Our happenin' Holidays

Every year for Christmas, Brent gets me a book that contains all of the years' blog posts. Sort of a family journal you might say. Well, this year, the book was pretty thin! Looking at it made me vow to do better at blogging, so that next year I can get a nice fat book! My sister suggested blogging every Sunday night and I think I might just take her advice.
The holidays flew by this year. For Brent's work holiday party, we took a holiday boat cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene. The boat takes you out to "santa's island." Santa is waiting to greet you. They have light displays along the lake as well. I just had to throw in the picture below. I was giving Jacob a nice big "public" kiss and you can see how much he loved it! Christmas was spent in Albany. The downside of the trip was that it rained the whole time, and not just rained...poured! Despite the close quarter, we had a great time. The kids were so excited for Christmas. After opening their (surprise!) jammies Christmas eve, the kids were sent to bed. Jacob claims he never even fell asleep that night. We were up early at 6:30 am to open presents. The kids posing in their jammies, claire is such a little diva. Cole looking cute in his new glasses that he has already LOST! Dangit.
Bowling the morning of Malia/My birthday. Bowling with a bunch of little kids can be Chaos, but after about 10 minutes we figured things out and had a great time bowling. Of course Brent won, surprise.

The boys asked for Legos and more legos. They spend hours putting them together. Christmas morning Cole opened his presents but seemed pretty unexcited about things. He was sprawled on the floor by his stocking with his eyes closed. 15 minutes later he was throwing up in the toilet. Poor guy, luckily he felt fine afterward and was able to do some major lego creatin' the rest of the day.

All of our stocking are in Storage, so last minute we ran to the dollar store to get some stockings. Of course they were out. So we used WINE BAGS for stockings. AWESOME!

Malia holding up her new camera/video camera. She spent a lot of time playing with this over the break! She also loved playing with her cousins. She was a little teary pulling away from Grandma's house.

Sunday was Brent's birthday and we were able to go up to Keizer and go to church. After church we went to visit some friends and enjoyed spending time with them. We got home in time for dinner (lasagna, of course) which I burned. Happy Birthday Brent! I'm afraid this birthday won't be going down in the excitement hall of fame. Maybe next year :(
My birthday was awesome. We went bowling in the morning, then my sister and I went to bath and body works to stock up on some smellies. Then we went home for Malia's requested lunch of burritoes. That afternoon some of my sisters and I headed up to Keizer to take a spinning class from my old gym. I loved that class! That evening all of the adults went out to a restaurant and just enjoyed each other's company. The picture below is what we returned to in Spokane. Snow, and lots of it. It's so cold here, I think it will take me a long time to get used to this!

After we got home, Brent and I were able to go on a Birthday date to Spokane's riverfront park. I purchased a groupon that allowed us to go to an imax, play mini-golf, go ice skating and ride the carousel. It was great, despite the frigid temperatures. I even grabbed the gold coin on the carousel and won myself a free ride. That worth at least a dollar or two! :) It was a great vacation and the kids are already whining about going back to school. Me, I'm ready to get back to our normal routine and hit the gym. Happy new year!