It was a White Christmas

The snow has finally stopped falling and is starting to melt. Official record for snow this year was a little over 46" in about a week and a half. It has now started to rain a little and now we have about 24" of slush in the yard.

Christmas was great and Holden had a great time with everything. We started our Christmas adventure in Pullman on Christmas Eve at Chris's parents house with the whole family. Danielle, Dan and Kids live there and Phill and Sarah came in from Portland. We had a big dinner and opened family gifts.
Christmas day we moved the festivities to Danielle and Dan's house where Santa had stopped for the kids. Holden got everything he wanted plus more. His favorite gift so far has seemed to be his super hero cape.

Later Christmas day we were back to Spokane and prepared a big family meal for Miranda's family at our house.

Alright, so I know that I officially am a horrible blogger. I think I have had about four posts so far this year, so maybe I will look at being a better blogger as a New Years resolution!

We have been busy getting ready for the holidays. My aunt, unlce and cousins are flying out form Martha's Vineyard and will be staying at our house for Chirstmas, so needless to say we have pulled out all of our decorations and are trying to make the house extra special this year. Holden had a great time helping Chris hang the lights and the fresh garland on the outside of the house. He is a great helper about 50% of the time and a typical three year old the rest of the time!

He also had a good time setting up the Christmas tree. We actually have two Christmas trees every year. We have the main tree in the living room, and then we have a second tree in the Cougar room that is decorated in all Cougar ornaments. Just a fun tradition and adds some festivity in the room where we spend the most of our time.

One of Holden's favorite parts of the Christmas tree is the train that travels around it. He is still really into trains and even asked Santa to bring him a new train for around the tree. HE was not at all afraid of Santa. He was so looking forward to seeing him and you can see the look of wonderment while they were talking. He is just so into all things Christmas this year. It is the first year where he is really starting to understand it and what everything means. It adds so much meaning for both Chris and me to see the magic in his eyes.

Last week we went on the Cougar Alumni holiday lights cruise out on Lake Coeur d'Alene. We went on the cruise with Holden's friends Tyler and Jaclyn and their parents who are coug alums too. They have a bunch of lights set up around the resort and you cruise around looking at them and then continue cruising out to the North Pole to see Santa. Santa then has all of the kids names and reads them off of the nice list and gets all fo the kids excited. The cruise was a lot of fun, and due to poor planning on their part (the cruise was on the same night as the WSU vs. Gonzaga basketball game) there were only about 30 people on the boat so we got lots of time to hang out with Santa Butch on the boat.

Well, it wouldn't seem like Christmas without snow! Today has been the first real snowfall and it has not been disappointing. At 5:oo when the news was on we are up to eight inches of snow and they have unofficially closed all of the roads in town and are telling people not to drive. They have even said that no one is allowed to travel on the south hill without chains. I have never even heard of that happening. It is supposed to keep snowing for awhile so it will be interesting to see how much we end up with when the storm passes. Holden did help us shovel today and had a great time playing in all fo the snow. Unfortunately for him it is a really powdery snow so he was not able to make any snowballs or a snowman, but he still had a great time with snowangels and sledding!

If I don't post again before Christmas, and lets be honest here, I probably won't, I hope that everyone has a great holiday and a great New Year!

Just Couldn't Wait

Well I have been hounding Miranda to update this quarterly blog for a few months now. I guess I could give a quick update.

The summer has gone so fast it is hard to believe that it has almost past. In July Holden celebrated his 3rd birthday. I gave him his vary own jumping castle. His gift from his mom was the doctor tri-fecta. 1)Pediatrician we found that he almost broke 30lbs with all his clothes on and they feel that he is a vary bright kid got 1 shot. 2) Dentist all teeth checked out well and he had his first real cleaning. 3)Visit with DR. Drain the allergy doctor, he and Miranda had appointments together. I made a rule that we could not get a dog until Miranda got tested to see if she would need shots. Holden was getting tested for good measure because of his parents impressive allergy history (Dr. Drain wants to write a paper on us) and fields of work (Miranda is allergic to all food at the Olive Garden and I am allergic to flowers and such). There were mixed results, when Miranda got checked her dog allergy had gotten better and was given the okay by the doctor to get a dog, then she pulled up Holden's short leg and said "NO DOGS NO CATS". This is not a forever situation, eventually they can both get shots.

