Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

May the Spirit of Christ be with you all!

Family Reunion in OR

For Thanksgiving we were able to go to the Krantz reunion in Elkton, OR. It took place on this beautiful 2500 acre ranch. The Krantz family is Lincoln's mom side of the family. She has 12 siblings and a few were able to make it with their families. Grandma Grace was so happy to see all of her offspring, especially a few of her great grand children.

Luca and Mariah. Mom, can I marry Mariah later?

Second cousins once removed and their great grandma Grace. I think they were watching UP.

What happened to these guys? :)

The cabins didn't have a bath tub. For now a sink will do. I think Ava had peed her pants. :(

One day we went to see part of Lincoln's dads family, who lives all over OR. We got to see grandma Mae, uncle Randy, aunt Carol and their wonderful kids.

Here's uncle Dylan (Lincoln's sister's husband) playing with the kids. They had such a great time with you, Dylan! Thanks for hanging out with them!!!

And here is beautiful Katie, Lincoln's cousin! She's so good with kids! You'll be a great teacher!

Christmas Tree Hunt

Going Christmas tree picking seems like a fun activity...

...It was only fun for the first 10 min though. Then everyone started getting cold and tired of walking through the snow. Finding THE right tree is a problem, if you have 4 little kids and both parents are perfectionists. The tree was only $5 with a Christmas tree permit from the local forest service.

I just have to show these pictures. Otherwise one might think we only have happy moments in our little family.

There, Ava is much happier in mama's arms. Lincoln ended up carrying Noa and the tree. Poor Leea had to walk back through the snow to the car. Next time it will probably help if I dress them in their snow gear. We didn't have any snow yet, so I wasn't expecting snow in the forest either. Well, the forest is in the mountains. Duh!

Ahhh, Christmas spirit in the house! We had all other things set up, but the tree is definitely the creme de la creme.

My friend was telling me how they pick their tree in the summer. We will do this next year!

Fall Fun

Luca's friend Beau, that sadly moved away

My friend Jamie had planted too many pumpkin seeds. The results were over 70 pumpkins shortly before a big move. While she kept some to practice shooting, we got to take a lot of them.

What to dowith lots of free pumpkins? We made them into pumpkin puree...

...roasted the seeds and...

...made jak-o-lanterns.

Clothespins help when eating pita bread or stuffed tortillas.

Luca enjoying all the leaves.

Luca has been getting into playing the piano randomly. He's been trying to play songs by ear. I'm glad we brought the old free clunker from MO.

A good sorting activity from http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/ I love her blog!

Noa loves his Thomas suitcase!

Don't eat at my house! Noa might have slobbered over the food!

Leea is so incredibly artsy. These are dalmatian ears adhered to the skin and hair with tape.

Martians?

You might have guessed what one of the kids' favorite toy has been for the last couple of months: Mr Groucho glasses!

More Mr Groucho

One of Leea's home made costumes.

Homework Indian style.

Ava is becoming quite the artist.

This picture doesn't show it very well, but Ava looked like some person from a bad 80's work out tape. Priceless!

The hair do would have been great with her gymnastics outfit! :) Ava and Noa both love gymnastics and can't wait for Tuesdays.

Everytime Ava sees a laundry basket, she goes straight to it and starts folding laundry. She's the biggest helper in terms of laundry.

Silverwood

The kids had finished a reading assignment a while back and got free tickets to Silverwood. Grandma watched the twins and we got to go with Luca and Leea. They even had a reduced admission fee of $20 for bringing in 4 cans of food for a food drive.

Lincoln's awesome bee shots with the macro setting on our little Canon.

After going on the roller coaster, we knew what was Leaa's new favorite thing to do! The rest of us could care less, but she wanted to do it again and again. It might have been the fact that her body is shorter and didn't feel like her head was going to be chopped off by going under the tunnels. It was awful, but yet somewhat thrilling.

Note, this is a kid sized cone!!! Yeah, right. We only got 2 for the 4 of us and were stuffed!

I got to ride alone and apparently used the time for some deep thinking.