Christmas Loot

This year Christmas was a blast! Max was much more into the Holiday this year. I think the Advent Calender definitely warmed him up. He and daddy making cookies for Santa, helped also. I began to worry about the quantity of presents that we got him as the days grew closer. We both agreed that it was A LOT. Lately on the news they have been taking about, recycling and re-gifting and reducing waste. Are we setting a bad precedent? Probably. Will I need a reminder of this next year, to not get so much stuff? Absolutely!

All that being said, I wanted to make sure to get, the first look, picture.

 The first thing he noticed was the plate with cookies.

 He chose the first gift and we thought it was going to be on after that.

 Nope! He was more interested in the desk. He checked out all the bins.

 Terry and I had to prompt him to open some presents. Note the birthday paper. That tells you how much stuff we got...I ran out of Christmas paper!

 Gramma and Grandpa sent him some really great Chevron cars. After the first one he said "All Done." Knowing that there were more cars I had to push him to open more. He was clearly overwhelmed.

 His favorite by far is the little blue pickup truck and horse trailer. Coincidentally it matches one of his favorite books, "Little Blue Truck." Way to go Gramma and Grandpa! Many, many thanks!

This is me and my new Breadmaker! Terry and I have been talking about one for years. We have so far made 2 loaves of bread and some really yummy pizza dough. Terry does all the work. Max and I just enjoy the efforts. The best type of gift.

This is Terry and his new Espresso machine. We decided if he wanted to feed the habit we should try to make it a little cheaper. I have almost given up coffee so this was all for Terry. As you can tell, he likes it alot. He made himself a mocha first thing. He says it tastes just as good as the coffee stand.

 We let Max play with his cars for a while, so that we could open some of our presents. Afterward, I grabbed one sure to get him back on track. Handy Manny!

 Then I brought out the big guns!! Max has loved taking pictures with our camera, so we got him one of his own.

Here he is waiting patiently for me to take it out of the wrapping.

 Taking his first picture while mommy reads the destructions.

 He loves it! Everytime he takes a picture he bounces just a little, so they are usually a little blurry. It sure is cute though.

 Desk in place, he is using it as a playstation.

 Here is Max drawing, finally, at his art table. Yup! He is a lefty.

This is Max and I enjoying daddys first loaf of bread. Now everytime we make some Max participates in loading the ingredients into the machine.

After opening presents we went to our friends Richard and Lucy's for Christmas Dinner. It was great to see them and Anthony and Nikki. I hope everyone had an equally great day filled with family and friends.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We hope that the new year brings you health and happiness.



Making Cookies for Santa

Yesterday while I was at work Max and daddy made cookies for Santa. Terry took some great pictures!

 Max was very helpful putting the chocolate chips in...

 ...one at a time!

 That was in between eating them!

He isn't the naked chef. He is the relaxed chef!

Santa loved the cookies!
 

Visiting Santa

This year at I took Max to Redmond Town Center to ride the train and horse drawn carriage and maybe, possibly, get a picture with Santa. He did great!! The first half an hour we spent riding the escalators up and down, up and down. I guess he needed to warm up to the whole idea.

Riding the train. He waved at everyone.

Next we rode in the horse drawn carriage. We both enjoyed that alot. Finally I made my way to the Santa house.

Please take note of the Candy Cane in Max's hand. That is how Santa coaxed him up on his lap. You have to love the deer in the headlights expression though.

He made me open the candy cane while we waited for the picture. To my amazement he actually started eating it right there. After the picture we walked back to the car and I loaded Mr. Sticky Fingers into his carseat where we started our journey home. I managed to clean him up before we left, but he wouldn't give up the goods. This is what Max looked like after we got home.

 Notice how much of the candy cane is missing at this point!!

Not to bad of a mess for, as my friend Bridge would say, being hopped up on candy! I had to pick some out of his hair and his fingers were one big mess. But those kisses were delicious!

Trimming The Tree

Literally every year that we have gone out hunting for the perfect tree we always end up having to "trim" it to fit the house, the space, the window, the cabinet, etc. This year the tree we picked is just about the perfect tree and only needed a little, by our standards, "trimming." Usually we end up cut about 2 or 3 feet of the bottom and then another 10 to 12 inches off the top. This year just a little of the bottom and about 6 inches off the top.

This year Max was also able to participate in the decorating. He seemed to be having a great time and thoroughly enjoyed putting the ornaments on. Of course we had to adjust a little, as most of his ornaments were concentrated in one central area. The lower, right, front of the tree. He was none the wiser to our efforts.

