Christmas Snapshots

 Quick family photo from Grandma's - i think the only one we took all Christmas!

 piano duet with Harper

 decorating cookies for Santa

 snuggles with Aunt Sara

 Christmas morning

 waiting to enter the living room and see what Santa brought

 Jonah's Racetrack from Santa

 Harper's scissors

 baby Duncan

 just let us get back to the toys!

 christmas morning selfie

 Griffin's tractor

 Jonah's vehicle design set

 Griffin's slide from Santa

wagon rides and spy cameras

Oliver family Christmas party

 On the 23rd we hosted our annual Oliver cousin christmas party again. Here's the second cousins photo - only missing Will.

 And here's why you don't wait until the end of the party to take pictures. Its hard to tell, but the little cousins had a blast playing with the big kids :) 

Second annual christmas cookie party

 Radiology wives Whitney, Khadija, and Jen came over to bake and decorate cookies to send to the department before Christmas. We made sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and cranberry icebox cookies. The basket came home empty at the end of the day so we'll call it a success!

holiday in the pines

We had a great time at Holiday in the Pines again this year!

Jonah and I mixed it up a little this year and made a gingerbread truck that was hauling gummy bears. 

I think my new year's resolution should be to take more pictures! And blog more often :)

Happy Halloween

Jonah watched the Disney movie Mulan a few weeks ago and really liked the dragon character named Mushu. We couldn't find a dragon costume at the store so we bought a red hoodie and created one. Griffin wore Jonah's tiger costume from last year.

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 I was pretty happy with how Jonah's costume turned out and held together. He wore it to a church festival on Sunday and last night trick or treating. Griffin wasn't interested in a costume or trick or treating at all. I was a sport and threw together a Mulan costume 10 minutes before we left the house but I'm sure no one had any idea what I was :)

I've been terrible at pictures lately. Justin was home for Halloween and even wore his vampire costume and we didn't take a picture or a family picture. I did make 'mummy dogs' for dinner (as seen on Pinterest) but I'm pretty sure they don't look as cool as the original post :) The boys ate them at least.

what's up?

We've been busy this month, spending lots of time playing outside, story time at the library, soccer lessons, and play dates with friends. 

 Lego airplanes with dad!

 Jonah has become quite the game player. We rotate between Memory, Chutes and Ladders, bingo, and a SuperReaders reading game during Griffin's nap time. We've also been working on writing his name and using scissors.

Somehow Griffin has turned into a big boy! He wants to be just like his big brother, of course!

The science center has a cool lego castle display this month with an interactive catapult that Jonah loved.

 You build a castle wall on the screen and then launch a boulder at it to knock it down.

 Making our own lego wall and knocking it down wasn't as cool as the real catapult.

 Yesterday we went to the ASEANA festival downtown at the Asian gardens. One of Justin's attendings was helping host it so a group of residents went to check it out. There was food and music and dancing and we had a great time.

Hello October!

Soccer Lessons

Jonah was super excited about his first soccer lesson today. We bought him some real tennis shoes to wear over the weekend and we've been practicing a lot on the driveway.

Jonah and his friend Emily were the only two to sign up for a morning lesson but I think it will be perfect. Coach Becky was really good with them and they played 'volcano island' where the ball couldn't touch the cones and then they got 'volcano powers' where they had to knock over all the volcanoes. Of course the pretending was right up Jonah's alley and I have a feeling we'll be investing in some cones of our own pretty soon.

Poor Griffin had to sit on the side and watch with Emily's little brother (who didn't know what he was missing out on since he's only 5 months old!). They have a class for 2 years olds so maybe next year :) I may do as much running as Jonah just trying to keep Griffin out of the way!

Boys being boys

Our new pool

We are now the proud owners of a pool! We've been talking about getting one for a while.

 

Jonah and Griffin didn't even mind how long it took to fill up because who doesn't love playing with the water hose?

We swam this morning and again this afternoon. We have some pretty good shade in our backyard (my tomato plants are the only ones who think that's a bad thing) and that kept the water almost too cold for me.

Griffin kept losing his balance on the plastic floor of the pool so Jonah lent him his water wings.
But after a while he decided he'd rather play with the hose.