Catch-up time

There's a lot to catch up on over the last month. Here goes: Easter was great - we always get two of each holiday because we celebrate with JR's family down in McMinnville a week or two before so we don't have to travel too much on actual holidays. I love this method, it's worked out awesome for our families. Here are some pix of our first Easter with JR's family:

These were taken right before we left:

The girls with Shelby, JR's nephew's daughter. I think that makes them 1st cousins once removed???

Madison and Shelby were saying "Best Friends Forever" and clinking their glasses in a toast - so cute!

The granddaughters (and a great-granddaughter) with Grammy: Chloe with her loot:

Also, for Easter, a neighboring stake puts on a huge "Life of Christ" exhibit with art and scenes from Christ's life, musical performances, and children's rooms where they can make crafts, dress up like women from Christ's time or angels, hear stories, etc. It is AWESOME and worth the drive to get up here! Here are some cute pictures from that:

There was a tent set up with grain and bowls kind of like a sandbox - the girls could have stayed in there for hours.

Chloe admiring herself in the mirror:

Aside from Easter, Madison had an interesting experience the other day. We and our neighbors, who have an 8- or 9-yr-old daughter over every other weekend or so, had a garage sale over the weekend. The three girls were playing most of the day outside while the dads were watching over the sales. It was great! But then, Saturday night after we'd gone inside and the sales were over, Madison told me that she had accidentally broken one of the neighbors' sale items while she and the neighbor girl were playing with a ball. So I explained to her that she should have told me sooner and that she needed to pay for what she broke with her money in her piggy bank (they get a small allowance each month for doing their daily chores). She had been nonchalant when telling me at first, but after I kind of scolded her, she got really remorseful, and almost started crying. That's typical for Madison - she'll frequently cry when she makes a bad choice, just out of feeling sorry. I'm grateful for this trait, which unfortunately has not developed in Chloe yet whatsoever! Anyway, instead of being nervous to go to the neighbors' and apologize, she reminded me a few times that we needed to go - she was excited to go! So we did - we went next door and I explained the situation and let Madison say sorry and that she'd like to pay for the item she broke. The neighbor gal was super sweet about it - the item had only cost a quarter, but I assured her that this was more about teaching Maddie a lesson than it was about money. What a great lesson on integrity for my little girl!

Madison's Birthday

On March 7th we had Madison's Popstar Birthday party. I had fun putting together a themed party that I read about in Family Fun Magazine. We made guitars and microphones: Opened presents:

And ate a guitar-shaped cake!

Here are all the girls together - fun!

The grown-up is my sister Rachel with her little girl Mary.L-R top row: Madison, Madilyn, Madisyn, Kylie, Ryland, Kyra.

L-R bottom row: Rachel, Mary, Chloe, Jadyn, Leah

Thanks for coming everyone! And for the generous gifts. The party was a great success.

Nikki for Prez

Most of you know that I'm a HUGE alternative and indie music fan. My radio station is 94.7 fm, which plays my favorites, like Death Cab For Cutie, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, U2, The Strokes, Coldpay, The Shins, Silversun Pickups, Better Than Ezra, Dave Matthews Band, Collective Soul, etc. etc. etc. I've even been on the air a couple of times playing music of my choosing and chatting with a DJ I've been listening to for probably about 13 years (Gustav), and I also got to interview one of the DJs in studio for an article in the magazine (Tara). Anyway, the station is doing a promotion right now, searching for a "President of the 94.7 Nation" who would help in choosing songs to play on the air for their HD station, go on the air, blog on their website, and win tickets for tons of shows for the upcoming year. I nominated myself a few days ago on a whim, and yesterday I was listening to the radio and heard my name on the air as a Top 7 finalist! Now they're putting it to a vote. You can vote here: http://www.947.fm/pages/3803672.php

Portland International Auto Show

On Thursday we went to the Portland International Auto Show at the Oregon Convention Center. We went to this last year so it's becoming kind of a tradition, even though the kids get bored relatively quickly. They do have fun stuff for kids there, though, so it was actually really fun. We parked several blocks away because the weather was dry enough to have a pleasant stroll through the city. The craziest thing was, we saw my cousin Josh stopped at a stop light while we were walking downtown. He yelled, "Nikki! JR!" and we talked for a sec until his light turned green. Fun coincidence!

Outside the Convention Center there's a beautiful statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. (because the building is on MLK Blvd). It was fun for the kids to see because we had been talking a lot about Dr. King around his birthday a couple weeks ago.

Madison is so stinkin' photogenic!

In the kids area there was a huge bouncy slide and awesome face painting by an acquaintance of mine named Naomi, of Time Honored Designs. She's incredible. Here's what she did on Madison's face:

And here's what she did on Chloe's face:

A little over the top, I know, but how often do the girls get to get all dolled up?

