Christmas Creations

 Photos: December 10 & 11, 2010

In past years we've made a Gingerbread House but this year I saw this kit for a Gingerbread Train. Jonas is still really into trains so it seemed like a fun project for him. We didn't go all-out this year and didn't completely cover the plastic base BUT we did add a few of our own items like the lollipops in the train car and the plastic figures are the gingerbread men from Jonas' Candy Land game. It seemed so right, how could we not use them?

 Jonas' friend Poley the polar bear keep sneaking in to all the photos.

We also made and decorated sugar cookies. These three are Jonas' favorite kind of cookies to make: Cookie Faces. He made one of his dad, one of me and one of himself. You can just try to guess which is which.

Winter Wonderland

 Photos: December 18, 2010

Pretty snowy here on Umatilla Avenue this weekend. We got about 7 inches of snow on Friday night. Pretty exciting for a 6 year old. Finally some good snowball and snowman-makin' snow.

Tony was trying to get Jonas to eat the snow but Jonas said that he wasn't going to because a dog might have peed on it. Wise advice.

 On the lookout for Tony during a snowball fight.

Let's start the snowman.

 Enlist a friend to build the base snowballs...

 ....and get him to stack up the giant snowballs

 Add some rock eyes and a carrot nose....

...and a tumbleweed that was just hanging out in the front yard for hair.

Almost done.

 Show Frosty some love.

 I'm really diggin' the hair on Frosty. I think it's very "High Desert".

Redmond's Newest Pilates Instructor

Videos: July 24, 2010

This was just a few days before Jonas turned 6 this summer. Holy Cow! This is funny stuff. Or at least it's funny to me....but you can probably tell that by all my off-camera laughing.

To the Forest!

Photos and Video: December 3, 2010

We headed out to cut our own Christmas tree again this year. It's always fun to pile all three of us into my little truck. Did I mention that I have to sit in the middle? It's cozy, that's for sure.

This is the tree that we almost cut but decided to shop around the forest a bit more.

Until we found this tree and decided it was the one for us. So Tony chopped and chopped and finally cut it down.....

...while Jonas just stared at him in amazement.

Then the snowball fight began. It was a little tricky though, because Tony had to make the snowballs, hand then to Jonas and then hold still to be pelted at point-blank range. Fortunately, Jonas only has 50% accuracy so it wasn't too painful.

Jonas really wanted to sled but we didn't have a sled and the snow was pretty icy. But he said he could get a running start and just slide on his belly. And he could do it in under 10 seconds. I'm not really sure what the time limit had to do with it. He just like a challenge I guess.




We got our tree home and got it decorated the same day. I think that is a record for us.

Who's That Celebrity in the Limo?

Oh! It's Jonas!

Photos: December 1, 2010

Jonas was one of the lucky kids to have his name drawn to go on the Limo Lunch Cruise. It was a "reward" earned by some kids during the school fundraiser this fall. The kids who sold 25 items earned a Limo Lunch Cruise. We were not even close to selling 25 items but fortunately, all kids got entered into a drawing for every 3 items they sold. Jonas was entered into the drawing 4 times and his name was drawn to go on the cruise. They rode from the school to have lunch at a pizza place that is about 1/2 mile away. So not a terribly long cruise but the kids thought it was awesome. I asked Jonas what the best part of it was. His reply: "We didn't have to wear seat belts! There weren't even any seat belts in the car!" Safety Third, that's what I always say.

Sledding

Photos and Video: December 5, 2010

We actually had enough snow here in town to go sledding a couple weekends ago. Here are some photos and a video of the sledding event. Jonas was fearless.

This is Jonas falling off and being left in the (snow) dust.

I tried really hard to slow us down by dragging my hands. I'm not quite as fearless as Jonas.

Love this video.

Winter Photoshoot

Photos: December 2007

Jonas was 3 1/2 when we took these winter photos for our 2007 Christmas card. In the top left photo I think he looks really little and still a bit of a baby but then he looks so grown up in the three center photos.

You can see the original post about this outing here and watch a vid about it here.

As usual this layout looks not-so-good after being scanned. In person the background paper is an awesome faded black, not such a weird-o purple. And the reds are not neon like they appear to be in the scans. (Curses to the cheap scanner!)

Snowball Fight!

Photos: December 19, 2008

Love these photos of Jonas and Tony having a snowball "fight." The snow was so dry that Tony had to make the snowballs for Jonas and then brace himself for the snowball-to-the-head that followed. These photos made me realize that we never really got any snow this winter, not even enough to make a few snowballs. Although this coming week is Spring Break, so I guess there's still a chance.

Christmas Program

Photos and Video December 18, 2009

Nothing says Christmas quite like a preschool musical. I heard a lot of bits and pieces of the plans for the Christmas Program from Jonas from mid-November on. He had some interesting information and I was very curious how it would all play out. It was a packed crowd, maybe 100+ people came to see the 22 total performers. Very entertaining.

