NEALON: February 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Wildwood Park

Greg took the kids to this great park last Monday when he had the day off. It is a forested park with trails and creeks running through it. (Kind of like Forest Park in Portland only A LOT smaller).

It was really cold and a little bit foggy in there, but they had fun exploring!Cool spiderwebs...
They watched leaves float on the creek...

And posed for some cute pics!

I love the green!!

So yesterday we all went back together to do some more exploring. The weather is much warmer and we had fun walking a trail that has exercise stops along the way (bars for chin-ups, beams for balance, etc).

This is the kind of hiking that I always imagined us doing as a family...I am so glad to now be in a place where we can do it!

Hooray for nature!

Valentine's Day

We had a fun Valentine's Day this year!

The kids did a little craft in the morning. (I was in Boise for a couple of days and Sheran gave me these little foam kits for them to do. Thank you Sheran!)

We all got to go to church together! Greg has to work 2 Sunday's a month, so it is pretty rare that we get to go as a family.

I had prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids and another one for Greg...so after lunch they got to find their clues and little presents. It was SO fun...they all loved it. These cups were one of their presents and the clue inside was like a puzzle...they had to fit it together so we could read the clue.

I didn't get any good pictures of them actually doing the hunt...they were just running around too fast! But there were 5 total clues and at each one was a little present (suckers, glow sticks, coloring books, etc.).

Greg's clues were harder, so he had to really search for his presents! This magazine was in the freezer! He also got some candy and a starbucks gift card...

This is the card that Greg made for me. He cut out that cool tree and bought a punch for all the little flowers! I love it. The kids also made me some paintings and a collage of flowers in a vase...I'll have to take some pictures of those...

Then we went for a run together...the weather outside was really nice, but as soon as we got going it started pouring!! But we kept going and came home soaked after a 2 1/2 mile run - the kids were bundled up in the trailor and when it started raining we put the front cover on so they didn't get wet...Maren was so comfortable she took a little nap! Oh, is anyone surprised to see me running?! Me too! I decided to take up running at the beginning of the year and Greg & I are doing an 8K up in Vancouver BC in May! I never thought I would enjoy running, but it has been really fun...and really hard.

New Scooter!

Maren took notice of Joel's scooter early this year and has been learning to ride it. She finally decided to use the last of her Christmas money to buy her own scooter! She, of course, got the pink one with sparkley handles and hearts all over it....and she absolutely LOVES it! She rides it every day and is getting really good!

Joel, who got his scooter for his 3rd Birthday, now goes superfast and does tricks, like jumping and the leg wrap you see above. :)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

January 2010

Before February slips away, I thought I should get January pictures on here! (So much for my goal of posting as things happen! Oh well...)

Greg has been warming their towels in the dryer so that when they get out they wrap up in a hot towel. They love it!

On new years' day I took the kids to a train show at the History Museum in Tacoma (aren't you proud of me, Dad?). We had a lot of fun together!

I grew up playing lots of games, and I am carrying this on in our family. Most afternoons will find us in front of the fire playing Go Fish, Candy Land, Memory or Chutes & Ladders (among others!). Maren usually wants to be on Joel's team...I love this picture.

We had my Mom & Del, Grammie & Grandaddy over for dinner one Saturday night. I love this picture of the 4 generations of ladies.

Grandaddy LOVED the fish tank...he sat there for about an hour observing everything going on in there and asking a ton of questions. Greg ate it up.

Here is Maren's "big" Christmas present from us....I found this amazing play house and furniture on clearance for $36 total!! It would have been over $125 full price. It was a happy day.

It's big enough for her to stand in and us to sit comfortably in (depending on how much stuff she has crammed in there). :)

She is sitting on top of the toy washing machine (the chair didn't come with the house, she got that for her 2nd birthday).

And here is the sink and oven/stove. So much fun.

Joel is loving his Responsibility Chart. He does all the stuff every day (mostly...some of them are behavior ones and he misses some of them), and then he gets a quarter at the end of the week for each one that he did every day of the week. (So if he made his bed every day, he gets one quarter for that job and so on...the most he can get is 8 quarters for the week).

And this is Joel's "big" present....a marble run! We have been holding onto this for several years, waiting for him to be old enough and this was the year! It says 8+ on the box, but was ready for it. He absolutely LOVES it...

Mummies...

Mimi got Joel some paint by number kits for Christmas and he is really good at them! These are great for winter days!

While Joel was painting (she finished painting way before him) Maren did some bean collages. Glue and beans...easy and fun!

I did a lot of scrapbooking in January! I had a goal of doing one spread every day in my Project 365 album with the hopes of getting caught up. It really worked, but now I have fallen behind again. :(

Greg spent the bulk of his time at the beginning of the month writing papers and preparing his materials for his committee meeting in March. But when he wasn't doing that, he was spending time with the kids (here making cookies), working on his fish tank (below), or sleeping. We were all glad when he mailed everything off on the 9th!

This is a common thing to see in our house - Greg with his arm in the fish tank.

I took the kids to an indoor play place in Tacoma called "Pump-it-up" It is not nearly as good as some of the places in Boise, but good enough for getting energy out on a rainy day!

There are three big blow-up things that they can jump and play in...

Later the same day, Maren was telling Christina where we went (using Skype) and she called it"Humpty-dump!" Not sure where she came up with that!

We all got to go to school with Joel on his VIP day (Greg just happened to have that Thursday off...which is not a normal day for him to have off...so it worked out!).

He got to do all kinds of special classroom things where he was the leader or teacher. Here he is teaching about the letter Ee.

Holding the flag for the "Pledge of Allegiance"

"Learning" his name in sign language (he already knew it from last year).
And he got to have an extended show & tell time where he told all about our family and things he likes to do (see the "all about me" poster behind him in the pictures?). We had also brought one of the clown fish to show the class...which they thought was really cool.

Maren was excited to get to be in Joel's class all day like a big girl. She did really good...she's so ready for school!

Sometimes Maren is hard to resist when she comes down (after we have put her in bed) to snuggle. She usually wants to snuggle with me...this night she was giving me big hugs. Even though we want her to stay in bed...I treasure these moments. (Note: the getting out of bed thing was getting out of hand, so we implemented a new rule - if she gets out of bed she doesn't get to watch her cartoon in the morning...she hasn't gotten up once since then!)

I got to get away for a whole day of scrapbooking with Tina & Cathy! These are Christina's friends from Olympia that I have become friends with through her. We all missed Christina (we set up a little shrine of pictures of her and she even called from Germany to talk with us!), but we had a lot of fun and got lots done!