NYE 2011

Well Annabelle finished 2011 strong! HA. We learned that she is a kid who can rally late into the evening during our Disneyland trip in November. But even with intentional late naps, I didn't expect her to be up to ring in 2012! Well, boy was I wrong! From my mom's house on the Washington side of the Columbia River you can see literally see every fireworks show probably within 50 miles of Portland! It was crazy! I had no idea there would be so many! It was hard to count, and hard to know where to look! Annabelle loved using the fireworks to stall even longer! We will likely pay for it on our flight home, but these are special memories I don't want to forget, and it is kind of fun, that she is old enough to enjoy these moments.

And a total side note... Madelyn learned the word "come" on our trip. She tilts her head to the side, grabs your hand, and say "come," as she drags you where ever she wants. It is pretty adorable.

The Carousel

Another tradition while in Portland is a carousel ride (or in this case unlimited carousel rides!)
No idea why Mady thought she needed her shirt off, but this became a hilarious struggle. Scott & I were both cracking up!

Phew, on the carousel with all our clothes on!

Another absolute favorite picture - love Annabelle peaking at me with one eye, and that Mady is in the background!

We took a break so that Scott & I could stop spinning! And Grandma treated the girls to a ride on this Ice Cream truck.
One last ride on the carousel before heading back for naps!

The Grilled Cheese Grill (aka Greasy Heaven)

We had some time to kill this morning, and I thought a little adventure was due! It was a tad chilly, but that of course bothered us, and the girls didn't seem to even notice. We headed out to Alberta Street, ran around snapping pictures & snuck into a couple shops when we got cold. We ended up a the Grilled Cheese Grill for a Pre-Schooler - yum.

Here is my little poser!

One of my favorite pictures from the trip! Precious!

Love this one too!

On the bus, waiting for our grilled cheese!
...can't wait, so snacking on our coffee shop muffin.

Shopping

A few cell phone pictures from our tax free shopping day in Portland.

Both of our girls do this when they have a bag / purse on their shoulder!
I was trying on some clothes at one of our stops, and I turned around to find Mady taking off her clothes posing in the mirror - ha.

Powell's Books

This is one of my favorite traditions with the girls when we are in Portland. We take the girls to Powell's to pick out a new book (or two!) Annabelle seems to always get stuck on the $3.99 princess/cartoon character book carousel, so this trip, I let her pick one of those and then told her to find some real literature. She looked at me a little sideways, but she quickly figured out that I meant a book from the perimeter book shelves. I love spending time reading through books I have never heard of & landing on a treasure. We found a lovely book for Annabelle Plant a Kiss that I thought was so unique & hadn't seen in mainstream America (until we got home and I saw it on the end cap at Target!!!!! Ugh.) And an adorable board book, My Friends, that wasn't Sandra Boynton (love her by the way!!! but at this point, we have most of her collection!) for Madelyn. (I haven't seen this one out & about yet either, but after the endcap incident, I didn't travel down the book isle of Target for fear it would be there too!!)

Breakfast with Buster

Buster quickly figured out who to sit by at meal time...

bathtime

Playdate PDX

If you live in Portland, and have kiddos, this place is awesome! We have a couple places with similar concepts in Denver, but none are quite this big! Oh My! Madelyn loved every.minute.of.it. Annabelle had a good time but she was kind of mellow, and really just wanted to play in the little kids area (with Hezekiah & Mady). I figured she was tired from yesterday, and would rebound after nap (as it turns out, I was wrong, and she had a bit of a bug. bummer.)

These were Mady's absolute favorite!

They have a million foam balls in this area, you gather them up (that alone would have been fun for Mady) & then shoot them out of these canons! (so fun!)

notice how she quickly figured out how to aim!

Christmas Dinner 2011

Not sure why I never take many pictures during our Christmas dinner, but I am noticing a trend! I guess I am so busy catching up with everyone that I forget to take pictures. The girls wore their adorable dresses, and I have no pictures of the two of them together, which is horrible! And I always take a family picture in front of the tree, and I even forgot to do that!

Safe to say Madelyn loved the candy!!

We of course had a lovely time catching up with my family! Even thought you would never know it from the pictures!

Something to work on next year!!

Christmas Morning 2011

We got up early and headed to the airport. I actually thought an early flight would be fine for Madelyn as she is happy in the morning, and hard on Annabelle because she doesn't wake up well, but as it turned out Annabelle did better because she can rally with less sleep. Go figure. Scott parked at the passenger pickup, and we got him checked-in and then he ran to go park the car a couple miles from the airport as the airport parking was completely full. Luckily we had planned it out this way the night before so we weren't surprised to find no parking at 6am. I finished checking in the girls & I & all our "transportation equipment" (i.e. car seats) and then we flew through security. We grabbed a little breakfast, and some coffee for Daddy, just in time for him to join us, so it all worked out smoothly. Of course the girls asked every five seconds "where is daddy?" so luckily he wasn't gone from our sight for too long.

We got settled on the plane, and then found out that the Frontier TVs were broken. Bummer. But we made it Portland without any major meltdowns, just some fussiness & wigglies from Madelyn, and exhaustion all around.

We got in and immediately the cookie frosting tradition started!! Madelyn frosted herself more than any cookies! Annabelle was serious about her role this year, but Madelyn sort of stole the show!

Who makes sprinkle containers without perforated tops? those lasted about one second!

Then by the time we had finished naps, Hezekiah had arrived, and it was time for gifts! Madelyn wasn't nearly as interested as I expected her to be!

Annabelle loved every minute of it! Here she is with her new Beauty & the Beast movie!

Papa made Hezekiah this amazing set of blocks!
And uncle Zack made Annabelle a real pearl necklace! Watch out, Mommy might be borrowing that at some point!
And the day has just barely begun!

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas from the Day Littlejohn Moffit Iten Puttoff Family!

Please note what Scott is wearing to our Hawaiian shirt Christmas Eve!!