Jonathan & Lindsey's Family Blog

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!

We returned to the Cougar Mountain Zoo for a covid-style Santa visit. We had a great time visiting all the animals and our masks kept us extra warm!

The wolves looked deceivingly cute and cuddly

Here’s the rest of what we were up to in November:

A trip to the mall! We don’t go west of Issaquah much these days.

Service project at the YAC (Youth Activity Center) for Scouts

Leftover turkey sandwiches

Bike upgrade for Layla

The boys stopped by James’ one afternoon

Layla and Savannah having a dance party

We finally sold the “I love you” couch. (We were sitting here the first time Jonathan said the words.) We were a bit sentimental saying goodbye to it!

Riding lessons

At Cascade View

I refinished our kitchen table in November

The Dollar Store opened where the old IGA was. This is what the boys brought home from their first trip there!

Uh oh!

These two got bike upgrades as well. All the kids did this month.

Court of Honor

Open swim at The Club

Brrrr!

Phoebe loves the laser light more than the cats

Jonathan and I had a Christmas shopping outing at Bellevue Square. We got lunch to-go at Din Tai Fung. SO good!

Bath time for a muddy dog!

At preschool

I’ve got to hand it to Jonathan. He and I talked after committing to a Washington DC trip for Avery about having him earn money to pay for part of his trip. Then in November we discussed that perhaps Jonathan could do some woodworking projects with the boys. He decided on his own to teach the boys to make wooden reindeer like the ones he made for a Boy Scouts project as a kid and sell them online. Avery and Silas opened up a factory in the garage (Kieron thought the saw was a bit too loud). In the end they grossed nearly $700! It was such a cool thing to do and I think the boys learned a lot from the experience!