The first glimpse of our little shepherd.

For the opening act we have a reenactment of the night Jesus was born.

Now for Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.


Unfortunately, the last and best video, which includes sign language, has some sort of error and will not upload from my camera. I'm going to try to work that out and hopefully will be able to publish it somehow.

Jonas with his friend McKenzie, who is in his class this year, and her little brother Jace. The boys are so cute in their matching sweaters.

Jonas is all about the Christmas Love.

What Happened to 2009?

November 25, 2009

What? It's 2010 already? But what happened to fall and winter of 2009? It seemed to have slipped by without an update about all the stuff Jonas has been up to. I guess maybe because he is such a busy guy it leaves little room for me to sit down and blog about it....that or I'm just super-lazy. You decide.

I will try to get you caught up as painlessly as possible. We'll try out the Reader's Digest Version of everything from Sept through Dec 2009.

This awesome pumpkin magically grew in Aunt Connie and Uncle Pat's garden. Neat-o! We got to enjoy it at our house for about 6 weeks until it became a little more squishy and a little less magical.

Jonas stared his second year of preschool in September. He is at the same school as last year but he goes 3 days a week this year. His teacher is Miss Shalynn and she's super nice. He's been having a great year so far. As you might recall from other posts, Jonas is really into ASL (sign language) so he was very excited to find out Miss Shalynn is teaching sign language in class. Since he knows all the alphabet signs and most of the colors, Jonas gets to stand up in the front of the class with the teacher and show everyone else how to do the signs. He loves it. (Sept 9, 2009)

One morning before church Jonas found the sandals I had put out for myself to wear and he thought it very funny to try them on for size. 

"Boys can wear sandals, too, right mom?"

(Sept 20, 2009)

We had our first encounter with Shoofly Pie this fall. Our wonderful friend Lil sent a homemade Shoofly Pie all the way from Lancaster County Pennsylvania for us. And her husband Dave was so kind as to transport not just one but a whole bakery's worth of pies from PA to OR for all of us Oregonians who needed to experience this fabulous creation.  It is worthy of its title Official State Pie of Pennsylvania. You can see that Jonas really enjoyed his experience with this delightful dessert. Thanks Lil !

(Sept 12, 2009)

Jonas is becoming quite the crafty kid. He got a whole box of crafts for his birthday and I think his favorite is this melty bead kit. He is really quite good at following the pattern on the front of the box. He has made this owl at least a dozen times this summer and fall, maybe more. Jonas does not, however, like to actually melt the beads to make it permanently into the design. He prefers to just dump them back into the container and make it again. And again. And again.

(Sept 2, 2009)

Memorial Day started off by Tony cutting down about a thousand limbs out of the trees in our yard. Then we proceeded to drag them from their various places in the yard to our burn pile behind the garage. It was a big, tiring job and by lunchtime we were pretty wiped out but only about halfway done. Instead of just eating lunch and trudging through the rest of the job we decided to be spontaneous (which is rare here in the Cook house) and throw together a quick picnic and head to the park. Jonas rode his Big Wheel around while we cooked hotdogs. After lunch Tony pitched some balls for Jonas at the full sized baseball diamond. Pretty funny for a 5 year old to run around that huge baseball diamond. He shouted out that he was exhausted about the time he rounded second base. (Sept 7, 2009)

We surprised Jonas with a trip to Sun Mountain Fun Center in Bend for a round of mini golf.  It was pretty fun and not many people were out there that day which was good since it took Jonas an average of 25 shots for each par 3 hole. We stopped keeping score after the second hole. (Sept 4, 2009)

We headed up for the Annual Tree Hunt during our stay-cation in December. After playing in the snow a little we found a tree, took some photos and headed back into Sisters for lunch at he Depot as usual. Then we went right home and got that tree up and decorated. I think that's a first for us to cut and decorate our Christmas Tree all in one day. (Dec 2, 2009)

I really wanted to make an Advent Calendar this year with drawers or doors to open each day with a note inside with some kind of activity for Jonas to do. I found a beautiful kit online but, alas, it was sold out so I did the next best thing and scrounged at the Goodwill for something to fancy up. I found this sad little thing...

and turned it into this. It was not exactly what I had envisioned but it was fun to make and Jonas loved opening the doors each day and finding out what the "surprise" was for the day. There were things like going to cut a Christmas Tree or drinking hot cocoa and listening to Christmas music or....

making Christmas cookies...

or making a Deluxe Gingerbread House complete with Gingerbread Boy and Gingerbread Tree.

(Dec 2009)

Whew! That was a lot of catching up....and we haven't even done Christmas yet! Maybe I'll start another post for that. Take a break, you deserve it for persevering through this ridiculously long post.