A couple more pictures:

Funny story: The country station 98.7 KUPL had a booth where you could win prizes, so Madison tried her hand at rolling the dice and, through some help from the super sweet guys at the booth, got to choose one prize from the table. Out of all the options, she chose a dinky notepad when there was a brand new Rascal Flatts CD she could have had. JR and I gently tried to persuade her that she may like a CD better than a notepad, but nope. So we laughed as we walked away from a free CD. Hahaha, oh well.

Our kids have a bed!

Most families take this item of furniture for granted, but our kids have been without beds for about a year. Many of my Vancouver friends know the story of why, but for those who haven't heard, here goes (non-parents beware: graphic bodily excretion descriptions follow).

In the fall of 2007, right before I potty trained Chloe, she woke up from her nap with poop everywhere. She must have awaken from her nap, painted poop from her diaper all over the crib, walls, and sheets, then fallen back asleep, because most of it was dried. Disgusting, even for the most seasoned parent. Of course, I had to begin cleaning it immediately because the smell was so awful. The crib was so massacred that I decided to fold it up and take it to the garage, in which process I cracked it. The crib was old and hideous (we had found it free on craigslist when Maddie was a baby), so I wasn't too careful, and had no problem with dumping it. So that was the indignant end of the girls' old crib. For a few months after that, the girls switched on and off sleeping in Madison's toddler bed and the floor, but soon both girls were wanting to sleep on the floor every night, so JR hauled the bed out to the curb, slapped a sign on it and within a couple hours it was sold.

Since then, we've been looking at bunkbeds but were never in any huge hurry because the kids loved sleeping on the floor. But in the last few months, Chloe has been waking up almost every night and amidst trying many, many, methods to end this, I decided to put the bed thing on high priority, since maybe having her own comfy bed would be incentive to stay there. Anyway, we finally settled on a bed from Ikea. It's very simple but we like the fact that the bottom mattress is directly on the floor since Chloe falls off beds all the time. It also maximizes the amount of floor space in their room. Cheryn, is this the same bed your girls have? I think I've seen this bed at a couple of friends' houses, and I really liked it.

In other ridiculous news, Chloe got herself a shiner last week. The girls were jumping off our bed and just as I looked to check on them, Chloe jumped without enough horizontal space and hit her eye directly on the top edge of the footboard. Poor girl! She wanted so badly to get back to playing that she recovered pretty quick, but later JR noticed that she had a huge goose egg on the corner of her eye! Here's her battle wound after a couple of days:The best part was that the very next day was our first day dropping the kids off at the YMCA play area while we worked out. Nice. Thankfully the lady didn't notice until I was picking them up afterward.

Sunriver

Needless to say, we had a fantastic weekend at Sunriver, Oregon. For the last 3 years, my mom has been attending Oregon Health and Science University, and each winter the school subsidizes accomodations at Sunriver for any student that would like to attend during a specific weekend in January. So this is our third year going as a family, and probably the last, since my mom graduates in June as a Certified Nurse Midwife! Go mom! The idea of the trip is not to ski and sitesee, but to relax, veg out, pig out, play games, and of course, do a little sledding at the snowed-over golf course.

Three of the girl cousins with Grandpa. (L-R Madison, Leah (my sister Rachel's daughter) & Chloe):

After playing in the snow, we went exploring at the Lodge. There is a big old stuffed bear (not real) next to the front desk - the kids loved it! (L-R Mary - Rachel's oldest, Chloe, Madison, Leah)

My lovely parents! Mt. Bachelor was right behind them, but you can't see it worth beans in this pic!

With two of my sistas, Heidi and Rachel:
My parents with 5 out of their 6 grandchildren - all the girls!

Saturday night we did a little makeshift birthday party for Chloe, Holly, and JR since their birthdays were in December. Here Chloe is trying on the adorable hat and scarf Grandma knitted for her!

Christmas

Our Christmas went great! As is tradition, we spent the night at my parents' house. We typically do Christmas with JR's family, who lives in McMinnville, a week or two before Christmas so we don't have to travel on Christmas day. It was a good thing, too, since we wouldn't have made it down to Mac on Christmas Day anyway, what with the crazy weather. Here's our house after JR slaved away shoveling our driveway, sometime around Christmas, can't remember which day. (BTW, it snowed over again a couple days later.)

On Christmas Eve we had a scrumptious feast, then read the Nativity story. Madison dressed up as Mary and Chloe wanted to be Joseph.

More and more each year, I hardly think about what I receive, or want to receive, and enjoy focusing on what I give for Christmas. It's so much more fun that way! We drew names for our sibling gifts. I got earrings for Holly, my brother Andy's wife (sooo fun to shop for!), and JR got a video game (what else?) for my 14-yr-old brother Adam. Here we are on Christmas morning, bright and early!