Hoopes family 2014

On a beautiful and sunny day in October...

 Goodbye 2014. 

blog mush

 Drew likes to be "nakey pants for five minutes" before getting dressed for the day or getting his jammies on at night.  It's a Hoopes thing.

 cute cousins at Grandma's

 Flashback to 5th grade graduation,  June 2012.

 Playing cars and making "traffic" for Drew's FHE activity.

 Flashback to Ali making shrinky dinks.

 Drew playing with his new monster trucks from Rylee on the way home from Grandma's.

 More flashbacks from home--Christmas 1990 and 1976--wish I still had that Santa sweatshirt.  And the turtleneck.  

 Drew is in love with the Santa hat.  The nametag is from the guys at the Costco Tire Center.  Since Drew and I are there about once a week watching the tires go on and off, they made him an honorary employee with an official nametag.  How nice is that?!

A perfect morning in my book.  Steve and the kids stopped by the gym to get our jamba juice gift card (thanks Aunt Jenny!) after playing some basketball at the church.  When the teacher saw Steve, she told him to stay and finish the workout.  He brought everyone in--Jake worked out with us while the three littles played in the playroom.  Then we ALL went to Jamba.  Doesn't get much better than that.

Christmas

For such an important and exciting day, I sure don't have very many pictures.  We left for Sunnyside the night of Steve's birthday and stayed until the day after Christmas.  In this case, words will have to be worth at least a picture...

gingerbread houses

grandma's endless goodies

christmas games

movies

sleepovers

cold cereal galore

Moments I managed to capture:

 The annual Nativity with kids who just keep getting older and older, but thankfully, will still participate.

 The line-up on Christmas morning, youngest to oldest, waiting to get to the presents!

The action shots.

And back at home the day after Christmas...

the kids opened this from their generous parents...

and Drew found this for him.

which he LOVES.  Maybe next year we will get a basement to go with it. ;)  

Or at least a clean garage.

forty!

Steve is 40! 

Celebrations began on Thursday night at Arena Sports with his soccer buddies.  It was a SURPRISE thanks to our good friend, Ronnie who helped execute the surprise, all the guys on the teams who kept it a secret, and to Arena Sports for sending out an email saying their game time had been changed (it hadn't).

Steve loves, like LOVES, playing soccer and loves these guys on both teams, so I thought it'd be the perfect place to begin the celebrating.

And after dinner (Bai Tong) and dessert (The Ram) out on Saturday night, we continued celebrating on Sunday, the ACTUAL day.  

The present he liked the most is the picture we found that morning of some of us in the January Ensign!

Surprise!  And happy birthday!

Happy birthday to the greatest guy we know.

You make 40 look good.

school happenings

Ali recently had 4th grade Market Day and did great!  She made and sold super cute hair ties.  Our little entrepreneur.

Emmy has really improved her writing and spelling!

October 2, 2014

My friends call me funny.  Because I am being myself.  I like to be funny.  That's how you make friends.  Just be as funny as you can.

October 22, 2014

November 10, 2014

And Jake had 3 extra days off of school before break:

Dear Pacific Cascade Middle School Families,

We have had to make a quick decision this morning, Wednesday, December 17 to close school for today. We have just learned this morning of a typed letter left outside a teacher’s classroom threatening violence against four PCMS staff members this Friday. The note also contains unspecified threats to do violence at lunch or during the school’s winter assembly on Friday and makes reference to having access to a gun.  Buses were already in route with students as this situation came to light. All students will be picked up from their stops. We will meet the buses at the school, inform students of the situation and then route them back home. We expect the students to arrive home after 10:30 a.m. Staff will be here to meet any students who walked or are dropped off who did not receive this message in time.

We are working closely with local law enforcement who are at the school now. We will continue to have an increased police presence at PCMS while we, and law enforcement, investigate the threat. We take all threats very seriously and apologize for this inconvenience. We will send an update on the situation and the status of school for tomorrow and Friday when we have more information to share with you. 

looks like Christmas

Christmas prep!

 Ornament by Ali, cookies by Drew, Rudolph portrait by Emmy

 Drew's favorite past time lately--eating the candy from the gingerbread houses!

 A decorated tree and gingerbread houses

A North Pole lunch at Aunt Jenny's

JOY to the world

Joy is our newest Elf on the Shelf!  She JOY-ned Max this year and it looks like they have had some fun together.  Seems like lately we've needed an extra set of eyes around here to keep kids behaving.

Emmy feels a little sorry for Max, though, because we have no ornaments that say "MAX", no Christmas songs about him, or anything.

Seemed like Max didn't mind too much, though.  He had some company as he hung around here and flew back and forth to the North Pole--what's not JOYous about that?  It's JOY to the MAX.

phrases

 

We love listening to Drew.  He says the cutest things.  They seem like regular ol' phrases until they are said in his sweet little two year old voice.

He has his opinions and shares them:

I don't like it.

This is so awesome.

I love that.

That's my favorite.

He also is very easy to bargain with.  His response when we can't go to the park or Costco is:

Maybe next time.  

When it's time to go to bed, he says:

Five more minutes.  

However, sometimes he puts up more of a fight with:

I really want to!

Pleeeeaaaasse?

If he notices that I'm upset he says:

Mommy be happy. 

When he's upset:

I crying.

I trying to be happy.

Because he climbs on, scales up, jumps from, or swings on just about anything, he often says:

Nice catch!

when he prevents himself from falling.

When we drive places he likes to know:

Me get out?

Where else we going?

And he points out familiar landmarks:

That's Clay's house.

There's Fred Meyer.

When he needs to apologize he says:

Sorry about that.

When we apologize to him he says:

That's otay.

This Christmas season, he loves to sing:

Jingle Bells

And he loves to say

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!

We pretty much think he's brilliant.  And adorable.  

He is a-drew-ably brilliant.