World Center for Birds of Prey

I am always searching for fun free educational activities that we can go and do. We are fortunate to live in an area that has a lot to offer. Boise is home to the largest migration route of birds in the northern hemisphere. There is a place called Lucky Peak where they have banding station. Throughout the spring they have volunteers stay up through the night and help catch and put identification bands on birds for scientific purposes. Since Boise is home to such a great variety of bird species and such large numbers of them The World Center for Birds of Prey set up shop in town. If you ever come to Boise it is not to be missed.

The center has all sorts of educational activities and birds to look at and learn about. Today they waived admission and had fun activities for the kids to participate in. I decided to get Bay out of the house for a few hours so we invited some friends, packed up and headed to the hills to check out some birds. Jeff's sister Candace and her daughter Emma, as well as the Craig Family. The Craig's are our favorite babysitters and wonderful friends. They have 5 kids that adore Bay and Makena. It is so nice to have developed new family friends that enjoy our kids so much! Luigi, a Harpy Eagle
Queenie, an Eurasian Eagle-owl
Peregrine Falcon
Bay and Emma wrestling. Someday Bay will discover that Emma is a girl and probably won't want to be tackled. For now she tolerates it and I think secretly likes it. I am glad they have each other to play with and we live close to each other even if they don't always get along perfectly
Bay and Caden checking out the bronze giant bird nest. Cassi's wingspan...She is the one that adores Makena and loves when I let them babysit because she gets to hold her. She also loves playing with Bay and he really likes her as well.
James. Their oldest boy. I don;t know him very well but I know that all of the boys like when Bay comes over and they get to show him all kinds of cool new boy toys and games.
Jonathon the middle boy. He is a nice kids like all the others. Bay seems to like to play with all of the boys.
Caden the youngest of the Craig family. He loved exploring the birds and doing activities with Bay while we were there.
Jessica the oldest daughter. I think that she is a junior in high school. Sweet girl.
California Condor. Such an amazing bird. They have a breeding program at the center.
Bay holding a very large spiny pine cone.
Notice the sign. This is one of the many times that Bay caused trouble while we were there. A bunch of other kids noticed he was on the fence and made a big deal about it....but it wasn't a big deal.
Peregrine Falcon. The fastest animal in the entire world. Clocked at speeds over 220 mph.
Sheri helping bay put on some wings. If you notice he picked the only set that has a 9 feet wingspan. Yet another place and area in the center where we got in trouble...

first snowfall

It had been a dry year as far as winter precipitation up until this last week. In the past week alone our mountains have gotten feet of snow and we have had many inches of rain and on this particular day 4 inches of beautiful snow. This is probably only the second time Bay has played in the snow. He was delighted when he saw the snow falling when he woke up. The day that it snowed I was watching my friend Lisa's kids for the morning. It was great that Bay was able to have some friends to play with in the snow.
Bay refused to wear a hat so his head got soaked, as you can see he didn't seem to mind. He continued to work at building a mound of snow despite a cold wet head.
Liam trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.
Aiden hamming it up for a picture. I took photos since their mom was out of town and wasn't able to see them play in the snow.
Aiden spent most of his time picking up blocks of snow and eating it...hope he found clean pieces...
Cold and wet but not wanting to go inside. Bay had a blast playing in the snow

loosing hair...

When Bay was a baby he lost most of his hair by 3 months. He was blessed with a lot of hair as a baby but we were sad to see him loose it. Makena also was blessed with a full head of hair at birth. I had hoped that maybe by some small miracle since she was a girl that she wouldn't loose hers like Bay had.

Bays hair at only a few weeks of age. Notice how thick and dark it is.
Bay at 3 months. Can you believe this is the same kid. He lost sooo much hair.

I remember just before Bay started to loose his hair mine started falling out in clumps, so when I began to loose mine two months ago I was praying that Makena would keep hers. Unfortunately, shes loosing it. Luckily she has little baby hairs underneath just like her brother did that will take their place. If Bays hair is any indication of what Makena's hair might be like down the road then I have nothing to worry about
Makena hair at only a few weeks old Makena's hair now. She is just a week over 5 months

