Happy Valentine's Day!

 I tried to get a picture of the kids for Valentine's Day - some days are better than others at getting them to all look at the camera and smile. :)  Tori had a blast at her school Valentine's party and loved making Valentines for all her classmates.  James loved making and getting Valentines from his sisters.  It was a fun, low key, Valentine's Day.

 

 Tori liked putting together the little Valentine house below that Grandma sent.

Cousins and Tae Kwon Do

 Aunt Ann, Uncle Trip and their kids - Rocky, Mary and Danny came to Portland for another Tae Kwon Do tournament.  This time all the kids came and competed.  We were thrilled to get to see them all and have a fun dinner together!  They all did great during the competition the next day - John and Tori loved watching them.  I stayed home with the little ones since we didn't think they would last the whole tournament (plus we don't what James getting any ideas ;)). 

Mary & Ellie - so cute together. :)

Grandma & Grandpa Visit

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit and we had a bunch of fun with them.  So much fun, that I forgot to take pictures.  I'm so glad I took this picture of them with all the kids.  We loved eating good food, having fun playing and riding the tram with them.  Tori was thrilled to get to go inside their hotel - we would always drive by it (it's called the "Grand Hotel") and she would say she wanted to inside and see what it was like, so now she got to.  The kids liked the beautiful Christmas tree it had in the lobby and eating the free breakfast.  Thanks for visiting! We love you!

Park and Temple Square

 Tori and James loved playing at this really neat park with their cousins.  James loved playing with his Uncle Gary.  He spent most of the time running around saying, "Where's my Gary?".

Starting from Cole standing at the top and going around clockwise: Katie, Tori, Tess, James, Jordan and Jane. 

Tori and James thought the conference center was really cool.  They've seen it during General Conference but I think this was the first time they've been there in person.

 Ellie's so sweet! 

 James didn't get his nap - so he had a bit of a hard time holding still and/or smiling for pictures. :)

  

Temple Square is so beautiful at Christmas time - I'm so glad the kids got to see it. 

 

Flying Fish

 The day after Christmas we all got together and flew these really cool remote-controlled balloons.  The way they floated and moved - it was very eerie how much they actually looked like fish.

 Allison, Gary and Jeremy getting the fish ready to fly.

 Chance and Ellie were very cute together.

 The kids all just loved running around.

Christmas Day

Cute kids in their Christmas pj's waiting anxiously to see if Santa came to Grandma Katie's house.  Tori made sure she let Santa know where we would be when she wrote him her letter.  The kids had blast opening presents.  Even Ellie seemed pretty excited about her stuff.  Then we all got dressed up and went to church with Grandma and hung out with cousins.

I think James' favorite present was his guitar.  It was so cute so see him walk around nodding his head to the music and strumming his hand.  He loved playing guitar with his cousins (who are all really talented).

Above James is playing with his cousin and Chance and below his cousin Jace is showing us his new ukulele. 

Christmas Eve

 We decided to drive to Utah for Christmas this year. It was a little crazy packing up all the presents in the car, but we loved getting to spend the holidays with family.  On Christmas eve the cousins all got together and acted out the nativity.  Tori was thrilled that she got to be Mary and Ellie was very sweet as baby Jesus.  James wasn't quite as into it as the girls, but he made a cute wise man. 

 

 The kids were very excited about their new PJs and house-shoes that they got to open on Christmas eve.  I think even Ellie was excited about her new jamies. :)