Here’s the rest of what we were up to in December. But first a cute shot of Phoebe!

She went out in her first snow just before Christmas. We went for a drive to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood right when it started coming down. When we got home we rushed in to find Phoebe and bring her out. She loved it!

We painted our friends, The Lotts, kitchen for them in December

The boys cranked out a lot of reindeer!

Layla was a very helpful cleaner upper

Santa came by in a fire truck picking up food for a local food drive

Phoebe loves the free pupacinos at Starbucks

We heard lots of cheering coming from inside this tent during a Seahawks game. Can’t say we have any interest in going in this tent.

Advent Calendars. Kieron opted for one which featured daily jam varieties

Suki likes to attend Zoom meetings with Silas sometimes

Watching PNB’s The Nutcracker, which featured my ballet teacher, Wade Walthall, as the Nutcracker Prince.

More Barbies

Close encounter

Finally trimming Avery’s pandemic hair.

Playdate and Kiwi crates with Mason

Layla at her new desk

Suki likes the chair

Helping me clean the sink

Zoom story time with Grammy

The pets sharing the kitty condo

Makeup!

Clare and Layla

Wrapping in the “Harry Potter Closet”

Zoom ballet

Avery sent me this photo from his room. Our new neighbors are nice but they watch a lot of Fox News and Avery can see it all from his bed. Oy!

A couple notes we found in Silas’ room!
    

Banana Foster

An unusual quiet moment in the King house after I picked up library books we had on hold.

Wolfie had been missing for over a month when we found him in the Beanie Baby box!

Nana came at the end of December to celebrate Christmas with us. The holidays  were so much different due to the pandemic and not having vaccines available yet. We had a great time celebrating together despite it all.

Christmas morning at the King house was quieter than normal, but not that quiet.

I think I snapped this pic on Christmas Eve. Avery is in different PJ’s and Layla changed into her Christmas dress right after she woke up. Good thing I remembered to get one the night before!

Every ten-year-old asked for an air fryer this year, right?

Is it Captain or Papa Bear?

Zooming with Nana and the Halverstadts

Yorkshire pudding puffs

Someone almost helped herself to roast

She had to wait until after dinner but she got some evenutally

Playing Bingo with Grammy

Checking out Load Runner online

Building the Lego Technic Jeep. It was completed in under 48 hours

This year it was just us and Grammy and Papa for Christmas. We quarantined for ten days prior and then I got a Covid test on the 22nd. We missed having everyone together for the holiday but were thankful to at least see Grammy and Papa. We had a second Christmas a couple days later with Nana and Zoomed with the Avery’s of Pullman and the Halverstadt’s of Oakland. Looking forward to hopefully having everyone together next year!

“How are you feeling today, Papa? Are you in the blue, green or red zone?”

Zooming with the Averys of Pullman

Opening a couple early presents

The Dice Game

Look who I bumped into in the garage!

Phoebe did not know what to think of our visitor and appeared extremely confused

Layla was mesmerized

Running upstairs to look for him in the sky

Serving up milk and cookies

Layla insisted on cutting the carrot into pieces for each of the reindeer. Very socialist of her!

We baked a lot of cookies this Christmas. Since it was going to be a smaller group we did about half as many batches as normal. We decided to add in gingerbread cookies and divinity.

Mixing the divinity

Meanwhile we baked some ginger bread cookies

Rolling out Christmas cookies with four kids is always exciting. I divided the dough and had them come in for shifts this year and it worked well.

Cutting the divinity. It turned out just right!