Sporty Liv

Livvie loves the climbing gym, The Circuit. It is basically just a warehouse of climbing rocks.  They have a kids area where the hand-holds are a little easier and closer together. 

Livvie, Kieran, and Aiden are amazing climbers.  They scamper up, over, and down the slide and do it all over again (and again, no breaks!).  It’s pretty cold in the morning in the climbing gym (it’s a large unheated space), but she didn’t seem to mind much.  We even ate lunch at the gym when Kieran and Aiden arrived.

 

Here’s Livvie hamming it up at the top of the kids area.

The camera started freaking out at one point.  I was afraid the bubble-effect below was permanent, but it came back to normal later.  I don’t know what the bubbles are about.  Condensation on the inside of the lens maybe?  Very strange.  It sort of looks like it’s snowing or raining in the gym, but I can assure you it is not.

 

Bowling

A couple of days later, Liv, Jen, Cat went bowling.  Livvie announced that she was “all done” after 3 frames.  We let her choose to go bowling or swimming and she picked bowling, go figure.

We put a short, bowling video up on Youtube

 

MudBowl

The annual MudBowl was held in the park between Amryn and Phoebe's house on Saturday.  We arrived late (typical) and didn't play in the game, but we had a great time with the girls.  Deb left the game at half-time to join us playing catch-ball.  Olivia is starting to make up new games and new rules.  Catch-ball's rules vary by day.

 

Amryn and Olivia took Violet for a "walk".  It was maybe a tad quick for poor Violet, but I think it was mostly enjoyable because of the attention from the older girls.  We hit the playground next.  Luke and Violet got to go for a swing.  You can see how ecstatic Luke was about the opportunity below.

Luke and Violet had to endure the chilly weather without an afternoon nap.  Violet does better at this than Luke.  It started to get cold as the sun set, but we got this nice family portrait almost by accident as it went down.  Another beautiful day in Oregon!

 

Zoo Lights

We took the entire crew to Zoo Lights tonight.  Mark, Ceyriss, and Amryn met us at the zoo along with Claire, John, and Phoebe.  That was in addition to our 5 plus Nana and Papa.  Big crew.

We had a beautiful night for the lights.  Dry, cool (but, not cold), dark, with a cool spooky moon.  We arrived early (tip: if you plan to go, go early; parking was a mess as we left).

There aren't many animals out and about at the zoo during Zoo Lights, but we did get to see the tigers.  They were out wandering around and playing which is big change from their usual sloth-like behavior during the day.  We also had another treat, seeing the new baby elephant.

Livvie's favorites were the gingerbread house and the little submarine inside the rotating fish pond (we have no pictures of these things, though).  She spent a lot of time looking for the peacock and we finally had to explain (again) that the peacock doesn't live at the zoo anymore (it wasn't being very nice to the children, story here).  We did spot the peacock in lights, actually two peacocks in lights.

The twins enjoyed themselves and were exhausted by the end.  They chose to skip the second nap today, but stayed awake for the entire trip by eating goldfish and pretzels the whole time.

Movie Night

Last night was movie night at Rich and Erika's.  Yes, cheesesticks and popcorn were basically what all of the kids ate for dinner.  We've given up trying to enforce proper nutrition during playdates, it doesn't work.

The kids watched The Sword in the Stone and then Shrek the Third.  We've been hearing all about what Shrek did all day today.

The end of night is always hard.  Livvie typically breaks down with inconsolable weeping when we leave tell her it's after midnight and the party's over.  Karsten ended the night upright and asleep on the couch with the movie-music blaring.  That's a kid who knows how to party right there.

 

Luke and Violet went to bed without any fuss at 8 o'clock and let us enjoy adult time.  They are great about sleeping while we're out as long as we put them in two separate pack n' plays.  At home they sleep together at night, but most naps are done separately now (one up and one down).  The pack n' plays are smaller and there's just too much mauling that occurs in close-quarters.

I know there are some kids that wake up at 6am, but all three of ours slept-in until 9am for us.  Wahoo!