Two of a Kind

Here are pictures of Jake and Payton each at 3 months old. They look quite a bit alike (minus the hair!). Jake is the first picture in each set.

WiiFit and Jake

Here are a few videos of Jake working on his WiiFit ski jump and running skills. What a funny kid!

Ski Jump.


Running.

Zen Master

Jake spent the morning perfecting his yoga poses on WiiFit. He's extremely focused. Next up: spinach and egg white protein shakes and solitary meditation.

The "Warrior"




The "Half-Moon"

Gotcha!

Jake and Payton have a very special bond. He loves his little sister and is extremely patient with her. She showers him with smiles and loves it when he sits and talks to her. Oddly enough, they seem to carry on their own little coversations; they just seem to get each other (whatever language they're using). It's fun to watch them together!

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Christmas is a favorite holiday around our house, and we had a great time. Jake's excitement is contagious. This year was even more special since it was Payton's first Christmas!

Look what Santa brought. Can we keep her?

Payton taking it all in on Dad's lap. It doesn't get any better than that!

Jake was more than willing to help Payton open her presents. He is very patient with her and made sure she was able to see the wrapping paper and helped guide her hand to pull off the paper.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Darin, Andrea, Isaac, Abi and Gabi came up to spend Christmas Eve with us. It was fun to have the cousins together for the holidays.

Jake and Gabi playing with toys. Gabi thought the most efficient way was to just crawl into the toy bin instead of wasting time emptying it out! (Darin doing an excellent job of guarding the tree and presents in the background. The girls loved the shiny ornaments and bows!)

Enough pink to go around. The three flower power girls all ended up wearing the same PJ's.

Isaac and Payton.

"Um, Daddy. Can I have a bite now?"

Cute as a Button

Payton is 3 months old today. We love you baby girl!!!

Bustin' a Move

What can we say. We treat our 3 month old like a toy. But really, how cute is she? Plus, we need as many embarassing pictures and videos as we can get so that when she's a teenager we can prove that she really did spent time with her oh-so-embarassing parents once upon a time.

Snowy Day

We've had a huge winter storm move through the area and leave us with a bunch of snow. We spent hours (literally, as in over 4) playing in it today. Mom and Dad took turns rotating inside with Payton and outside with Jake since Payton was only able to spend about 20 minutes outside before it got too cold for her. We made a snowman, went sledding, carted snow around in the back of the dump truck, had a snowball fight and generally just enjoyed the chance to play in the snow.

Our snowman. We didn't have a carrot for a nose, so we used broccoli!

Payton was so bundled up she couldn't move and could barely see out, but she enjoyed being outside anyway.

Apparently Jake is immune to the cold. He was rolling around in, diving through and thoroughly enjoying every last second in the snow.

We used the cul-de-sac in our neighborhood for a sledding hill. No worries about cars since nobody was out driving in the weather today anyway. We did have a lookout just in case and made sure Jake knew the rules about only going in the street with Mom or Dad. Since he is so black and white about rules, we have no doubt he will take us quite literally and ask if he is allowed to go into the street with Grandma or Grandpa! Silly boy.

And the winner is.....................Jake by half a sled length.

..........meanwhile..........

Jake had fun racing Dad and Mom down the hill, although he had just as much fun aiming for the mailboxes.

Taking a break from sledding.

Starting to tire out, but will never admit it!

Say cheese!

It was really fun to see the shear joy on Jake's face while we played outside today. All of us together happy, healthy, and having a great time is as good as it can possibly get!

Double Trouble

Hmmmm. Dad and Jake should not be left to their own devices!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit.....Finally!

So, we know it's December 20th. We have a good excuse this year, though. Things have been busy! We did finally get around to setting up our Christmas village tonight. Okay, well Dad got around to setting up the village......

....while Jake played with the pieces ("I will be very careful with them. That's the rules.")..........

..........and Mom and Payton supervised.

The end result looked great. Tomorrow's agenda - to buy a tree. Did you know trees are half off the week before Christmas? We found that out through our procrastinating last year!!!

Ode to Football

Our whole family likes football, so we thought we'd start Payton young with the rules of the game. Welcome to Football According to Dad and Payton.

Snow!

It snowed today! Jake was so excited. He looked outside as soon as he woke up and saw that the snow that had started to fall last night before he went to bed had actually stuck to the ground. There was even enough to play in, so from 8:00 this morning Jake asked "now can we go play in the snow" about every 10 minutes or so. When we finally made it outside we had so much fun.

Jake making snow angels. Isn't he cute?! That grin didn't come off his face the entire time we played outside.

Our version of sledding. Since our hill in the backyard runs into blackberry bushes, we decided we'd better improvise. This consisted of Mom pulling Jake down (and then back up!) the quasi hill in the side of the yard instead.

"Mom, don't eat the colored snow. The yellow snow means the dogs peed on it, the brown snow is where they pooped, and the orange snow is from the sled!" - The world according to Jake

More Snow Pics

A few more pictures from our day in the snow. It's supposed to be really cold all week, so hopefully the it sticks around for a few more days.

Jake jumping on the tramp covered in snow. He said it looked like popcorn when he jumped because it made the snow jump up and down too.

The wind blew down a branch off one of the pine trees behind the house. Dad and Jake carted it up to the deck and "planted" it in one of the dog bowls. They were very proud of themselves!

Mavryk still loves the snow and runs around in it like a puppy even though he's eight years old!

Eyeballs

We didn't get any pictures of Payton playing outside since she was napping the whole time. So here she is peeking over Dad's shoulder while they made dinner.

The Fish Park

There's a nature preserve just down the hill from our house where we love to walk. Since it was a beautiful morning, we decided to take the dogs for an "adventure" (Jake thinks walks are boring, so we go on adventures!)

Payton snoozed while we walked but woke up at the tail end just in time for Jake to show her the "tree roof". A boardwalk portion of the trail wanders through a huge grove of alder trees that he calls the tree house complete with tree roofs.

Mavryk and Moiya.

Dad and Jake resting at the overlook point above the inlet. There wasn't much to see since it was low tide while we were there, although there were several ducks and a bald eagle flew over.

A Few More Pictures

A few more pictures from our morning excursion -