not-so-merry Christmas

We had a not-so-merry Christmas this year.  We lost Jason's mother a week before Christmas.  On Tuesday we got a call from the school that Kaiden was throwing up.   He came home with a headache and puking all night.  Then we got a call we lost Jason's mom.  So, Wednesday morning we packed up the car, dropped Piper off at a kennel and drove to Longview/Kelso.  Kaiden seemed fine and we thought he was all better.  Since it was all last minute the only open hotel was a Motel 8.  There was a Red Lion hotel in front of the Model 8.  When Jason pointed out our hotel to the boys on the way there, Connor's response was "that looks like a nice hotel" until he realized ours was the motel 8 behind the Red Lion he was looking at... "that hotel doesn't look as nice dad."  When we checked into the hotel and went up to our room we found a towel wrapped around the smoke detector and held on by electrical tape.  At this point Connor was really starting to question staying at this hotel.  We had thought the hotel taped the towel up, but when Cameron came over after dinner he pointed out that the last guest probably did it so he could smoke in the room.  The rest of the room seemed fine though.  After checking in we took Sue, Cameron and Frann out to dinner at Red Lobster (Connor's pick).  Connor ordered a huge plate of coconut shrimp, which was Grandma's favorite.  We tried to take her out to Red Lobster for lunch/dinner every time we came to town and that was always what she ordered.  After we filled our bellies with sea food we went back to the hotel to visit for a while.  Sue spent the night with us at the hotel.  Sue and Connor shared a bed.  Jason, Kaiden and I shared the other.  This is when Kaiden took a turn and started getting more sick.  He spiked a fever for the rest of our trip and spent the majority of the time just sleeping or laying around.  I had to keep giving him Tylenol, which you could time it and exactly 40 minutes after the Tylenol he would perk up and bounce around all happy for the next hour + before crashing again.  Poor kiddo. 
Right before we left home Connor gave me my Christmas present... something I've been asking for years... he drew a picture of our family!  I'm going to frame it to put by the fireplace.

 The following day we went to Grandma's assisted living.  Sue, Frann, Mark and Ron had already gone threw all the belongings and divided things into boxes for everyone.  We visited there for a while with Sue and Frann, loaded up our boxes and then we all went to Ron's house to visit with Ron for a while.

 That night we drove Sue's rental van to Portland with Sue and Frann to check out the Winter Wonderland light display at the Portland International Raceway.  Beforehand we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner though.  Amazing place!  They had some really good food.  I sat in the back with Kaiden and he saw about 1/2 the light displays before he crashed out.  He's still coughing, sneezing and has a fever.

 That night Sue came back to the hotel with us, but decided to get a room next to us.  Connor and Sue stayed in that room (2 queen beds) while Jason slept in one of our queen beds and I shared the other queen bed with Kaiden.  We had a lazy morning Friday and let Kaiden sleep in.  I stayed with Kaiden in the room, while Jason and Connor went swimming.  Then we had some leftover Cracker Barrel and Red Lobster for lunch in the room.  Then we went to Grandma's assisted living for a Balloon Ceremony they held for her.  Residents, staff and family all got balloons to write messages on and we released them.  It rained the entire time we were in Longview/Kelso, but it really started to rain when we went outside to release the balloons.  Afterwards we drove to Olympia to stay at Jason's brother, Mark's house.

remodel 2

I decided to repaint Connor's room.  For his baby room I had light blue upper walls, a wavy brown bottom and sea animal decals on the walls for an ocean theme.  I let Connor pick the paint color and he went with his favorite color- bright orange.  We decided to leave the upper walls light blue, repaint the lower walls bright orange and add a pure white boarder in the middle.  Connor loves it!  I think it looks great too.

Christmas party

Our friends, Paul and Stephani had a Christmas Pirate exchange party at their house

Remodel

When we built our house in 2006 we had planned on making built-in cupboards/book shelves on each side of the fireplace, but never did.  We have been talking about possibly moving out of state for the last year, but we can't seem to find any place we like more than Spokane.  We're still considering Austin, Texas and Arizona... but as of right now we're leaning more towards staying in Spokane.  We're lucky to live so close to nature with tons of hiking/biking trails, lakes, skiing, etc.  We both have jobs we love.  The kids are in a great school district.  The cost of living is great here.   So, after looking at some homes in the Spokane valley, which is closer to Jason's job... we decided the housing market is ridiculous right now.  We love our house and the area, but just wish it was closer to the valley which is where we do our shopping and most of our activities.  But we decided to stay in our house for a while anyway.  And we decided to make some upgrades to our house. 
First up.. the fireplace.  Jason decided to finally do the built-in shelves.

Thanksgiving

This year it was just the 4 of us for Thanksgiving.  I actually had to work from 3-midnight.  I originally wasn't going to cook a big dinner, but changed my mind.  The boys loved our little dinner.

Frozen 2

I took the boys on a movie date to Dinner and a Movie to see Frozen 2 at the Northern Quest theater.  We love their theater with huge reclining seats, dinner/snacks during the movie served to you and the theater only seats about 30 total.  We ordered cheesy fries to share and individual drinks.  Great movie!

Below is Connor's solar system project for school this year.  The bottom picture was a project from last year (4th grade) where he had to recreate his favorite scene that he read in a book.  He chose the Notebook of Doom.

bubble bath

It's not very often that Connor agrees to take a bath with Kaiden.  For the last couple years he's preferred to take showers over bath's, but once in a while Kaiden can talk his big brother into playing in the bath tub with him.