Most of early December was spent preparing for late December. Lots of crafts, shopping, baking and freezing food. Here are a few cute pics from the calm before the holiday storm.

The boys during their first real sleepover in Kieron’s room

Looking through a mall window at Santa’s elves

It’s almost bath time!

What is Kieron smiling at?

Cupcakes, of course! Yum!

Silas waiting patiently for food

Tiny hand and feet

Kieron washing his hands at the sink

Avery painting Christmas ornaments


Silas crawling around the family room

Black Friday is one of my favorite holidays! Not because of the shopping deals (I prefer Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday), but for delicious leftovers, putting up Christmas decorations and listening to carols all day long. Avery and I even watched Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” (starring one of my favorite dance instructors, Wade Walthall). The boys loved helping set up the Christmas decor and had no problem getting into the spirit of things!

Avery inspecting a preschool project he made a couple years back


Avery pretending to be a crazy Santa… that’s a bag of dirty diapers over his shoulder

First Kieron tried to put the angel on the tree…

Then Avery tried, but eventually Daddy had to stand on a chair and do it

Kieron posing for some shots




Kieron is completely in his element with a whisk and ladle


Avery teaching Silas to climb stairs

Thanksgiving this year was a lot of fun. It was our first time celebrating one of the big holidays on our own! Although we missed our families, it was nice to do our own thing and have a low key holiday.

Since we didn’t have any company coming for dinner, we (I) decided it was the right year to try a vegan Thanksgiving. Poor Jonathan was not very happy about it, but he went along with it to keep the peace. We limit our meat consumption anyway, but recently I’ve been cutting back on animal products as much as possible. I don’t think Jonathan really thought I’d go through with it, but I bought the Tofurkey and remained adamant I did not want to see a bird a the table this year. Avery was on board – he can’t stand the sight of an animal carcass.

So how did it go? Well personally, I think Thanksgiving dinner is all about the sides, and those were fabulous. But don’t worry family, we won’t serve Tofurkey again. For the record, I am glad we tried it!

Our trio of boys – they’re so cute!

Our thankful trees. We each wrote something we are thankful for on a leaf and put it on our tree everyday. A fun tradition.




I love the way Si is looking at Kieron in this picture. He loves his big brothers!

Our Tofurkey.

Kieron helping in the kitchen.

At the table. Kieron sported his Indian hat, Avery wore a turkey hat.

Kieron LOVES sparkling cider! He was hitting it pretty hard!

Wow, it’s the end of December! Life got really busy over the holidays, so I suspended blogging for a while and now it’s catch-up time. The following pictures pretty much sum up November leading up to Thanksgiving.
 
Here’s a cute shot of the boys with their friend, Wiktor. They were snacking on goldfish and watching Mr. Bean.

Wiktor’s little brother, Fryderyk (a few weeks younger than Silas)

Election Day – Silas sported Avery’s shirt from four years ago



Here’s our new 5th District State Senator, Mark Mullet, delivering his victory speech! We spent election night at his party at Zeek’s Pizza in Issaquah. Lucky for us, it was a dang good night! 😉

The boys playing tic-tac-toe together


Kieron grinding walnuts for banana nut bread

Silas watching and snacking on puffs

Dumping the flour

A dance party/wrestling match (sometimes the lines get pretty blurry)

Si with Daddy and gorilla

Coloring

Mid November Jonathan went to see Ben Gibbard (lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service) at Washington Hall . We originally had tickets to see him together, but I came down with pneumonia. You know I was feeling really bad since I missed this concert!

One of Avery’s creations


The boys helping bake a pie


Si’s cute smile!


Love those lashes!