Christmas Dinner Preparations

On Christmas Eve Travis and I went to my parents house to help begin Christmas dinner preparations (Isaiah came too, but to play toys!).  The menu for Christmas dinner was potato noodles otherwise known as Gnocchi, olive oil bread sticks, and salad.  We made the Gnocchi ahead of time.  Here are a few pictures from the cooking preparations!
 

Mom trying to mix the dough together. 

Mom was successful and now the dough is all mixed and ready to be rolled into Gnocchi.

Mom testing out the dough and making the first potato noodle. 

My cute parents who I love tons!

Dad getting in on the "helping" process by pulling up my mom's sleeves.

Travis getting in on "helping" process and pushing up my sleeves!

Mom and I concentrating on making the best potato noodles.

Mom and I cooking!

My hands rolling the dough.

Mom's hands making the grooves in the noodle.

A tray of finished potato noddles...yummy!

Dad actually started helping once we got a system going...he was the noddle organizer.  Such a great job for him!

Potato noodles on a tray, getting ready to be frozen, and then cooked!

After Christmas dinner preparations were complete we enjoyed leftovers with my parents for dinner.  Then Mom went to wrap Christmas gifts, Travis and I worked on frosting our 2nd batch of Chocolate Ribbon Cookies, and Dad entertained Isaiah.  

 Dad put on music to entertain Isaiah. 

 Isaiah and Pops snuggling and listening to music.

 Travis helping me frost cookies.

 Starting to get silly...go figure!

 Documenting our progress...we frosted a lot of cookies that evening and enjoyed eating several too!

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Earlier in December we bought a kit (from Bed, Bath, and Beyond) to help us make a homemade Christmas ornament of Isaiah's hand print.

First, you had to get the material soft (the material was a little like play dough, but not sticky at all).  Then, we rolled the material out on our cutting board.

Next, we let Isaiah press his hand into the soft material. 

We obviously had to help him some too.

Here is his hand print at age 2!

Finally, we put a plastic strip around the material to form a circle mold.  We took the extra material past the circle off and then let it dry for a couple of days.

We made two so when he gets older he can take one and we will still have one.  They didn't turn out as amazing as I had hoped, but they are still pretty cool.  The material they were made of kind of peels apart so the edges are a little more bumpy.  I guess that is what you get for homemade Christmas ornaments...hard for a perfectionist to accept!

Here a Reindeer....

There a Reindeer...

Everywhere a Reindeer!

Our Trip to Eugene

On Wednesday, December 22nd we took a trip to Eugene.  Our first reason to travel down to Eugene was that the African Children's Choir was performing at Faith Center in the evening.  However, once we knew we were going down to Eugene we found a few other reasons for our trip.  We decided to visit the Holt International Eugene office and finally meet the people that helped place Isaiah with our family as well as bring him home safely!  We also met Alice and Terry and Becky and Dave (two of Trav's aunts and uncles who hadn't met Isaiah yet).  Here are a few pictures from our day.

 Isaiah took his afternoon nap in the car on the way down to Eugene.  He feel asleep holding Scouts hand...it was so cute!

 Here we are visiting Holt!

 This is the front of the building...it looked fairly small.  However, once we got inside we realized it was bigger than the outside made it look.

 Mommy, Isaiah, and Lisa having some fun playing in the front of the Holt office.  Thanks for the awesome tour Lisa!  It was great to meet you in person.  Maybe we will have the chance to work with you again at some point in the future=)

I didn't get my camera out during dinner...sorry no family photos!

Here are the amazing African Children's Choir.  Isaiah loved watching the kids sing and dance!

 Look how focused this little boy was....he loved sitting on my lap and watching.  He also got down from my lap and stood beside us and danced right along with the kids!  The performance was great!

We enjoyed our day trip down to Eugene.  Isaiah did great on our day adventure.  Here is to hoping he does great on our trip over to Idaho next week after Christmas.

Visiting the Grotto-Festival of Lights

On Sunday, December 19th we went to the Festival of Lights at the Grotto.  The weather was colder than when we went to Zoo lights on Friday. It was 35F and snow had fallen about an hour prior to our arrival, but the weather didn't stop us from having some fun!

We walked through the lighted path and listened to the Christmas story and then we went to check out the petting zoo animals. 

 

I was trying to show Isaiah that he could pet the animals.  He was watching closely.  I told him this was a goat, and then a volunteer informed me it was a sheep.  Oops!

Now I know this was a goat!  Isaiah did pretty well petting the friendly goat.

Grandma helping Isaiah pet and animal...goat? or sheep? I'm not sure!

 

Isaiah was more fascinated with the animal's fence than the actual animal.

 

Proud that he found OCTAGONS on the fence!

And here was the animal he was supposed to be looking at...poor donkey that Isaiah wasn't interested in looking at!

Grandma, Isaiah, and I having a good time in the petting zoo.

Mommy and Isaiah...I love my boy!

Grandpa, Isaiah, and Grandma in the petting zoo.

Isaiah liked the puppet show for the most part.  Sitting still wasn't the best, but he did love laughing when the rest of the audience was laughing!  I don't think he got the story or jokes, but maybe next year.

 

Our family of three by the huge lighted tree.

 Grandpa, Grandma, and Isaiah by the huge lighted tree.

The girls by the huge lighted tree.

The boys by the huge lighted tree.

 Daddy and Isaiah

 Mommy and Isaiah

 Kayla and Isaiah...finally a great picture of the two of them!

Our family had a great time visiting the Grotto-Festival of Lights!

After the Grotto we drive down Peacock Lane.  We had never heard of or seen this street before, but Trav's parents were familiar with it and wanted to introduce us to it too!  The houses sure had lots of cool lights!

After Peacock Lane then we to Krispy Kreme for a donuts snack!

The family getting ready to eat yummy donuts!

Isaiah showing mommy his yummy late night snack!

Stuffed face!

Enjoying his donuts!

The store was pretty much empty... so Isaiah quickly became the highlight of the evening!  The workers loved talking to him.  They asked him his name and age.  I think grandpa had to help answer the questions...but he did get a cool hat out of the deal!

Happily wearing his Krispy Kreme hat!