A Christmas Recap in Photos

Well the start of 2017 has been a little rough in our household.  The second week in January we all came down with the flu (which apparently is a flu epidemic here in the state of Washington).  James, Nate and I stayed home from work/school for 3 days.  Cameron came down with it first and was mostly over it after a weekend.  Nate and James healed up in about a week.  Unfortunately for me the flu decided to hang around and turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia.  I haven't coughed so hard for so long in a really long time.  And trying to sleep was really frustrating.  Finally after the doctor did some x-rays and determined that it had evolved into pneumonia, I was put on antibiotics and now I'm feeling much better.  But whew what a rough couple of weeks!

So now that I'm on the mend, I want to make sure to capture our Christmas memories on here before we're into spring already.  Here's our Christmas recap captured in photos:

Picking out our Christmas Tree!

It turned out nicely this year.  And it didn't dry out thankfully--way less needles than last year!

Uncle Dean and Aunt Carol came to visit to help celebrate dad's birthday.  Our annual trip to Molbaks.

Visiting the Bellevue Botanical Gardens light display

Celebrating dad's 70th birthday!

Nate and Cam made their first Gingerbread House

Nate was in the Christmas play at church.  Cutest little shepherd.  He sang "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Away in a Manger"

Making Christmas cookies

Annual tradition to Nielsen's Bakery on Christmas Eve to pick up and eat danish

Presents!!!

Sweet photo of Barb and Jay

My favorite activity over winter break was sledding up at Hyak Sno Park!  The boys loved it!

Sadly I didn't get enough photos when we were at the Spauldings' on Christmas.  I need to be better about that next year.  What a wonderful holiday this year though.  So many blessings and fun memories.  And such a magical time with the boys being the ages that they are.  Nathan is definitely into Santa and asks tons of questions about him which is fun.  I just love this time of year and I'm sad it's over already.  But now we have spring to look forward to.  And hopefully no more sickness!

Thanksgiving Weekend

One of my favorite times of the year is Thanksgiving weekend.  I think Christmas is my ultimate favorite holiday, but Thanksgiving comes in at a close second.  And I love the entire Thanksgiving weekend not only for Thanksgiving day itself, but also because it kicks off the Christmas season. Thanksgiving is so good because it's all about family, reflecting on what I'm grateful for, and experiencing/building traditions. This year was all of that and it was a special weekend.

We started out Thanksgiving day with our new favorite tradition for just our family of 4.  Issaquah does a great Turkey Trot run that benefits the Issaquah Food Bank.  I've always tried to do something active on Thanksgiving day and this event forces us to really make it happen and it's a great way to start out the day.  Last year it was bitterly cold.  This year it was a downpour.  But both times we got our butts out of bed, bundled up, and made the best of it.  I decided this year I would easily take rain over bitter cold.  And our boys did great in the stroller--kids are so resilient!  Nate started out running with me and then rode the rest of the run until the finish.  Both boys loved finding the stations to get their card punched so they could get a prize at the end.  Fun times.

Afterwards we raced home and the boys watched the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade (another tradition) while we got ready for the day.  Of course we couldn't leave the house until good ole Santa Clause came down the parade route.  :)

This year we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with my family.  And our special guests were Carly and her sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  It was a really nice day of great company, yummy food, good conversation, and relaxing. (I realized after going through photos--we need to get my mom in more pictures!  She's always the one taking them.  Sorry mom!)

Annual tradition of putting out the "village" for Christmas

Pops and his boys

After the meal we went to the Spauldings to have dessert and enjoy time with the other side of the family.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures from that part of the day.  But we had delicious pie, watched football, digested, and enjoyed great conversation as usual.

We were ecstatic on Friday to watch the UW Huskies clobber Wazzu in the Apple Cup while hanging out with our friends the Ridges.

