Winters Kids

Just a little update about what in the world we're doing these days…

Archive for December, 2010

The Nutcracker

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

Way way back (like, in June), we got this crazy idea to do a really cool Christmas Musical for our Children’s Theatre. What better Christmas production than The Nutcracker, right? We had a great script that put lyrics to all the familiar songs from the ballet, and also added dialogue.

There was one little thing that, although we factored it in, we did not adequately check our math. The little thing was, I was supposed to be giving BIRTH just three weeks before the production!

So, on December 18th, just three weeks post-partum, we took sixty local children ages 5-12, along with 120 costumes and sets and props and put on a WONDERFUL production of The Nutcracker. Somehow, despite numerous technical difficulties in a theater that wasn’t ours where we weren’t allowed to touch anything and where we only got to rehearse twice, and despite two of our leads PUKING on the day of the performance (one of them AT the theater), somehow it still just worked. It always does.

And I will never do that again (the whole, delivering babies right before hand).

For really really cool pictures of the performance, go to Steve Lents Photography.

Posted in Karli | No Comments »

Stay Home Dad for a Week: Part 4 – Gingerbread House

Monday, December 13th, 2010

Thanks to Grammie we had a gingerbread  house to decorate. Every night of the week the kids kept asking if we could decorate it and it never was the right time for it. Finally on Monday I thought we could spare a few minutes to decorate it after we had a good Family Home Evening talking about the real meaning of Christmas. Luckily the house came pre-built and all we had to do was decorate with frosting and candy. Being creative is not quite my thing so the frosting was not put on very elegantly but the kids had fun doing it. Even Mylie was honest saying I wasn’t doing a very good job and that it did not look very nice.

Now that we made the house both Mylie and Nolan are already talking about when they get to break it up and eat it. He wants to invite his friends over to eat it after Christmas. Can you imagine a bunch of 3-year olds eating hard, stale, disgusting gingerbread with hard frosting?

Posted in Mylie, Nolan | 1 Comment »

Stay Home Dad for a Week: Part 3 – Zoolights

Saturday, December 11th, 2010

On Friday evening Mylie had a dance performance at Zoolights at the Oregon Zoo. Unfortunately it rained so they had to move to a smaller stage under a crowded pavilion. Our whole family, even Oliver, braved the rain and trekked through the entire zoo to get to the place where she was to perform. It happened to be the furthest place away from the entrance. We really didn’t get to enjoy Zoolights because Nolan and I had to get to Gospel Christmas (see part 2) and Karli was physically done at that point but it was great seeing her perform for the first time with her new dance studio Element Dance Studio. All the dancers performed well despite the smaller stage and crammed area.

Posted in The Family, The Kids | No Comments »

Stay Home Dad for a Week: Part 2 – Date Nights

Friday, December 10th, 2010

Both on Friday and Saturday I got a great opportunity to go on a date night with Mylie and Nolan individually. On Friday Mylie and I went to see a performance of Annie by the Northwest Children’s Theatre. Even though I expected to be overdressed, I thought it would be fun to get dressed up in my suit.

Getting to the performance wasn’t too bad and I thought being there 30 minutes early would have given us enough time to get a cupcake at Cupcake Jones before the performance. Unfortunately parking was a bit of an issue and Mylie kept complaining she had to walk far. Once we got parked I had to carry and run with her to make it on time. The show was excellent, especially Miss Hannigan. It was hard to tell if Mylie had a good time because she just seemed to be tired the whole time. She also missed out on the cupcakes. Maybe next time.

For Nolan’s date night on Saturday we went with Karli’s aunts and uncles to Gospel Christmas put on by the Oregon Symphony and some local talent. This has been a tradition for her family for some time now but she was unable to come due to just having Oliver. Since Mylie got to see Annie the night before, I thought I’d give Nolan a try to see how he did at a performance. We went right after Mylie’s performance at Zoolights (see part 3) so he was already tired and the show did not start until 7:30 PM and went until about 9:30 PM. It also had a few extra encores. He actually did quite well the first half and even clapped many times but the second half he was very tired. He still stayed quiet and did a good job waiting. Folks around us were quite impressed with him too. He seemed to like the music but probably was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing.

Posted in Mylie, Nick, Nolan | No Comments »

Stay Home Dad for a Week: Part 1 – Aviation Museum

Monday, December 6th, 2010

With the birth of Oliver we decided it would be best for me to take the week off from work following Karli’s mom’s visit so I can take care of the kids. I was looking forward to this time to spend with them and let Karli just focus on her recovery and Oliver. Having a newborn in the family made me realize how great it is to have older kids (even if they’re only 3 and 5) because they interact with you.

The first day Mylie did not have school and I had passes to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville so I took the opportunity to take the 2 kids again. This is the museum where Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose lives. Going during the day on a Monday was the best idea ever because it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. I even did not have to stand in line for the flight simulators where normally I would have to shoo off the kids who would cut in front of me just because I was an adult. This museum is quite cool and they keep adding on to it. They even have a water park opening in the summer of 2011 that has a 747 on top of the building with water slides inside.

It was so cute; Mylie brought a notebook and pen so she could write down things she saw. Items were “sheep”, “large plane”, and “signs”. She also was very excited to drive through the “country” since we had to go through some rural parts to get to McMinnville.

The kids did amazingly well and the hardest part was trying to get them to move on through the museum instead of sitting in the airplane chairs. Throughout the museum they have airplane chairs provided for patrons to watch their videos. They were fascinated with the seat belts and especially the fold-out tray. Nolan got upset with me when I tried helping him open it.

Posted in The Family, The Kids, Vacations | No Comments »

I’m Three!

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

On Friday Nolan officially turned three even though his birthday party was one week earlier. Not wanting to confuse him we just let him think he was three at his birthday party but Mylie kept reminding us that he is not technically three until his birthday. She would whisper that to us as though she was in on a special secret. Nolan did not appreciate her technicality.

Before his birthday party he got to “open” his present from us. It was not wrapped because it was a Strider bike, which is basically a small bike without pedals. It is great because he can learn more of the balancing than worrying about pedaling. Slowly he seems to be learning it but hopefully the weather here can clear up so he can go at it again.

We decided to have a simple birthday party with everything that has been going on. We rented a gym for about an hour where the kids could play on trampolines and a foam pit. Unfortunately the gym was not set up very well for 3 year olds so the instructor had a hard time controlling them. When trying to get them to follow orders, I kept muttering under my breath, “They are only 3.” I think the kids still had fun. After the gym we went upstairs and had cake and Nolan opened his presents.

These past few weeks it has been amazing to see how much Nolan has grown. He has been a lot of fun and hopefully the terrible threes (I believe 3 is worse than 2) for him will not be the same as they were for Mylie.

Posted in Nolan | 2 Comments »