Here's a picture of all the grandkids Christmas Eve night...well all except Joshua. He fell asleep right before we took this picture!!

Happy Birthday Arwen! Our sweet princess turned 4 yesterday! Arwen has a little cake decorating cookbook I found at the Dollar Store that she loves to carry around. She has been telling me for the last year that she wanted a Barbie cake. We decided to do Polly Pocket cakes instead so each girl could have her own little cake and doll. We did pirate cakes for the boys. They turned out okay...I'm never making another birthday cake again. I am so not good at it, don't enjoy it, and none of the kids ate any of it anyway!! Arwen loved the cakes though, so that was all that mattered! A few kids came over to eat cake and play after Aaron got home from work. Arwen sure did get lots of presents...mostly due to Grandma Carrot! Boy is this girl spoiled! She loved talking to everyone that called yesterday. Noah was so jealous that everyone wanted to talk to Arwen and not him...so feel free to call him anytime. Thanks to Aunt Amy for Polly Pockets galore! Arwen will be so excited with all the accessories this Christmas!!

Today was Arwen's last ballet lesson. Aaron took time off of work to come. The parents were allowed to come in and watch since it was the last lesson. We are kind of sad because this cute little dance studio is closing. This was the last lesson ever that Arwen will have there. We are looking for a new studio right now. Arwen is such a great ballerina! She smiled for us the whole time and did an awesome job. You should have seen her attempting to skip. It was hysterical. None of the girls could quite get it. She's a natural dancer though--when she's not rolling around on the floor, which she spent a good portion of her time doing!!

We went to Zoo Lights last week. We had a great time. I made the mistake of mentioning to Noah that we were going to ride the Zoo Train and he bugged me about it all day long! We brought hot chocolate this year so we wouldn't freeze...poor Noah did not listen to me and drank his before it was ready and he burnt his tongue and face. He was screaming so we had to leave. That's all I heard about the next day..."Hot chocolate...burnt Noah!" What a silly! We've been busy making lots of Christmas treats! The kids (and Aaron) are getting spoiled!

Here's our little Elf Princess. Aaron took these yesterday when I was at the boys' doctor appointment.

Intel had a free night at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, I think). I had book club, but Aaron took Arwen and Noah. They have a cool Star Wars exhibit there right now. Aaron and the kids made it in before it closed. They have a "if you leave, you can't re-enter" policy. The minute they got it, Arwen was doing her pee pee dance so they had to leave. Then the kids humored Aaron and sat through a boring 15 minute long movie. He tried to get them to see another one, but they said No Way!! They loved the kid area the best of course!!

Arwen's new nickname for Joshua is "Pumpkin." She told me, "I love to call Josha Pumpkin...except when people are around. I don't call him Pumpkin then because the people will think we are different." This is our "Pumpkin" with his little buddy Tanner. Noah doesn't say Tanner so well and it always sounds like Tator. So we like to call him Tator Tot...except when people are around...

Check out our little Elf! One of our babysitters made these cute headpieces for Arwen and Noah out of the branches off our willow tree. Aaron made us all one last night. We'll take pictures of them eventually!

We had a terrific Thanksgiving! We went over to our friends' house for dinner. It was so yummy. They have a smoker and smoked the turkey. It was so juicy and moist! Everything else was delicious. We made and brought the rolls, stuffing, and the pies. We were busy all morning making 2 pumpkin, an apple, and a pecan pie. Aaron makes the best pie crust of anyone I know! We stayed up late and played games and had pies. It was a great day. Friday, we got a couple of babysitters. First we went to lunch at a Vietnamese place that Aaron has been wanting me to try. He's been talking about "Pho" forever and so I finally got to try some. It's a soup and is really good! Then we went and bought a tripod for our camera. Later that night, at our church building, they were having the first of a series of classes to teach us old folks to dance. We did line dancing first. It was really fun! Aaron's a really cute dancer--you should see him move those hips!! Saturday, we headed to the coast. It was a beautiful day! We went to our best agate hunting beach, but the tide was super high! I got lucky and found a nice big one while I was traversing the big rocks, trying not to kill myself or Joshua! We didn't last too long there because Ar was hungry, Noah was being a beast, and Joshua was screaming because I had him facing me in the carrier and he wanted to face outward! So we headed to the cheese factory for cheese and ice cream. It was a really fun night!!

What's up Dogga?