Then Saturday was another annual tradition of going to downtown Seattle to enjoy Black Friday sales and all the fun Christmas activities including seeing the Macys star and the Westlake Christmas tree lit up, watching the model trains in the Macys display window, riding the Carousel, and seeing the Gingerbread Houses at the Sheraton Hotel.  This has always been one of my most favorite days of the year with my family and I love getting to experience it all with my boys now and have it be a special tradition for them too.

Riding the Carousel!

This year the gingerbread houses were Harry Potter theme!

To cap off the weekend of fun we ended the Thanksgiving break with a visit to see Santa.  Nathan was fully prepared this year with his list of 47 ITEMS!!  Nana helped him compose his list a couple weeks ago.  Santa was astonished and a little overwhelmed.  He asked Nate to narrow his list down to 3 things.  :)  No tears this year with the big man.  I thought maybe Cam would be scared this year because Nate melted down at his age, but he was fine.  Just curious as to who the weird man was with the white beard and red suit.  Both sets of grandparents came along and then we all enjoyed a fun dinner at Red Robin.

Cheers to a successful, memorable, special Thanksgiving weekend!

Annual Mountain Drive...resurrected

For many years we enjoyed doing an Annual Mountain Drive in the fall with my parents.  That tradition was put on hold when little kids came along because we couldn't imagine that long of a drive and day with 2 little ones. But the event has finally been resurrected!  We finally felt like the boys are at a good age that we could probably manage the trek this year.  And it was a great success!

Starting from our home we drove through Carnation, Duvall and on to Highway 2 to the town of Sultan.  First stop: Sultan Bakery for a yummy breakfast complete with enormous doughnuts.

Second stop: along the Wenatchee River after going over Stevens Pass to enjoy the beautiful colors of the leaves.

Third stop: the bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth complete with lunch at a very German establishment

Final stop: Smallwood Farm to get apples and enjoy the kids activities including a crazy train ride through the farm and orchards

It was such a fun day and the boys did great!  They actually slept the entire way home through Blewitt Pass since we tired them out so much.  We're so happy to have brought back this annual tradition and now we can share it with the boys!

Cameron's 2nd Birthday

Now that I have finally moved through the dense fog of busy-ness at work and to distract myself from the craziness of the election, I'm finally doing a post about Cameron's 2nd birthday.  It was only 2 months ago....sheesh!  But man this time of year is hard to stay up on documenting our family.

Cameron is a lover of animals.  So of course the natural choice for his birthday this year was the zoo. We did the same thing for Nate when he turned 2.  There's just something about animals when you're a 2-year-old I guess.  Our wonderful family joined us for a beautiful day exploring the zoo and visiting all the animal exhibits that we could fit in.  Cameron was in heaven!  Then we drove a few blocks north to celebrate with dinner and cake at Zeek's Pizza.  Photos to follow.

But first I wanted to record what Cameron is like at this age:

*Cam is super funny.  He brings so much laughter and humor to our family and loves to be a "ham."
*He is our rough and tumble kid--loves all things sports related and loves throwing, catching, kicking any ball he can get his hands on
*He also has no fear whether it's climbing to the top of the play structure, jumping off our furniture, or trying brand new things Cameron has incredible bravery and courage.  We also have to watch him like a hawk though too
*He is still cuddly and sweet...thank goodness!
*He loves animals, trucks, trains, legos, "guys," wrestling with his brother, playing baseball or soccer, watching Lion Guard, and reading books
*Nathan is his absolutely hero.  He's at an age where he copies Nate and always wants to do what he's doing.  They are pretty good buddies.  Obviously they have their moments, but for the most part they really love each other's company
*After a slow start he's talking up a storm and learning new words and phrases all the time
*he's a big helper.  We're always amazed at how good he is at picking up toys or being helpful around the house.  At the same time though he's also definitely 2 and has an opinion about what he wants to do or not do.  But once we get him going with helping out, he is awesome.
*We can't imagine what we would do without Cameron's fun, funny, sweet, happy personality in our family.

We love you Cam and Happy Birthday!