Portland Children's Museum

One of the big things I really love about Portland is the amount of family friendly, child oreiented and even animal oriented places to go eat, events, you name it. My favourite alternate radio stations even has a program called 'greasy kid's stuff', which is all kinds of silly, kid oriented songs by all kinds of bands, every saturday morning. We steer our kids in different directions here in Portland. We veer away from the cookie cutter TV generation. We go outside to play, listen to the radio, explore!

We have memberships to OMSI and the Zoo, but had yet to be to the Children's Museum-and were we missing out. Needless to say, we bought a year pass when we left. IT was that good. We missed the 'Baby Loves Disco' at the crystal ballroom- but we will head over next month for that one.

Piper and Mama met Mama's friend Andrea from their Intel days. She brought her Newphew Garrett to the museum and we had so much fun. The kids were worn out completely. After 3 hours of play ending with the Marachi band playing in the children's theatre that Piper was absolutly glued to.

This water play area is three times as big as the one at OMSI, which makes Piper very happy indeed.
Here Piper and new friend Garrett play around in part of the playhouse

What a Look!!!! Little miss Piper is taking a good look at herself before transforming herself with the face paints.

Arrr matey! Watch out for the notorious green beard!

Piper and Garrett get into a little impromto jam session with some other kids at the CM.
Andrea and Garrett show Piper how to make music on the xylophone. pretty music

Snow Day in Portland

Piper and mama were SO excited to see big phat flakes of snow falling down when they woke up this morning. Piper got all bundled up and we headed outside for a bit of playing in the wet white snow. Mama showed Piper how to build a snowman and Piper had fun throwing snowballs at mama (don't know where she learned that one!) By Noon the sun was out, not a cloud in the sky and snow is almost all gone. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.



It's sticking to my mittens!!!Check out my snowman!!!!

bed time routines

As many of you know, since we moved 6 months ago, Piper has refused to sleep in her room in her bed and has made the couch her resting place for naps and bedtime. After trying and failing many times to revert her back into her room for rest, we gave up for a while. After the holiday craziness, we tried again.
We are happy to report that we have had a full week of nap and bedtime sleeping in her own bed again. This is huge! Now we can hang out in the living room and not worry about waking her up at night.
so proud of my girl!

Yuletide 2006

The family flew down to Vegas and then drove to Lake Havasu City to spend the holiday with Nana and Grandpa Larry and Great Grandma Harriet. Piper enjoyed the views of Lake Havasu from the pool and back door. The tree is adorned with none other than a big parrot. Since the house is decorated with an awesome jungle motive, Piper is never short of things to play with.



Piper and Nana share kisses


Piper and Grandpa Larry share some stories and laughs for breakfast.

Piper doing her "yeehaw" on Nana's elephant in the living room.

Fun in the cold desert.

We were so excited to spend the warm days by the pool and relaxing...but it was so windy and cold. Nana turned on the hot tub and got it just right so it wasn't too hot for Piper. We picked the perfect day to get cozy in the tub while the sunset lit the sky on fire around us.


Piper and mama get warm while chillin' with the beautiful Arizona sunset.
Here with Great Grandma Harriet

The Four Generations

Oh what fun...

Piper gets her first stocking this year when she woke up on Dec. 25th. With her new Dora jammies on she was eager to discover all the neat things wrapped up inside and share her findings with the family.

Piper showing off her new glasses.

A new nemo phone! Sweeeet.

Even papa got a little goody stocking. Is that chocolate frank?

And more goodies for all!

Piper gets excited to see her new Dora blanket.

WOW!!!!
mama gets some new landscaping books from papa! piper falls in love with her new alpaca bear from Great Grandma Harriet! His name is BoBo. We have no idea where she came up with that, but it is really cute!


Nana gets a parrot pillow that Brandy made for her jungle themed house.
Piper gets comfy in her new Dora Chair. That was carry on luggage in the plane. She loves it.
Our house is very Dora filled these days.
Always happy to get a new book. This one has music and sounds. Even better!!!

Pipers new friends

Piper meets some new friends while in Havasu. Amanda and Racheal stop by after the holiday to meet us. Christine is a friend of Nana and her girls had fun playing with Piper and her new bubbles.

Franks get away

Frank takes a day away from the ladies after the holiday and drives to Joshua Tree. He met up with our good friends Paul and Michelle for a day of climbing on the big granite domes. Here are a few good shots!

Early Holiday

Piper gets a double dose of holiday cheer this year. Tuesday we took the opportunity to celebrate the Yule with Piper's Grandparents and Uncle Mark before they go to the Phillipines for 3 weeks. Piper was so excited this year. We put up a yule tree and had lots of gifts under the tree (95% for piper!) We caught her several times trying to sneak a peak at the gifts by pulling a little wrapping paper off here and there. But when we all sat down to open up the gifts, Piper was not shy at all. For the first time, Piper realized what all that wrapping paper was about and had a blast ripping it off the gifts. She was so excited with many WOW'S and Yeah's!! She added to her toy chest a new keyboard with microphone, safari animal figurines, a view finder, The little mermaid dvd, stickers, drawing mats with songs and markers, her new dora sofa sleeper (she was VERY excited about that one), clothes and books. Of course, she isn't done yet. We head down to Arizona to celebrate the holiday also with Piper's Nana, Grandpa Larry, Great Grandma Harry, Uncle Mike and maybe even Grandpa Walt. So more fun unwrapping and joys of laughter and WoW's are to be had. Here are some pictures of her fun night.

Piper gets silly after helping to decorate the Yule Log for this years solstice and Yule celebrations. Piper will help mama celebrate the rebirth of the Sun King with a little ceremony and lighting of the Yule log on Thursday-Winter Solstice.Piper being cute as ever-and being my little package of joy all dressed up in bows.
Piper is overjoyed at the sight of all the gifts. Oh, about 95% of those are hers.

Mama was counting on Piper enjoying her view master with 3D Dora images....


And we would say that Yes! she loves it. Sitting on her new Dora sofa, she looked at the viewmaster for a good long time, and woke up the next morning looking at it again. Good score on that one Mama!!!

ZOO LIGHTS

So here we go! We braved the freezing cold and fog, the freeways to get to the zoo this year for zoo lights! Piper loves the lights. Next year we will take the train!





Frank has magical powers and has lasers coming from his hands! Oh and here he is hanging out with Piper and Rudolph at the zoo. Just chillin' brrr
Score! We got some shots with Rudolph!





Papa and Piper hanging out in the land of Oz. Watch out! Piper, the flying monkeys want to steal your hat!!!!




Mama and Piper in front of the All Star Zoo Band! That Giraffe is off the hook!

We had fun and saw lots of animals. Piper really liked the monkeys and the giraffe! She was facinated by the train too. Next year we will make time to do it for sure.

Having fun!

Piper has been busy playing non -stop these days. Running around and roaring like lion or getting on all fours as she meows and paws at the ground like a kitty. Another favorite is to be spun around in circles until both us get dizzy or sitting on mama and papa's back and "yeeehaw"ing like a little cowgirl.
Here are a few pictures of some fun lately.


Piper "yeehaws" on the giraffe while wearing a bonnet that Brandy wore when she was a litte girl in the fourth of july parade in prescott, arizona.




Piper enjoys playing with her fairie wings she got from her great auntie ginger in california.





Piper playing with Al's boy Rilyn last week when they stopped over to hang out for a while. We really enjoyed seeing how big the little guy has gotten-and what a cutie!!!!!


A lil family portrait.