Hike to Twin Falls

Liam and Anna love to travel together. they turn into two little hooligans in the back of the car.

Geared up and ready to go.
This was awesome. Two trees grew over this old broken tree stump.
Anna was a trouper, hiking for a good 1/4 of the trip and Liam was still running around when we got home. The falls was of course lovely, but I sure like my family. Their pretty cool.

The little gymn

Liam has graduated from his "giggleworms" gymnastics class. He is now in a sports skills class where he will work on learning how to play with the team and not for himself. We are so proud of how he is growing.

A Very Special Message from Eric

Hello,

I'd like to welcome everyone to my first computer internet web blog ever. I never do this sort of thing, but I would like everyone to know just how cool I am.

Also, I want everyone to know that I went ice climbing a couple weeks ago and it made me even cooler than I was before. I even have pictures to prove it.

Look at this series of images.




Then my crampons (spiky shoes) broke. Twice.


But then I fixed them and climbed some more.
Beautiful.


These are the routes I took:
(I was tired from two false starts, but I still made it kind of high)

Ice fell on my nose. Blood.

Now I am tired.

And then I went home.

Thank you for listening.

{Eric Elton}

Happy Valentines Day

It's true! We do love you all so very much! We just wanted you all to know that we are thinking of you today. We couldn't imagine life with out a single one of you.

Liam's 5th birthday

This is the morning of Liam's birthday. Later that evening he had some friends over for hamburgers and hot dogs and we had a Transformers party. We played Duck duck goose only we said bumble bee bumble bee Prime!. We played pin the grill on optimus Prime and a transformers memory game in which you match the robot to it's transformed vehicular self. It was crazy and Liam loved it all. We sang him happy birthday and I made him a Lego cake. Different colors of giant legos with a transformer toy standing in the middle. Sadly, these two video's are all we got of the momentous occasion. He already acts so much older.

Liam had the trick of spinning out down to a science. He hasn't gone a single day without riding the bike yet.

Christmas package

Warning! please lean head to the right shoulder to continue viewing film.
A package arrived just before Christmas with gifts from Uncle Jake and Aunt Becky from their recent trip to Hawaii. This is for you guys!

White Christmas

This is what we woke up to the whole week before Christmas.
Liam and Eric are off to deliver the neighborhood gifts. Liam is in heaven in the snow.

Christmas Eve

Here I am tearing into the little hen that we have eat on Christmas Eve.
Anna and Ian adored their special tables. Anna felt so big and spent much of her time sitting on the chairs. She always insisted on the purple chair and would not stand for the blue one.
One of Anna's little monkey faces.
Inspecting the tree.
Inspecting the baby bouncer.

Eric reads Liam and connor "Twas the night before Christmas.
Grandpa Bill uses the nativity to tell the story of the Birth of Christ to Connor, Liam and Isabel.
We always open one present on Christmas eve. This year it was super cute jammies from Uncle Peter and Aunt Brooke. Thanks guys! Aren't they cute?
Grandma jingled some bells and brought in a gift for each child too. Everyone got their own Christmas quilt. It was adorable. They all laid them down and cuddled on them. Orion headed up a parade with the quilts wrapped around their little bodies. I think I saw a tear in Grandma's eye.
We kept the kids busy that evening making notes to santa. Liam drew a picture of the mighty hauler that he wanted and he 'helped' Anna by drawing a racing car that he thought she might want.

Christmas morning

THe Elton tradition is to make a train winding to the living room. It is mostly dark at first but you get to see the kids rush to the tree only to find out that the presents have name tags and they can't just start ripping them open.

Chaos ensues!

I saw this game at the store and somehow I knew that Eric would have some kind of tie to it. Also, It looked like fun. Unannounced to me, it was a game the company brought back and he played it in his youth. Yaaa! I win!

The Mighty hauler. Santa knew!

Anna, who is oblivious to chaos shows pleasure and awe in the simple things.

Playing with the loot

This is so cute! I love how playful she is.

All the kids were really good about Sharing their toys.

hang'n with the eltons

Here is a look at a typical day at the Eltons during the holiday. Life is never boring when your married to Eric.

Seattle

Safely crossing the street on the pier near Ye Old Curiosity Shop on our way to Pikes Place Market. Liam loved seeing the workers yell and throw fish but it sure was stinky.
Off to the Antique shops. One must always visit the Magic shop, shown here, and the comic book shop. After a bit of wandering it was off to eat piroshki.
We always visit this very cool music store. It has lot's of hands on instruments available so we made lot's of noise with the 6 kiddo's.

Rock climbing

Liam puts on a brave face while getting his harness ready. This was his first time and he was super excited.
In fact, all of the kids were so excited that they climbed for 2 hours. I only got to climb for about 20 minutes or so. The rest of the time we were belaying overenthusiastic kids.