The later that week a forest fire started one block over and two blocks back from our house. We got lucky that the wind was going 30mph in the other direction. It took 12 homes and a we had fire trucks passing our house 24 hours a day for a week. It is not a feeling that we want to have any time soon.

This summer Holden has also become my fishing buddy. He and I enjoy our time together greatly. He does well if we are on the boat of on shore. He touches the worms and kisses his fish before we put them back in the water.

Before summer completely slips away from us we have one last trip planed this summer. We will are going to spend a week in Martha's Vineyard, visiting Miranda's aunt. We are all three flying first class in and out of Boston for $30 got to love airline miles. Holden should enjoy the trip the flight attendants usually do anything to keep a kid happy in first class. We will update you when we get back. Now lets see if I can figure out pictures.

Bye Bye Bailey

Just a sad note. On Wednesday we had to put down Chris's dog Bailey. She was almost 15 so she had a good long run. Chris's mom called him at work on Wednesday morning to let him know that she was not doing will and was having grand mall seizures. He left work immediately to go to Pullman so we could say goodbye. She was definately not having fun any more so he made the decision to let her go. Holden gave her hugs and kisses and brought her blanket to her so she could rest. Then he and Mary Jo took her to the Vet while Holden and I played outside. She was very loving and great with all the kids. She will be missed greatly.

We are still here!

Alright, so I have come to terms with the fact that I am really bad about blogging. I love going on daily and seeing what everyone is up to, but pretty much suck at updating my posts...Sorry about that. Chris is now referring to this as my "quarterly blog."

Well, most recently we celebrated Easter. Here are some pics of Holden at the Gonzaga Prep egg hunt as well as at the neighborhood park egg hunt. He really got the hang of hunting the eggs, and instead of starting off picking up the eggs, he ran out to the middle of the football field and picked the eggs up on the way back. He is a smart little kid.

On Easter morning we had just shy of 20 people at our house for brunch and to hunt even more eggs. Holden had a great time out there with his cousins running around.

Holden also loves to cook. He helps daddy make dinner at night while I am at work. One of their favorite foods to make is pizza. He also helped us make cookies (Chris's favorite cookie recipe makes a huge batch of cookies, too big for a normal mixer, so when we were going to get rid of the one at work I brought it home.)

We have, like all good cougar fans, been following March Madness. We had Earl, Maegan, and Logan over for the North Carolina game and Holden had a good time trying to drink the empties and playing with the bottles. I think he liked having Logan around, they will have a better time when she gets a bit older and can run around with him. He did have a bit of a rough time sharing his toys with her and for some reason really took a liking to crawling in the exersaucer again. Here is one of the only pics we got of the two of them playing together on the stuffed alligator. It was good to see them, but wish the game would have turned out different.

Christmas Activities

We have been busy preparing for Christmas. Holden went to visit Santa a couple of weeks ago. We got his pictures taken by them, but I kind of like this one that I took better, guess I should have saved my money.

Here are a couple of pics of Holden helping us decorate the tree. He thought that decorating it was a lot of fun, and he also enjoys taking the ornaments off and re-hanging them througout the day. Needless to say, the bottom two feet of our tree is very well decorated.

Another favorite of his is watching the Christmas train go around. He could watch that train all day and be perfectly happy.

Tonight the three of us went on a Cougar Alumni holiday lights cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Holden thought all of the lights were great, but the best part was getting to see Santa Butch. Luckily, Holden is pretty good around Santa and other characters, as long as we stay fairly close.

Halloween

I have been checking out everyone else's Halloween pics and blogs and thought it was finally time to get one going myself. We took Holden to the pumpkin patch and he had a great time. He chose his pumpkin (not this green one, it was just a cute pic), played in a "sandbox" that was filled with dried peas, and even got to feed a goat. He also really enjoyed carving his pumpkin. He wasn't even grossed out while cleaning out the pumpkin guts.

Holden had a great time this year with all of the Halloween celebrations. He, much like Jackson Fry, is very into trains at the moment and dressed up as an engineer (It appears that their costumes are nearly identical). I took him to Chris's work, my work, and to visit my mom at her work, and then we went trick-or-treating at two houses. He still got more candy than he will ever need. He thought that handing out candy to all of the kids was great.