More Christmas Photos

They're napping now, so I have a brief peaceful moment to do a quick post. Here's Sydney making the most of the White Christmas by catching snowflakes on her tongue, while Nai-Nai and Isaac look on in disbelief in the background.
The whole (local) family assembled around the Christmas Lasagna (we're also celebrating Isaac's return to more solid food).
Isaac really liked the stringed instruments: Sydney got this small guitar, and Daddy finally unwrapped the Ukelele he got from work last Christmas. Here, Evan gives him an early lesson (not his first, I think Dave got that honor).
Sydney enjoying her girly Christmas presents, here a nice makeup kit. A smile like this goes a long way! Megan and Bug are troopers to help her play like this. Isaac is fascinated, as usual.




It continues to play the White Christmas role to the hilt: it's been snowing steadily (though not hard) all day long. We've added perhaps another two inches today (it's Thursday middday).

Happy Holidays from Elk Mountain!

Merry Christmas!

Sydney and Isaac got this (half assembled) playhouse for Christmas. Inside was the present Sydney's unwrapping, a set of cleaning stuff --- broom, mop and so on. Even before the windows and doors were up, she was cleaning!

The white stuff on the ground outside? Our white Christmas! Without warning, it started snowing about 10am, and by 3pm there was a couple inches. It was beautiful and a delightful treat.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Story

Terrie transcribed this story for Sydney:

One day there was a little gingerbread man and there was also a barbie girl and her name was Bella and then Minnie and Mickey arrived. Then there was another barbie girl named Ella. Then there was a gingerbread girl. There were two reindeer named Kelly and Melly. Cindarellie wanted to go to the ball but her stepmother turned her dress into a frog.

I've really fallen behind on this blogging thing, sorry! I've missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, two birthday parties and a bunch of play days. Here's some pics from a recent trip to the Children's Museum next to the Portland zoo. There's a shopping area:

... and a water play area:

... and a mini-stage, with costumes, lights and a curtain. Sydney loves play-acting so much, this was a big hit.

Typical Weekend

I don't know why Sydney has the "no, there's nothing behind my back" look. As far as I know, her hands were empty ....

 

We were playing a game where Sydney was one of the stuffed animals that you win by throwing beanbags at the fair, so she was in a big pile of sutffed animals. Isaac thought this looked too good to pass up.

 

On track?

Well, that worked. Two more: Isaac and Max on the links, and the four Molins at the swings (photo by Tom, thanks!) We had a lot of fun.
 
 

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Been having trouble getting pics to show up. This is Sydney on a merry-go-round in Lake Chelan. 

Lake Chelan - pics updated!

Some pics from our trip to Lake Chelan in Washington. Sue and Max were with us, and Tom came over from Spokane to join
us for two days. We had a great time: apple cider pressing (and hot cider donuts!), playgrounds, beaches, boat trip (that's the pic of S and I asleep on mommy), petting farm, even miniature golf. We had nice weather: brisk and a few showers, and a dusting of snow on the peaks. Some terrific sunrises. We're told that in high season, the place is packed, but in October it's terrific! (as long as you're prepared to deal with a little rain now and then). Nice people, too, both the locals and the other visitors --- S found several kids to play with.

 
 
 
 

Some scenes from our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We all had a pretty good time, largely because I decided that it was Just Fine that S & I spend a lot of time in this kids' area, instead of actually looking at actual sea life. We did see quite a bit of the "real" parts of the aquarium, like the jellies and the "funny fish" (sunfish) and we did catch the sea otter feeding, which was fun. Note for next time: set clear rules for the gift store before going in.

And one pic from the drive home, at the Black Bear Diner in Mt Shasta. They're mugging for the camera here, the food at Black Bear is suitable but nothing to dance and sing about.

Carnival

Yesterday was Open House at school, a yearly event. Sydney likes the face painting and was quite pleased with this one:

Isaac got into it too, with a "Spider Hero" face to match his shirt (coincidence):

Both of them enjoyed the Pony Ride, but Isaac especially --- he kept coming back! I lost track, it was either 5 or 6 rides:

This giant slide, oddly, didn't get any repeat business from our kids after they'd each done it once:

We both were delighted at how Sydney laughed and laughed at this clown --- she couldn't get enough of him:

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It took me 48 seconds to write the title of this post, and I missed "v". (Yes, I timed it.) Try it sometime, it's an interesting mental exercise. I mention it because at dinner last night Sydney started reciting the alphabet backwards! She did really well, too --- with a little encouragement and a couple hints now and then she made it the whole way. She seemed quite chuffed.

Isaac's been more receptive to practicing his language skills too, which is really happy to see.

Of course, it's not all roses and song, but let's just gloss over some of the noisier and higher velocity parts of recent home life ....

artifacts

Why a picture of this otherwise uninteresting toy? This is the first one that we brought out of "hiding" after it had been away for several months in a box in the spare bedroom. We'd always been planning to do this, but never quite got around to it. Well, the reception was very gratifying: Sydney rushed out of the Library shouting "Mommy! Daddy! Look! I haven't seen this toy in weeks and weeks [more like months!]. Isaac found it for me!" We didn't correct this last minor point ... a little inaccuracy in the service of sybling harmony seems like a fair trade.

These? The shoes Isaac was wearing on Gotcha Day. They've been in service all this time (not exclusively), but he's quite outgrown them. Time for them to go to the cabinet of memories. Sometimes I've wondered who GWJ was, who bought them new, and whose feet they graced before coming into Isaac's possession.

a fireman! no, wait ...

On the way to school today, Sydney and I were playing the Zoo Game ("I'm thinking of an animal, and it's huge and gray and has giant ears!"), and Sydney said she likes alligators and hippos and added that it must be nice to be a zookeeper. She sounded somewhat wistful, so I said "zookeeper would be a good thing to be when you grow up". She thought that was a good idea, and added it to her list: she's going to be a doctor - veterinarian - rock star - karate- - zookeeper.

Then she asked, "Daddy, what are you going to be when you grow up?"

Wish I knew ....

For Father's Day, I got this terrific new game calls The Coffee Game. The markers are coffee beans! And the squares have things like "give someone a hug" in addition to the more traditional "lose a turn". Pre-order yours today 'cause there sure to be the hit of the year!

We picked up this new pool at Costco. Isaac tried it out for a few minutes, but Sydney is really excited about it. She wants to go out every day, whether or not it's snowing (okay, we haven't had snow, but it feels like it should start any moment).
Having fun on the rides at the "local" mall --- even without putting any quarters into the machines.
The carousel at the same mall. We've been coming here for years, it's one of Sydney's favorite outings and Isaac is right there with her. Let me tell you, it's tough getting good pics of a moving carousel --- I burned through a lot of bytes to get this one and a couple others. I do like the way that digital cameras sometimes give this dream-like quality to a blurry image.
This is why we were at the carousel mall today --- KM and AM visiting from the Bay Area. Sydney was pretty taken with both of them, since KA let sydney rummage in her purse, and AM showed her some magic tricks and then let her crawl onto his chair behind him.

In other news, allergies are making Terrie, Sydney and I miserable!

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend in NW Oregon: Safari Sam's giant indoor jungle jym,

Sydney trying on the coat she wore when we got her, and

Isaac making a new friend! Not pictured: church, Costco, friends over for dinner ... fun and exhausting!