He was very excited to get out the ornaments.

 He was even able to put them on the branches all by himself.

We used his train table to elevate the tree and still put the train around the base. I am almost finished with the tree skirt and will put that on later before Santa arrives.

Patiently waiting for more ornaments to hang.

Daddy helping him to spread the love around.

It was a great morning and the whole, entire process only took three days because we have been busy and doing the decorating, slow and steady. I am so glad he has been so involved this year. It makes the Holidays so much more fun.

Advent a Success

I just wanted to report on how much of a huge success the Advent Calendar has been. Max has gotten some excellent goodies and with the exception of the couple of books I foolishly threw in, he has loved all of them. Especially the school bus!

He got the school bus on day #5 and has taken it to bed with him for both his nap time and bedtime. He whines saying,  "school bus," if you forget to bring it upstairs for bedtime.

We have already had a bus crisis. He takes it everywhere and on Thursday he took it to the swimming pool with him. He promptly put it safely in a locker and mommy forgot to get it out after swimming. That night was a little challenging without it and Terry did great, soothing him to sleep. I went out early the next morning and got another one.

Ahhhh, lifes lessons! What is another $5 when it makes your son happy??

Oh Tannenbaum!

This past Monday, we went on our annual hike into the wilderness to find the perfect Christmas Tree! It was a miserable day here at home but when we got up to the Christmas Tree picking area it was glorious.

Due to state budget cuts they were unable to plow the roads. So we managed to make it up about 9/10 of the way to the picking area, where we promptly got stuck. Some very nice guys with only slightly better tires and a lower center of gravity helped us out. We decided to park the Jeep and hike the rest of the way in looking for the best Charlie Brown Tree we could find. 

Max was a trooper. After all the "truck is stuck" drama, it was getting close to his lunch time and ultimately his nap time, by the time we had our tree. We had to hike in about a mile and he spent most of that time on daddys or mommys shoulders. He really enjoyed seeing everything thing and he kept saying, "tree, tree!"

After finding, THE tree we started back down to the Jeep. On the way we found a small hill, just perfect for sliding. First Max and Daddy went. Then Max and Mommy. He had a huge smile each time and laughed the whole way down.

Sorry about the size. In our haste to get to the tree we left the camera in the Jeep.

The Perfect Tree!

Max was really great that afternoon. Such a big boy! We are still in the process of decorating and I will post those pictures soon.

My Handiwork

Some of you may know that I started a gardening business a couple of years ago called Rootopia Designs. I have a couple of clients around town and one that a see fairly regularly. Most of my work is planting custom containers, window boxes and vegetable gardens. I have occasionally done some landscape design, but I really like the small scale stuff and maintenance.

Early in November I scored the smallest job with the biggest potential for a local restaurant in town. There is a really nice steak house in Snoqualmie called, The Woodman Lodge. They have about 10 window boxes surrounding their beautifully restored building. There is one in the very front, at the entrance that gets the most visual traffic. I have been watching the window boxes beat a hasty and sad retreat as the weather has turned frigid. Finally I came to the desicion that I needed to call them and offer my services. The owner, Peter, is a very nice man who acknowledged that he had let the boxes go and just didn't have the time for regular maintenance. 

AH HA!!! Enter Rootopia Designs!

I gave him a few ideas and he jumped at the holiday theme. So I got the job to redo the front entrance window box as a starter.

Sorry the photos are so small I took them with me cell phone.

I planted white blooming Hellebores and a Jean's Dilly Spruce that he is going to put miniature lights in for the holidays. There is also Bergenia, Pinot Gris Heuchera and Pansies to match the color of the building. He was very pleased with how it turned out and when spring rolls around he wants me to continue re-doing the remaining containers and providing regular maintenance.

Not bad for a stay at home mommy!

Advent Calender

Well, I think the advent calender is going to be a huge success, judging by his reactions to the present on the first day.

 Almost...

 ...wait for it...

Train!!!

It is going to be a great holiday this year!

Almost Ready for Christmas

Ordered Christmas cards? Check!

Tree Permit purchased? Check!

Presents purchased? Check!

Well, I am almost ready for Christmas. This year I thought I would try my friend Rachaels idea and make an advent calender for Max. I tweeaked her plan a little and look what happened...

Yes!! I made all of those bags and hand cut out all of the felt numbers. I even made the bows at either end.

