiving bonnet" that I made her.  She's still a little small for it.

"Elliot, pick out which 'twig' you want to wear!"


Monday, November 24, 2008

Thanksgiving Point

lunch upstairs out of the wind and chill at Thanksgiving Point
Digging for the Stegosaurus fossil in the fossil dig hands on exhibit
I love this picture!  It is before we got into the museum.  He was so excited.
The Triceratops in the lobby.
What was this exhibit doing in a dino museum?  We figured they ran out of good ideas, so we had fun playing with it. :)
Wow,  that dinosaur is huge!

So, after our trips to Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello, we headed down to Salt Lake City to hang with my sister and brother in law.  On Saturday we went to Thanksgiving Point, which is supposed to be the "world's largest" dinosaur museum.  It was pretty rad and had a lot of hands on activities for kiddos!  It was awesome actually!  

Last Week's Adventures




So, we set off on the road to meet up with Darin on his business trips to Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello.  We went to the Idaho Natural History Museum at ISU in Idaho Falls on Friday.  That was cool!  They had some pretty neat dinosaur exhibits and it was Adrian's first exposure to real fossils.  He and Elliot both were pretty ecstatic!  We had fun at the hotel pools too!  It was cool because Darin's first appointment on Thursday wasn't until 2, so we got to spend most of the morning together.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Esther's Smiling

Poor Esther has come down with Adrian and Elliot's cold.  Yuck.  But she is still a happy baby!  I weighed her today: 13 pounds!  

Monday, November 10, 2008

Adrian's 4th Birthday Bash



Follow the footprints to the dig site.
Velociraptor cake.
Here's the birthday boy and his new "spider man" bike.  

Adrian's 4th Birthday Bash Fossilized Egg Dig


Here's Elliot hiding out of the hub bub of it all.  He was a little intimidated by all the activity.
Here's the cleaning station where the kids broke open their eggs with their chisels and hammers that Darin made them and then cleaned them off with a paintbrush and water.
Here's the "nest" where the kids dug in the sawdust to find the fossilized eggs made from salt, flour, coffee grounds, sand and water.  
Here's a baby dino peaking out.
Here's Adrian diligently cracking open his egg.

Adrian's 4th Birthday Bash T-Rex Dig

Under the "nest" of dino eggs was the t-rex dig site.  Darin made a t-rex skeleton out of a mold with plaster of paris.  Then he hid the skeleton in the sand.  Too well, in fact. He had to take some of the sand out and the kids had to get some help from Damie and Adam too!  Stellan, Eli, and Adrian were the hard core paleontologists and stuck it out to the end, finding all the pieces to the skeleton.

The skull!