Birthday Cake for Jesus

The day after Christmas we had birthday cake for Jesus. It was Nicholas's first taste of cake. I think he will enjoy his birthday.

 

 

He dove into the bites of cake Natalie gave him and it went everywhere.

 

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Zoo Lights

One highlight of every Christmas is to visit the zoo lights at the Oregon Zoo. We've been trying to find a time to go for a while and it finally dried out today. So we packed up the kids and Grandma Judi and headed for the zoo. It was a really nice night for it, so of course the place was packed. But we made it through even with a stroller to carry all the miscellaneous gear. The stroller was not used for a child of course. That would be far too easy. Nicholas likes to be carried. He did well though, even catching a nap for about half the time in the Ergo on Dad.

It was Grandma Judi's first trip to the zoo lights.

Ethan loves to ride the zoo train and was really looking forward to it, but the wait was over an hour both times we checked, so we tried the thrill ride instead. It was a 3D ride that took you rocketing around a city to get to school on time. Ethan enjoyed it, but was still disappointed he didn't get to ride the train.

The trees are always a highlight. I wish I could make our tree look like this.

Natalie liked the peacock.

Michael tried to get artsy with the lion statues, but there were too many people around.

In order to distract Ethan from the missing train ride, we gave him a candy cane to suck on. It lasted most of the night and kept him pretty happy. You would think he would be hard to put to bed, but he skipped his nap and got to bed about an hour past bedtime, so it was pretty easy. We even got him to pose with one of the characters, and he gave a couple of them hugs. He's really grown up.

Can't have too many pictures of the train, right?

These two are pretty photogenic too. This was the end of the night. He was awake and happy, despite his pants being soaked. We didn't find that out until we got back to the truck and got him out of the snow suit.

All in all, it was another fun night at the zoo, and quite successful with 2 kids in tow. If you haven't made it out yet this year, the lights are still up for a little while longer and the weather couldn't be better.

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Christmas

Our Christmas started with a great service at Village. Ethan sat with us for the first time and managed the candle portion quite well. Uncle Doug and Aunt Leni came with us to the service and came over for dinner afterwards. Natalie had a great taco soup and corn muffin dinner waiting in the crock pot when we got home. A great start to the season for sure.

Nicholas was the first up on Christmas morning by about an hour. Well, Michael got up and made the usual prune oatmeal for Nicholas. The rest of the family was about by 8 and we started our day with some bacon and eggs. Yummy. Ethan was not as anxious to open presents as I expected, but we got to it eventually.

We started with Nicholas in hopes that he would be entertained. It didn't work as well as we hoped, but there were moments where he enjoyed his new piggy bank.

Mostly he just wants to stand up these days.

Natalie got the kitchen rug she wanted.

Ethan got a couple pairs of pajamas.

Uncle Stephen and Aunt Janice sent some books for Ethan.

And Aunt Lorah sent a huge set of crayons for Ethan and a cute teddy bear for Nicholas.

After we opened a few presents we took a break for lunch and made a birthday cake for Jesus. Ethan helped make the cake and Nicholas wanted to join too. It won't be long...

Once the cake was in the oven we opened our stockings. Ethan loved his new cranes and little fire truck.

Natalie liked her new pens and journal from her stocking. Nicholas got a bunch of little toys, but he was much more interested in Ethan's cars and trucks. My highlight was a Canon Rebel and I hope you enjoy some of the results so far.

We wish you a Merry Christmas.

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