Each day of December Max will get a little treat. I will let you know if it lasts or if he just wants to "hold it" all day long. That is his new thing now. If we say no to something, he says okay, hold it??? I think I see some lobbying or lawyering in his future

Almost Christmas Pictures

This past Sunday we went out to get our annual family Christmas pictures. I really like the sound of that, Annual Family Christmas Pictures. I have to say a huge thank you, to my friends at Molbaks for helping out with the camera work.

I thought I would share a few of the Christmas Picture Out-takes.

 Not sure what happened to my sweet little boy in this one!

 This is what you get when you tell Max to look up at the camera.

 Darn those eyelids!

Santa and Max having a bonding, fist bumping moment.

We still haven't yet picked the one for the Christmas card.

All By Myself

Many moons ago, I used to go to the movies by myself all the time. Sometimes 2 or 3 a week. I think that is what living in California does for you. I was always so aware of what was going on in the movie world and I knew lots of actors and hung out with movie industry peeps. I dare not call these people my friends because as of today, I communicate with none of them. That's okay though. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride while it lasted and I have lots of memories to relive in my own mind.

But, I digress...today, for the first time since Max was born I went out, by myself, to the movies. Some of you may be saying, Yippee, and good for you, but it was very hard for me to do it. Yes, I realize Max is 27 months old and that is a long time to wait. I just struggle with the idea of leaving him for something as frivolous as a movie when I already leave him 4 nights a week to go to work.

It was worth it though. I planned my outing for right when he went down for a nap and was home within an hour of him waking up. As I pulled out of the driveway crying, I prepared myself for this...

My good friend Rachael turned me on to this series and all I can say is, Thank You! Before you say anything else, know this, I am not one of those obsessed fans, I just enjoy a good, romantic love story.

So, thank you to Terry for being such a good daddy, pushing me out the door and telling me that everything would be alright for the 2.5 hours I was going to be gone. I sure do love you honey! Not in a blood sucking forever kind of way, but you get the idea. I really had a good time and didn't think about Max for at least 1 hour and 45 minutes. Okay, maybe just a little.

Happy Thanksgiving

Okay, so I am a couple of days late. Max and I have both been very sick and needed lots of rest and TLC. We are bothing feeling much better now, he on antibionics and I muddling through.

We did however have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I wanted to share a picture of the spread. This was the first time I have attempted to cook a Thanksgiving dinner by myself for my family. Sure I have always contributed a dish or a pie, but this was different. Terry did a great job of brining and roasting the turkey. Including making a, fly by the seat of his pants, stuffing for the bird. It was delicious.

Our good friend and former neighbor, Mike, joined us and we were a cozy group. He even brought me flowers, a bottle of organic wine and a chocolate cake. Now you see why he is such a good friend!! Terry wanted turkey and ham, so he was in charge of the gobbler and I was in charge of everything else. We had stuffing with chicken and apple sausage (storebought), roasted brussels sprouts, butternut squash with brown sugar and butter, homemade gravy and cranberry in a can.  It isn't Thanks giving without cranberry in a can! The boys made up the gravy on the spot and, WOW, it was great!

A little informal but wonderful.

You can clearly see Max's sophisticated palate preferences, chicken nuggets, wagon wheel noodles and mixed veggies. What can I say, I am not going to push him, surely he will figure it out.

We all had a great time and stayed up way to late talking. I am so grateful for my little family and friends. I hope that next year we can do it again. Maybe I will even try to make a stuffing by myself, especially after Terrys success.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Gingerbread House

A friend gave us a gingerbread house kit and tonight we decide to put it together. Max was super excited to help and did a really good job. He was so focused and very careful of where he put all the pieces. The kit came from Trader Joe's and had everything including candies, sprinkles and little people. We added leftover halloween candy and dried blueberries. See for yourself.

 This is all of the pieces laid out to get ready. Max was having a snack and couldn't wait to get started.

 Max helping to mix the egg white and sugar glaze for the "mortar."

 Trying to fit the pieces together and taking the opportunity to...

 ...sample the cookie. Note the bite missing from the very top. This is actually a picture that Max took. He loves taking pictures with the camera.

 Getting started with the footings. Max is sooooo excited!

 Helping mommy put the roof on.

 Patiently waiting for the other side to be ready.

 Planting the tree. It was also a casualty of sampling.

 Now the fun begins! Daddy did the icing dots and roof top so that Max and I could focus on where to put the decorations. Boy, was he focused. One might say he has a little bit of his mommies attention to detail. Though that is not what I call it. :) 

 Max actually did over 75% of the decorating. I just did the dried blueberries around the edges.

Here is the finished product. Not to shabby for first timers.

Thanks so much to the Westerlunds for the great gift. He thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.