Portland Christmas Train

Today we took the boys on the holiday express. They had no idea we were going until we got to the station. Brennan was sooo excited. He has always been a train kid and this was his first time ever riding one, well, his and Cormac of course. Liam was less impressed but excited once we were on the train and he got a candy cane from Santa Claus. We followed up the ride with dinner and then came home and watched Christmas Vacation. They loved it. Both of them thought the best part is when the sewer blows up and sends Santa flying.

Forest park

Forest Park is huge. Think Central Park but bigger, like 6x bigger. 5,157 acres and it's through city center of Portland, making it the largest urban forest in the US. And since Sundays weather was gorgeous, we took the boys hiking there. There is an abandoned house that they call the witch's cottage, which we thought the boys would love. Afterwards we took them to Salt & Straw, which is thee place to get ice cream here in Portland. Over all, just another great family day.

Saturday after Thanksgiving

Today is the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, which in my family that means getting a Christmas tree. For the first time in over a decade I got to go to Christmas tree farm and cut down my tree. Then after cutting it down, to warm up, they had cocoa and cookies in the barn. Just like when I was a kid. We finished the day with our new Christmas jammies and watched the movie Santa Clause as a family.

Christmas Tree Lighting

Today was Portland's Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, so we decided to make a day of it. We played at the park, went to Powell's books (which is a 3 story bookstore by the way), got pizza and then headed over for the big event. Before they lite the tree they had music and the crowd sang alone singing Christmas carols in alphabetic order.  After the countdown and lighting the 75ft tree, everyone scattered, you've never seen 15,000 people leave so fast. Cormac didn't want to leave. He keep saying, "whoa, tree, see", got mad putting him back in the stroller and keep signing more and saying tree over and over.

Thanksgiving Pics

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low key. We weren't able to go home this year so it was just the five of us. We watched the parade, had our "brown bag" turkey, played retarded super heroes, and napped. We were also invited over for dessert by a family from our new church. The boys had an absolute blast playing with their two girls, Lucy and Claire, and can't wait to go back.

Thanksgiving Day Song

Liam singing his Thanksgiving Song for his grandparents!
Liam's song

Exploring

This weekend we didn't do anything fancy. Bren wanted to do a playground and pizza, so that's what we did. We took them to Memorial Park and then pizza.

Mt Hood

Portland rarely gets snow, however Mt Hood gets more snow than anyone could ever hope for. On Sunday instead of keeping the boys inside due to rain we took them to the snow instead. They had an absolute blast. Cormac's favorite part was by far the snowball fight. Every time someone got hit he would fall down laughing. The older boys loved eating the snow and catching it on their tongues. They can't wait for the snow parks to open to try tubing and mommy can't wait til the lifts open in a couple of weeks. I have more pics but don't have my computer yet to get them uploaded :(

Science Center

It was raining this weekend so we took the boys to the science center in Portland. It's pretty cool, but we like Orlando's better. But regardless they had a blast. They're favorite part of course was the indoor playground.