Christmas with my family

My mom and I came to the conclusion that it is way more affordable the enjoyable to travel before Christmas. By traveling before the holiday you avoid the crazy holiday traffic, you avoid the overpriced flights and you still get to do and see all the fun holiday things. I think we may try and travel before Christmas and celebrate with my parents early every year. This year my parents came mid-December and were able to stay for 6 days. We had a blast spending time with them. We went and did lots of fun holiday activities. We visited the botanical gardens one of the nights they were here and saw the lights. Somehow I cannot find any of the pictures from that...bummer. Another fun activity we did together was attend the Polar Express pajama story time at Barnes and Noble. Every year the have a special reading of the story, a pajama parade,cookies and juice,and they give each child a bell like the one in the story. Its a fun family activity for the kids and best part is its free. Lining up for the pajama parade and waiting along side grandpa to get his special bell.
Bay loved being able to jingle his bell during the pajama parade.
Makena and Bay snuggling with grandpa Lee and giving him some "love"

Christmas with Jeff's Family

Since Jeff worked Christmas day we were not able to go to Jeff's Grandma's house this year to celebrate Christmas with his family. We kept thinking there would be a time that we would be able to get together with Jeff's parents to exchange gifts but it never happened. Gerry, Jeff's dad came into town for a conference and we exchanged gifts with just him. I felt bad that Debbie wasn't able to come down and see Bay open his gifts. I tried my best to capture photos of him opening his gifts and his excitement for his new toys. Here are a few pics from opening gifts and our evening with Grandpa Gerry.Makena loves her new fleece blanket that Grandma Debbie made. Notice the beautiful crochet edging she does on them. She does a really great job on them
Bay opening his Leapster Explorer...Such a great education game. We can hardly get him to stop playing it.We have had to set limits on the amount of play time he likes it so much.
You can always tell which gifts are from Grandpa Gerry because they have a BSU (Boise State University) theme.
We can't wait for the weather to warm up so we can go to a park and play with the ball more.
Thankyou Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Gerry for all the wonderful Christmas presents. We wished we could have all gotten together and celebrated the holidays together.

Bay loves getting mail

Bay and Makena have a very special Nana. My mom knows that Bay loves to get mail so she periodically sends him little "surprises" in the mail. This week she sent him a Legoland book and some sparkly Melissa and Doug scissors and a pack or Sharkies fruit snacks. Makena got her first surprise in the mail as well. Nana sent her teething beads. She loves them. Thank you Nana for sending us mail and special surprises...We love them and appreciate them Bay checking out his new Legoland book
Openig and examining his new Melissa and Doug sparkly scissors
Telling Daddy about the book that Nana sent him
Makena chewing on her new teething ring. We laughed so hard when she got the two beads into her mouth like this because it looks like yellow Mater teeth...so funny

The kids

Makena is now 5 months and is changing so quickly. She is rolling both directions and rolls front to back and back to front. She is also pushing up so much she moves herself backwards. Shes still a happy little girl. Bay loves being a big brother and cannot get enough of his sister. It is so fun to see how much they have taken to each other.

New Years

New Years eve looses its magic after you are married and have kids. Maybe its just because we have a 5 month old baby and a nearly 4 year old son and sleep is a highly prized commodity. Instead of going out making an amazing meal ect we stayed in, had Candace, Chad, and Emma over and watched a movie. It was no big deal. We watched the ball drop and shared a kiss and called it a night. Daddy and Makena just moments before she fell asleep for the night. Emma and Bay watching the ball drop on TV. Yes they were up that late... Makena passed out on Daddy earlier in the evening.

Bath time...

Makena like her older brother absolutely loves her bath...Here are some pictures to prove it. I couldn't help play with her hair...haha

First Snowfall

The other morning we woke to a dusting of snow. As I was nursing Makena Bay ignored my attempts to keep him from going outside. He ran outside in his pajamas and his socks. I wish I had gotten a picture of him walking around out there chasing our cat whiskers (who also was not suppose to be outside). He seemed slightly immune to the cold for a bit as he ran all over the back yard and even ran around out front in the driveway. Here is some of the evidence left over from his snowy walk.

Finally eating meat

We have struggled for the last year to get Bay to eat any type of meat and/or vegetables. I am happy to report he is slowly taking a liking to carrots, he will occasionally eat broccoli and sweet potatoes that we steam or roast.We found these amazing teriyaki pineapple and chicken meatballs at Costco that he loves.Its a long story how we got him to eat meat and vegetables but we are glad he is willing to continually try new things. I am loving these plates as it divides things into food groups for him. Bay's dinner. Teriyaki chicken meatballs,cheese quesidillas, and blueberries.Devouring the meatballs...Ketchup is a miracle dip for kids. As you can see he ate it all no problem. I am sure he's getting ready for a growth spurt as he is constantly hungry.