Christmas 2011 in Oregon

Merry Christmas!  This year we decided to stay in Eugene for Christmas.  Our good friend Annie also stayed in town, so we combined our efforts and had an all day celebration at our house!  Christmas Eve day was beautiful...sunny and 60!  We met our friend Bill at this awesome park that Parker loves.  

Then on Christmas Day we started off with an amazing egg bake and sticky buns brunch made by Annie.  Followed by present opening, Parker loved it!  She finally got to rip in to all those pretty packages that have been under the tree taunting her!  She did so great.  She opened every present and played with it until we told her to open the next one.

 She even loved watching the rest of us open our gifts

 While Parker napped Aaron, Annie and I started an intense battle of Scrabble!

 Our other friends Adam, Bill and his daughter Aletha came over for dinner.  It was soo good!  Annie and I also baked up some spritz cookies!  Don't you love my amazing holiday sweater?!

 We ended the night with a Wii dance competition...which everyone, especially Parker, got a kick out of!

More Gym-tas-tics!

Parker completed her first session of gymnastics!  Thought I'd just share a few more pictures of this.  It's definitely something we will continue to do with her!

One of her favs...the three-seated swing!

 She LOVES to hang...from anything! 

 Daddy helping her out with the rings.

 What could be better than jumping on the trampoline to music?

 Oooohh...what's that?!

 Jumping on the trampoline to music with BUBBLES!  She freaks out over this.  Until next season!

Gymnastics and the Holiday Half

Parker is just finishing up her first season of gymnastics!  She goes once a week for 45 minutes and LOVES it, to say the least.  It's a lot of tumbling, jumping on trampolines, hanging from bars, etc.  Let's just say she sleeps like a champ these nights!

This past weekend we went up to Portland to participate in the 2nd annual Holiday Half run.  Aaron, Annie and Mike all ran the half marathon and Parker and I ran the 5k.  Well...I should clarify that.  I ran the first mile with Parker, while she cried.  Then I took her out and carried her the remainder of the 5k!  Needless to say I got quite the bicep work out in.  Lucky for me a super nice couple came up and offered to push the stroller for me until the finish line!  All in all, it was a great race...Annie finished in like 2 seconds...she is an Iron-woman after all!  Mike and Aaron ran it together and did fantastic as well!  

 The race is held on the Adidas campus in Portland.

 The start line!

 Aaron and Mike on the home stretch!  Aaron is in all black with red sleeves, Mike is in the black pants and grey top.  I love the random guy's face in blue- the look he is giving Mike is priceless!

A Birthday and a Christmas Tree

It was my birthday this past Thursday so to celebrate we gathered a few friends and headed out to our favorite winery, Sweet Cheeks for an afternoon!  The only other thing I wanted to do on my birthday weekend was find a Christmas tree.  Now those who know us, rather- Aaron, know that he like to pay the $5 permit and go out into the wilderness and cut down our own tree.  Which is good fun, but it always ends up being somewhat of a Charlie Brown tree.  This year we compromised and went to a tree farm where you still cut down your tree yourself!  It was an awesome place.  Our good friend Mike was in town from Portland and joined us for the hunt!

Inside at Sweet Cheeks...

 Good friends, good wine!

The tree farm we went to was called Northern Lights, it was fantastic!  Once you pick out which type of tree you want, you jump on a hay ride and they drop you off out in their "forest" of Christmas for you to wondering and hunt!  Back at the farm, there were goats, chickens and pigs...Parker was in heaven!!

 Riding out to find our tree...

 Found it!

 Parker was very curious what Aaron was doing...

 I love Christmas time!

A Minnesota Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving we flew back to Alexandria and spent a week with family and friends.  The weather was amazing and we got to see and spend time with so many people.  Here is a run through of the good times!

 Travel

Parker is a great traveler- whew!!  Essentially, she slept three out of the four legs of the entire trip.  We didn't have to be "those people"!  Yesssss.

 This is the one part she was awake and was digging a little Baby Einstein with my headphones.

 Family

Matt and Uncle Robb...

 Gramma Rosella

 Some of the Davison cousins with Grandma & Grandpa Davison

 Sista and I took on the challenge of making Spritz Cookies...alone!  We managed to figure it out and both took a bunch home with us.

 Thanksgiving Day was beautiful outside!  The Kvasagers' and Olsens' got together at my parent's house for the afternoon.  We had a great feast! 

 The Olsens' and Kvasagers'!

Dogs and the Shop!

Look at Al sharing his bed so willingly!  Parker seriously has a dog obsession.  She loved all the dogs (and Julie!) between my parent's house and Aaron's.  Another big hit was the shop.  The day before Turkey Day we had a Shop party and then hit the town.  Unfortunately, my camera was MIA during that part...but you can imagine.  Good times were had!

 

 Farewell...

Parker loved the tub in Al and ML's bathroom...especially with the jets on and bubbles in full effect!

Slumber party with Parker and Grant!  The night before we flew out we went and stayed with our friends Brian and Amanda and their son Grant, who is 2 weeks older than Parker.  They hit it off!

 Back at the airport in Denver...a fantastic trip back home!