Zoo

Today the forecast called for only sporadic showers and winter break is coming to an end, so it seemed a day as good as any to head out to the zoo.  Luckily our friends could get the older boys in for free and they were also happy to act as our tour guides.  And since I had Isaac to chase down, having a tour guide was invaluable.  

This is a lovely zoo.  It comes with an aquarium and is a great size for little ones.  Also, the animals are either extremely well-trained or bored out of their minds because nearly all of them came up to check us out and several of them posed rather nicely.  There's nothing quite like having a polar bear or a tiger come press its face right up in front of yours on the glass.

We were welcomed by a gorilla.

 We chilled with some polar bears.

The walruses enjoyed wrestling with each other in the water, but this one came up to give us the stink eye.

We're not sure exactly why, but the red wolves started howling so we booked over to check it out.  The boys were more than happy to howl with them.

I loved these little penguins who apparently will make a line when it's time to eat.  Waddle waddle waddle.

These sisters were beautiful.

At one point this gibbon actually surfed down a rope on his feet and it was pretty awesome.

We hung out by this lady to hear a talk about tigers from one of the zoo keepers.  Kali misunderstood and thought that the keeper was there to feed her.  She was not pleased.

We walked quickly past the elephants on the way to the aquarium and out of the rain.

Finally, a place where pretty much everything was accessible on Isaac's level.

And a random, but absolutely adorable, hedgehog.

A took this fun picture of Isaac at the shark tank.  I would like one of these in my house.

The aquarium also had a room where anyone could touch anemone and sea cucumbers and splash the poor lady teaching us about all these creatures.  Okay, maybe just Isaac was splashing.

A jellyfish tank - also on my list for my home.

And I swear this tank was based on Finding Nemo.  Can you spot Nemo and Dory?

Can't remember exactly what these are, but they are cool.  Chasing Isaac means that I take pictures and then run after him.

The final activity was riding the merry-go-round.  Isaac picked the first horse he saw and his eyes got big and round when it started to move.

Such a fun day.

(photo credit on the good pics from my friend who probably doesn't want to be named on my blog)

Our Christmas Letter

(for posterity and all the people to whom I forgot to send this)

Greetings from Washington State! After a long (and epic) journey we moved here in January and have had a great year exploring our new home. While the winter is a bit (!!) rainy, the summer was glorious and we’ve had plenty of adventures in all kinds of weather. Here’s a little update on us:

Our littlest man, Isaac, is coming up on the TERRIBLE TWOS. Being the rebel that he is, he decided not to wait that long to have horrible tantrums. But his curls are darling and his laugh contagious, so we’ll keep him. He is irrevocably attached to his pacifier and completely convinced that he can do everything his brothers can. He doesn’t have very many words yet, but can still manage to sing along to Adele and Imagine Dragons. He has just recently started loving to give his brothers hugs and even snuggling with them while watching TV. We hit a rough patch with picky eating, but then discovered that there are any number of things he will at least taste if they are covered in parmesan cheese (including mac and cheese).

Ben is our budding soccer star. He played in his first two seasons ever this year and made huge progress. And even though we were super proud of him the day he scored 2 goals in his game, we are even more proud of him for how excited he gets for his teammates when they score and how having fun playing the game is more important to him than winning. He’s also our math whiz and keeps us all on our toes doing pages and pages of multiplication (times 2 being his specialty). He’s adapting nicely to our wet home and enjoys jumping in the many puddles and playing in the rain.

One of our resident introverts, this kid is in so many activities right now that it is hard to keep it all straight. He earned his Bear this summer and continues to work on his Webelo badge and Arrow of Light. Fulfilling a dream of his, we were able to get him into Tae Kwon Do and he loves it. He earned his Yellow Stripe and is working hard on his next belt. He also volunteers for safety patrol after school. Michael has put his desire to make noise to good use and joined the Ukulele Club. The end goal is to play the guitar, but he figured this was as close as he was going to get to that for now. The fact that we live so close to the school allows him to keep signing up for things without earning the stink-eye from the house chauffer. We’re excited to see him open up and develop so many interests.

As our soon-to-be teenager, Josh, has managed to keep us busy as well. He is involved in the wonderful world of Boy Scouts and working hard on all those merit badges he needs to earn his Eagle. He also played on the middle school soccer team. When that ended, he filled the gaping empty holes in his schedule with Robotics Club. Battle of the Books has also started so he is working his way through those books. Josh is also quite a Whovian and attended the teen Comic-Con at the local library as the 11th Doctor (bow ties are cool). Shockingly, he grew SIX inches in a year and we calculate that he should be about 8’6” by the time he graduates from high school if he keeps up this rate of growth.

