Christmas part 1

 As students, we have been enjoying long Holiday breaks with plenty of time off to amply visit both our families for each Holiday. We are so excited to be done with school this May, but I'll admit it was hard to imagine not having 3 weeks off for Christmas and a whole week at Thanksgiving next year. Our first week off, we enjoyed spending the good part of it with my parents and family in Kent.

We went to Zoo lights...

 Hayley and her cousins rode the Carousel

 The lights at the Zoo were awesome, I'm not sure I've ever been to  Zoo lights. 

Even though it was freezing, we had a great time.

 On the 23rd we ventured up to Bellevue for dinner, and the Snowflake lane Drum line show. 

Due to long waits for dinner we didn't get the excellent spot on the bridge like last year but we still enjoyed the music.

 After Snowflake lane, we came home and had a mini Christmas together before we left for Gearhart the next day.

 Logan, excited about the Monster hat I made him-

 Adriana, wasn't sure about how to pose, but was excited about the owl hat. Since oddly enough her school doesn't allow any hats that don't cover the ears, this one she will be able to wear!

I made this for my mom, I think she like it :)

We had a great time in Kent, Grandma Forbes even stopped by for a few minutes. We made cookies, shopped, played games, caught up with friends and enjoyed family time.

Snow Day and Pre-Christmas

Because we attend a student ward, and alot of the members travel home during holiday breaks, we had our Ward Christmas party the first week of December. Unfortunately Skyler was working at a wheelchair BBall tourn. so he wasn't able to come. 

Hayley wasn't so sure about Santa, she didn't cry though once she saw I was going to stay with her. It also helped she was being handed a candy cane during the pic.

 Creative silly girl, always coming up with new uses for the stool.

It snowed! This year has been a lot different than last year, when it was snowing nearly every week. Since Thanksgiving we've gone almost a month with clear sunny (below 40degrees) days. 

Hayley and I went out and made the best of it. It wouldn't really pack together for a snowman but we had fun.

A friend gave me this cute Monster hat the night before- perfect timing! Since she didn't have a hat yet this year. 

 She loved playing on the snowy playground.

So...Hayley's been a early riser lately. We're talking 5:30-6:30am at the latest.  One evening I was wrapping presents I came in and found her like this. Just chilling half in the laundry basket watching Caillou.

 Because we will be traveling for Christmas day, we decided to have an early Christmas with just our family. Logically it didn't make sense to pack our gifts to eachother just to unwrap and pack them home again. 

We got Hayley an "Ok to Wake" alarm clock. It lights up yellow during the night and changes color when it's ok to get up. (like a silent alarm clock) It has alarm capabilities, but really, I'm pretty sure we don't that quite yet.

This is her gift from Santa...she was excited I swear!

We teamed up with the North Pole, Santa gave her a wooden train set and we got her the farm/animal car set to go with. She.loves.it.

We also went to the Women's Cougar basketball game as a family last night. It was also Native American recognition night which was also cool. Since it's break, there weren't too many people there in the Coluseum so we got to sit really close. Hayley really like watching the game, spotting Butch seeing the dancers.  At half time they had a neat Native American song with drums etc. They also had all the Young women in the area tribes come in their Native dress. Like Miss Yakima Nation and so forth. That was cool.

We're excited to celebrate Christmas with family this week! 

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Break!

 Hayley and I went to Seaside for a couple days before meeting up with Skyler and traveling to CA. 

While we were there, we went to Port of Play in Astoria. Hayley enjoyed it, they had a cool nautical boat kitchen and Astoria fire truck along with lots of other stations.

 Before we took off, we got to go see Skyler play basketball. SO cute! 4 on 4. They did great.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house, my sister's family and my Aunt Becky's family came too :)

It was quite a feast.

It was also my Sister's birthday! Happy Birthday!

We drove home Saturday after a week full of fun, but before we left we went to Seattle to watch Adriana run the last segment of her Kid's Marathon! 

Vancouver and Back again!

This last weekend we drove to Vancouver B.C. to watch Ben's last regular season game.

 Jenna and Hayley

 Not the best picture, but at least most of the girls are smiling :)

Joell, Kylee in back, Hayley, Ashlynn, Tessa on the right.

 Ben!

After the game, so cute.

We went to church with them the next day and then drove down to stay the night at my parents. 

We had a great time playing all evening but when bedtime came, Hayley started showing signs of an ear infection. Which makes perfect sense since she only gets them at the most inconvenient times while on vacation. 

Examples being: 9mos old Christmas eve night in Seaside, OR

2 yrs old Easter in Bend, OR

2.5 in Kent, WA (thankfully not in Canada though)

I think there is 1-2 more in there but you get the point. 

So, we tried to sooth her for a couple hours, nothing worked so we took her to the ER at midnight. 

They got her all fixed up with pain drops and meds and we were on our way around 2am. Only we had to leave at 8:30 that morning to drive home so Skyler could make it into work and classes that night. 

It was a rough day, but she is definitely doing better now :)

We're looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks to spend some time with both our families. I can't believe how fast this school year is going, and we'll hopefully be done in May :)

Halloween

 The week before Halloween, we had a party at Preschool. Hayley did dress up as a marshmallow but I didn't want to risk her getting paint or anything on her white costume. So she was a duck for that day.

 Some of her classmates

 We were smore's!

 Our ward only did a Trunk-or-Treat, so Hayley was hanging out with some friends in their trunk. She wasn't so sure about sitting in the trunk and didn't last very long.

 Hayley's cute friend Whitney, he was a greaser :)

At Pullman Parks & Rec. they put on a carnival for ages 6 and under. It was awesome. Lot's of games for little ones, face painting, crafts and ice cream.

 

 We took Hayley out for her first time going trick or treating, door to door! 

She did great, very polite saying please and Thank you.

 

 

Being silly.

"Look I'm feeding baby" .....with a  matchbox car. hmm.

Cougar game and Autumn Adventures

Hayley and I went to our first Cougar football game which even included some tailgating with some of Skyler's coworkers. 

Traditional Pullman photo in front of the Cougar

  

Mom and Dad came to town for a visit! Dad took Hayley around town to the Science ctr. and then out for lunch at Cougar Country. Meanwhile Mom joined myself and a couple friends at the Troy craft fair. It was a tiny fair in a tiny town, but we had fun nonetheless.

 

Silly girl

 I help her stick the pieces in but she tells me right where to put each one :)

Hayley was so sweet and presented me with "dinner" 

(A colander with some dry bow tie noodles, a lid and a spoon) 

What a sweetie.