Jonathan took the kids skiing in January. Layla was beyond excited, and apparently fearless on the bunny hill. Silas was an old pro, and ready to move on to more advanced stuff with Kieron.

Getting the gear ready

A couple days later Jonathan took Kieron and Silas up. They had a great time riding the lift and bombing down!

 

While the middle two went skiing, I took my bookends to Bellevue Square. They had fun filling up on candy at The Sweet Factory.

A stop at the pet store to pick up essentials. I remember looking at fish just like this with Uncle Scott when I was little.

Avery helped Layla put together a Lego Friends set we picked out at Target

A week-and-a-half after winter break ended we got hit with a big snow storm. Of course it came at the beginning of the week. The kids had two snow days followed by a day back at school. We chose to keep Avery home from middle school after I called to ask about road conditions in Fall City and decided it wasn’t worth the risk to send him. Poor Kieron and Silas were fit to be tied and didn’t understand why they still had to go to school down the street.  It turned out about half the other middle and high school parents decided the same thing, many of whom called the school district complaining about the decision to keep school open (poor district can’t win). Anyway, they got the message and school was closed Thursday and Friday.

We had a lot of fun sledding, building forts and igloos, and eating snow ice cream. I have to say, this was the best snow break yet, largely in part because our youngest is 3 1/2 and I’m not pregnant, which means we can ALL actually get out and play!

A little sledding injury from the Snoqualmie Community Park

We had another wonderful Christmas with family this year. We opened presents in the morning and then Nana joined us shortly after that for the rest of the days’ festivities. It’s fun having a full house this time of year! Uncle Scott –  always goofing off! It was a very Frozen Christmas at our house this year. Layla got this castle with Anna & Elsa dolls, a book with smaller figurines from Frozen II and an Elsa dress (Frozen II version). The wolf she’s been asking for all year! Hot chocolate! That’s Avery holding up some Old Spice Swagger he got in his stocking! She got her horse (even if it is not real, she loves “Brownie”. Happy boy got AirPods (along with the rest of the 7th grade class). The BMC D-Day set! Madeleine and Elsa More Charades Nana’s  here! Time to feast Everyone Best roast ever!

Another fun Christmas Eve is in the books. Grammy came up the weekend prior to help prepare, and Papa and The Avery’s of Pullman showed up that afternoon in time for the festivities. We had our usual spread of hors d’oeuvres followed by “The Dice Game”. Then Santa paid us a visit and we played some Charades before bedtime. 

If looks could kill

Hard to believe it’s the same girl!

The kids opened packages from Auntie Ashleigh & Uncle Mark. They loved the cash and we all appreciated the charity gift cards

Frosting cookies!

Making mushroom cups

The dice game!

Kieron was sure he had one of the two hot cocoa bombs Grammy told him she put in the game. Turns out he ended up with one of the two finger puppets Mommy put in! His reaction was priceless!

Look who ended up with the cocoa bomb!

Sweet Papa was happy to trade Kieron

Those faces!

Silas, checking Santa out good

This girl loved every second with Santa!

Playing charades before bed

Here’s the rest of what our family was up to in December:

Dancing to Coldplay

Festive pedis

Avery’s Boy Scout troop made these snowmen as a fundraiser

Playing Uno

This girl loves shoes. She really loves stomping around in Mommy’s shoes too.

Look who joined in!

Jonathan and I went to see Ben Gibbard play at Washington Hall in Seattle

“Dear Daddy, from Silas. I am so sorry for saying, “can I have sausage balls over and over.” xoxoxoxo

Jonathan took the boys to see the new Star Wars movie while Grammy and I baked.

Grammy, Layla and I made divinity while the boys were at the show

 

We made a gingerbread house   

We went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see the lights