Merry Christmas!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care and Santa's milk (or actually egg nog) and cookies were placed not so carefully by the tree.

Christmas at the Lake

An All-Hurley Christmas

We had a wonderful time with the family! Thanks Auntie for the pictures!

Santa!

Just about every other year we have a picture with someone crying. Poor Ashtyn she was terrified. I had to hide behind Santa and hold her, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten anywhere near him.

Can we build it?

Team Hurley Final Score: Girls 2 - Boys 4

IT'S A BOY!!

Zoolights!

Ryder and Ava

Ryder and Adam

Ashtyn and Ava

Just a working girl

It's a snowy day in the neighborhood...

No school today and they couldn't wait to get out in the snow! They've been off sledding for nearly 2 hours now with our neighbors Kyla and Elya. Ashtyn would rather stay inside and that is just fine with me because I would need to be out with her and it is sooo cold! Maybe after lunch?

In Training! Ugh!

Day 5 of Potty Training. Yesterday's trip to Seattle was a bit of a set-back, but other than that she has done pretty well! I bought her a Barbie for incentive. Unfortunately, it is still in the box because we have yet made it through the day without an accident. At least now most of her accidents are in the bathroom on the way to the toilet. She's getting closer. Potty training is such a hard job - for me! There's no going back now!

Harry Potter Exhibition at the Pacific Science Center

Today we went to the much anticipated Harry Potter Exhibition. Chase just recently finished the first book. It would have been nice to have seen all of the movies or have read all the books before going. From the moment we entered it was so fun! They really did a great job with it.

After the exhibition we made our way over to the rest of the Pacific Science Center. On this trip we were actually there during feeding time for the snakes. They get fed once a week and as much as I didn't want to watch it was hard not to. I had to take a picture of Ashtyn watching the snake eat. At this point when I took the picture it had already started swallowing it, but Ashtyn was down there right in front of it the whole time. She was so interested. The boys were watching too but not quite like Ashtyn.

Looks like someone isn't afraid of the snakes.

Princess Playdate

I bought Ashtyn two princess dresses the day after Halloween on sale and today she had a playdate with her best friend Sarah. The "Belle" dress is her favorite and she has been saving the Cinderella dress for Sarah. They have so much fun playing together!

Halloween 2010

This year, Chase is Harry Potter, Ryder is a gorilla, (he refused to wear the mask making it hard for everyone to know what he was, so stubborn!) and Ashtyn is a dinosaur.

With our friends, Dorothy and combat soldier.




We stopped at a house that had left out candy. The note said, "take only 2 please." Chase made sure that everyone only got 2.

Ashtyn did a good job keeping up with her brothers. They all decorated white pillow cases for to carry their treats in and by the end of the evening, Ashtyn's was so heavy that she had to sling it over her shoulder. It was funny to see her swing it over her shoulder after leaving someone's door.

The Tae Kwon Do Kid

Ryder just started Tae Kwon Do and he loves it, his teacher says he is a natural.

Ashtyn trying to do Tae Kwon Do too.

Fun at the Pumpkin Farm

We had so much fun at the pumpkin farm today! The farm that we went to had lots of activities for the kids and we made sure to do them all...



One of our first stops was at the hay barn. The kids were able to climb up on hay bales and then jump into the hay. (Ashtyn did not jump, too scary for her.)

Some sort of animal swing made out of tires.



Next was the corn pit. I never knew rolling around in corn could be so fun.

And back to the hay barn, ready... go!

It took me a couple takes but I finally got some one in the air.

They have this pool for the ducks to race on. Periodically throughout the day they will have a duck race. When I took this picture the ducks were not racing but later we caught the end of a race and about 5 ducks raced and the "Oregon Duck" won. Boo! I didn't catch all of the duck's names but one of the other one's was "Aflec".

Now we're at the hay maze. It was pretty a pretty big one with 2 stories! I had a hard time keeping up with Ashtyn, who was trying to keep up with her brothers.

Every farm must have a tractor, this one is Farmer Ben's first tractor.



Finally the pumpkin patch to end the day! It took a while to find the right pumpkins. Chase had to have this huge one. Luckily for me Ashtyn and Ryder were OK with the smaller ones.