Hello 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

A little bit of Christmas

Jolly little Wells would say "Ho-ho"... on Christmas eve, we went over to Brians Aunt and Uncles house. Santa came to the party and brought toys for the kiddos. As you can see, they were star struck!

What four-year old little girl DIDN'T ask Santa for a Rapunzel Tangled doll this year? opening Christmas Eve Jammies!It was so fun having Grandma and Grandpa here for Christmas!
Christmas morning..i had to WAKE both kids up! So painful...They were both DEEP asleep. I would have let them sleep in but Brian's parents came over at 9 for presents and breakfast. Wells was like..."You woke me up for whaaat???"

then he discovered his new train table..aka..our new coffee table, ugh!

a few days before Christmas...Hazel and Claire making sugar cookies...or should i say a pile of sprinkles with a little cookie underneath:) ...they were VERY generous with the sprinkles!How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Molbaks nursey, this place has thousands of Poinsettas..so many different varieties. Really a fun place to walk through during the holidays.

It was a white Christmas...sort of. Well it rained ALL day on Christmas but we have had lots of snow this December too. Love it..even tho the whole city shuts down and everyone freaks out!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Dashing through the Snow...

We rounded up a big group of friends and went over the river and through the woods to Happy Trails Sleighrides..led by the sweetest, happiest old cowboy...Happy Jack! He truly was really very HAPPY!!! We sang carols and rang jingle bells on a two-horse open sleigh. Happy Jack took us on a short ride over to a sledding hill with all kinds of assorted sleds and tubes. Next to the hill was our own private heated tent. It was snowing pretty hard, which made it that much more fun but also quite wet, so it was the perfect set-up to be able to go in and get warm. Inside the tent was a wood-burning stove with hot water for our hot chocolate and a place to heat the pot of chili we had brought. The tent itself was about 100 deg. inside so it warmed you right up. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire and ate chilli....a new tradition for sure! Happy Jack:)Mia, catching snowflakes. Her tongue was out in every pic.

Jack gave the kids a bucket of apples to throw TO the horses. The kids threw them at the horses.

They had this "bathtub" waiting for us. I want this sled!

A little Caroling..

his first time sledding!

all the kiddos:)

You can sort of see the tents in the background. Genious!

Thanksgiving 2010

This Thanksgiving we traveled to Utah. I flew with Max and missed "snow"pocalypse here in Seattle. I kid you not...we got about 5 inches of snow and the WHOLE puget sound region SHUT DOWN! Cars were stuck on the freeway for 12hrs+..people everywhere just ditched their cars and walked, schools shut down, grocery stores were pandemonium!!! It took Brian 20 hrs to drive with Hazel and our friends that were also coming to Utah. So glad i flew!!! I just had to roll my eyes about how bad Seattle is at handling snow...we need PLOWS!!!So glad that we all made it safely. It was so great to spend it with family. I slaved away cooking for the big feast, it is alot of work..but worth it. Everything turned out soooo yummy. We had a very diverse group this year. Smaller than usual but great company. My mom invited some foreign exchange students. Our Thanksgiving clan had peeps from Korea, Venezuela, Mali, and Dominican Republic. We taught them how to play spoons, so funny! They were loving the authentic american Thanksgiving meal..kept taking pictures of their plates and eachother eating..haha! Good times:)

Hazel had a blast with her cuz Ruby. They were bosom buddies this trip!!!

It's Halloween...

We took the kids trick-or-treating just down the street to our friends hood. It was like "Wysteria Lane" on desperate housewives. Ha! Everyone's house was more decked out with spooky decor than the next...i swear there was some competition going with who had the best decorated house! It was the perfect street to trick-or-treat!

some houses were a bit too scary for the kids..for example the 7 ft. tall frankenstein guy that stayed in character the whole time..what child is going to want to take candy from you???

So i gave into the princess costume this year..since Haze had the perfect Snow White hair. Wells was a little octopus...he would NOT wear the head/hood tho:(

this guy had a smoke monster on his front porch!

okay, this is at hazels' pre-school pumpkin carving night..total focus and concentration!and this...is Xander (behind Haze) her little crush...they have already discussed marriage according to Hazel!