Irene (you may remember her from such roles as house chauffer and short-order cook) has had a busy year as well. She got thrown into the deep end of cub scouts and is trying to keep it exciting as the Cubmaster for Michael’s Cub Scout pack. She also joined the local DART (disaster assistance response team) and has been lucky enough to learn how to do things like search buildings and fill sandbags. She also spent a lot of time over the summer planning adventures to places like Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. Her biggest achievement so far this year has been keeping Isaac alive (the new toddler leash has really helped). Luckily, she has been more successful in that endeavor than in the community garden lots she planted this year. We had lots of peas and funky carrots, but little else.

Jason spent the first part of the year working from home for Connections Education and teaching an online course for BYU-I. The working from home bit was rough (only partly because a house with four boys is never quiet), so we were all more than pleased when he got a position with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as a Title I/LAP Program Supervisor (if that looks confusing, feel free to Google it – only one person in this house understands it and he isn’t writing this letter). He really enjoys his new job and even gets to do some travel around the state. He also joined Toastmasters and is rockin’ the Table Topics competitions.

Some Notes

This is really a post to help me remember what worked and didn't work for next year's planning.

Christmas Eve Eve

• We went rollerskating with friends.  The boys would like to make this a tradition and go rollerskating/blading the day before Christmas Eve every year.  
• Need to bring water and snacks in the car for afterwards.

Christmas Eve

• Game night.  
• Minute to Win It with Christmas ornaments (good).  
• Christmas charades (good). 
• Get cookies from forehead into mouth with no hands (excellent).
• Draw on paper plate on head while listening to story (not so great).
• Watch movie with maple syrup popcorn
• Skyped with Oma/Opa/VA cousins
• Should we have a traditional Christmas Eve dinner?
• Need to watch/read Luke 2 

Christmas

• Only two prepared meals.  
• Need to put together toys IN ADVANCE.  
• Check on battery situation ahead of time.  
• Waffle Bar breakfast (huge hit - new tradition).  
• Dinner: spiral ham from Costco, TJ pizza dough rolls, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach (delicious amazingness), asparagus with goat cheese/bacon/onions (needs some work), carrots, peas.  
• Dessert: chocolate cream pie (DO NOT buy gf graham cracker crumb crust box from Walmart).  
• Need to Skype with Mom and Doug

Some Pictures from Christmas Morning

Some pictures from before I took over the job of sorting the wrapping paper and other gift detritus.  It was a lovely morning.

Some Christmas Eve Pictures

An Activity

I was going to label this post Gingerbread House, but then I realized that there are no gingerbread or houses in this activity.

It did start that way many years ago, but it has evolved.

Back in the day, Mom bought gingerbread houses and the boys decorated and all was well in the world.  But Josh was allergic to the icing, so we eventually stopped doing that.  Next, we started making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and DF icing.  Structurally, they weren't as sound, but they sure did taste better!  I eventually got tired of trying to help all three boys keep their cracker houses stable, so then I decided that we would make trees - upside ice cream cone with icing and then candy decorations.

So I guess now we make cone trees.  Yeah, that doesn't sound nearly as homey and traditional as a gingerbread house, but it is a lot less stressful for me.

The boys don't really care one way or the other, as long as they get to eat it in the end.  So, when Isaac went down for his nap today we made our forest.  Our delicious forest.  Our never-seen-in-nature forest.  Our you-cannot-believe-the-sugar-rush-Josh-is-going-to-have-when-he-eats-his-tree forest.

The cast of players in our decorating fun: green frosting, nerds, winter nerds, candy hearts, mints, chocolate chips, sprinkles, and ice cream cones.

The boys got right down to it and tackled the most difficult part: covering the ice cream cone with the frosting.

Josh covered his in frosting.  Then covered it in candy.  Then covered it in more frosting.  Josh wasn't thinking about aesthetics.  Josh only cares about eating it later.

Michael refused to be photographed at this point.

Ben made a nice pattern.  Ben is our math kid.  Patterns are math.  Ben is math.  Okay, well maybe not, but almost.

Now that all is said and done, there are six trees in our frosting forest.

Also, Isaac is now awake and that significantly decreases the chances that they will make it until Jason gets home.

And Josh is super excited about the sugar rush to come.

Put Your Face In It

This last weekend provided the boys with some photo ops.  And they are generally good enough not to let such opportunities pass them by.

Round 1: Barnes & Noble Harry Potter day.  Michael's Ukulele club performed and then there were HP activities for all.  There was even a sorting hat and we were duly sorted.  But somewhere along the way, the boys got tangled up with He Who Shall Not Be Named.  These are my children and they are wanted by the Ministry of Magic.

Round 2: Estuarium where there or may not have been a festival.  It was small and we've never been there before so I didn't know what to expect.  I do know there was a prize wheel to spin and ocean themed cupcakes.  It was very cold that morning and we were excited to go inside.  But first things first.  These are my children and they do appear to be being eaten alive by a shark.  (We watched a documentary on sharks this week and a shark eating is much more messy than this.)