Chessman

Zack participated in his very first chess tournament recently! He is in his school's chess club and just loves it. The tournament was organized by grade, so Zack was in the 1st/2nd grade group. Each kid played 5 games, which made for a loooong day! Zack had three losses and two stalemates, and each game went very long. I don't know much about chess, but I think he was pretty well matched each game (4 of his games he played against a second-grader). Even though he would have liked to have won at least once, Zack had a blast and can't wait to do it again!

One of his games. As you can see, they were one of the last teams playing!

Bastinelli Christmas

Christmas was really spread out this year, our last one was January 2nd! It was nice, though, the let down came slower for us that way! :) We drove down to Eugene and celebrated with Tony's dad, step-mom and sibs. Alyssa and Derek both got married this past summer so it was an extra special first Christmas with their spouses as well!

Everyone is (im)patiently waiting for Uncle Derek and Auntie Rachel. Even the doggies!

And let the gift opening commence!

Uh, sorry Derek...and Casey...

I think I said it already, but wow, we are so blessed with such great loving families. People who don't focus on money or trivial things in life, but people who truly love us and our kids for who we are. So awesome. :)

Hellooooo 2011!

On New Year's Eve we had a few friends over for a little kid-friendly party. We celebrated with the East Coast so that our kids didn't have to stay up til midnight and it worked out just great! The kids had a blast, especially with their noisemakers. :) Though I wouldn't recommend giving them to children with 5 minutes to go. Maybe 5 seconds would be better...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Zoolights!

A few days after we Christmas we finally made it to Zoolights. Too bad it was about 30 degrees outside. We always seem to pick the coldest day in December to go. We are going to have to change that... Our friends Erin and Mark and their sweet daughter, Madison, met us there, and we had a great time, besides being popsicles!

Isn't this pic cool? I took it while we were in line for the train right after one had left. I guess the flash hit the smoke just right.

Christmas 2010 - Part 2

Once we were all dressed and ready, we headed over to Marie and David's house. There we exchanged gifts with them and Chrissie and Aaron and had a delicious dinner.

Sadie, Aaron and Chrissie

David and Marie

Tony, Tim and my mom, Betsey

David wrestled at U of O. MacArthur Court, which is where all of the wrestling matches were, is being torn down as we speak. Tony, Chrissie and Aaron went to one of the last U of O basketball games there and took a ton of pictures of Mac Court. Then Chrissie made an amazing canvas collage of the pictures she had taken, as well as one of David and his wrestling team. It had trouble arriving on time, so we printed out a picture so that David could see what it was going to look like. I think he liked it. :)

For Marie, we had (ok, CHRISSIE had) taken a picture of the 7 of us and put it in an awesome frame. I will show those pictures at another time. I'm still on Christmas, give me a break!

Drew and Uncle Aaron having some snuggle time. :)

Zack got his fist Harry Potter Lego set from who else but his Harry Potter lovin' auntie and uncle!

Pillow Pets!
They LOVE them and sleep with them every night.

Momma and my Drewby

Mmmmm, dinner!

And Dessert!

What a great Christmas. We were so blessed to have been able to spend it with two of our families in one, something that has never happened before. I love Christmas!

Christmas 2010 - Part 1 (Finally!)

Christmas morning had finally arrived! The kids were so excited, it was all we could do to wake up and get downstairs with the camera before they came down. Did Santa come? Sure enough!

Look what Santa brought! He even got Sadie's doll to show off the luggage he got for her. And he must have let the reindeer in, cuz they tore the bag of reindeer chow to pieces!

Stockings!

Tim and Mom. I think they had fun watching three crazy, excited kids on Christmas morning.

Pretty ornament from Grandma

Helping Daddy open his new Ducks flag for the car

For my mom, I made a really awesome book chronicling our August trip to Cali for Sadie's 10th birthday

Zack got Drew his very first set of his OWN Legos. Drew was so happy!

See? :)

And there were more presents...

"Betsey, I would have preferred if the cookies in this tin went up to about here..."

No we didn't forget Kahz! The kids and I got him a really awesome toy.

Huh. It must have been too awesome!