Christmas Eve

This year, Christmas Eve festivities started at 2:30. We began with presents so the kids wouldn't die of anticipation.

Lauren was very happy with her new clothes and Cinderella baby doll.

Kaylin got good stuff too, I just don't have any good pictures.

Then we were off to the bowling alley. The nearest bowling alley is now combined with a Hooters. There were Hooters waitresses serving food to the people at the lanes. I felt a little under-dressed. Technically over-dressed.

Carolyn bowled something wonderful and check out Eric's form!

Kaylin got in on the action too.

Then it was back to Eric's parents for our yummy traditional dinner of potato and taco soups. After that, we read the Christmas story from the Bible, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and sang some Christmas carols accompanied by Gordon on the guitar and me on the violin. The good part about me playing the violin is that people don't have to hear me sing. Ha!

We got home past bedtime so the girls were really tired, but I made them open a present before bed.

Matching pajamas! I always thought it was so cute when families gave their kids matching pajamas on Christmas Eve. Now that I have two kids, I just had to do it.

Side note: Kaylin fought with Eric when he was helping her get ready for bed, apparently she didn't want to wear the new pajamas. Lately she'll only wear a long-sleeved pajama shirt and underwear. And we let her. It's not worth fighting over. But I insisted that she had to wear the penguin pajamas. A few minutes after she went to bed I went upstairs to get something and found that she changed out of her penguin pajamas. I went into her room to talk to her and asked if she would please put the new penguin pajamas on in the morning. She agreed. And she followed through on Christmas morning. We both got what we wanted.

Santa

Our girls have a love/hate relationship with Santa. They love that he brings them presents (well, at least Kaylin does), but hate seeing him. At the church Christmas party this year Kaylin wanted to stand in line to see Santa. I thought we might have had a break-through. A few minutes later, Kaylin told me that she wanted ME to talk to Santa and then give her the candy cane. A minute or two after that, we were out of line and Kaylin was eating cake instead. She never did get that candy cane. So when I told Kaylin that we were going to see Santa and she told me that she wouldn't even stand next to him, I believed her. Instead of torturing both girls, I decided to torture only one. Apparently Lauren doesn't like Santa either.

For comparison, here is Kaylin with Santa wearing the same dress. Kaylin was 11 months old. Lauren is jealous of Kaylin's hair.

Christmas Lights

This weekend we went to Coulon on Lake Washington to see the Clam Lights.

Lauren and Eric with the clams.

Last night we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden's Garden d'Lights. We were super lucky that it stopped raining before we got there and it didn't rain while we were there.

This one shows the crazy amount of lights they had.

A nice man took our picture. Please ignore my cone head.

Kaylin's Fashion Corner: Layering

These pictures were all taken within one month. I guess we went through a fashion phase in November-December.

Here we have an outfit put together during "quiet time". She went in the bonus room wearing the dress and leggings. While she was in there she decided the outfit required a leotard over the dress, most of the dress was scrunched up in the back. She also added a princess tiara. I couldn't get a good picture because most of the time she refuses to let me take a picture of her.

This next number was put together while Grammy was watching her. I'm not sure where the shirt went. But a swimsuit over leggings always looks great, especially when combining polka dots and stripes. Superhero?

I don't remember much about this next outfit. I think we just told her to put some clothes on so we could leave. I don't recall where we were going, but we let her wear the outfit. She was pretty excited about it.

This is what she wanted to wear to Lauren's birthday party. We let the unmatched leggings go, but made her take the tank top off.

Lauren's 1st Birthday

My sweet baby girl turned one last week! I can hardly believe it.

This next banner is my favorite. It has a picture from the day she was born and then another for each month of her first year. I want to hang it up in her bedroom once I take it out of the family room.


Close ups:



It's so fun to see how she's changed over the past year.

The birthday girl herself. She's showing off her standing skills. And the awesome onesie that I appliqued.

We had yummy chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles.

Lauren got her own "1" cake.

I had to make her a special bib.

She loved everyone singing to her.

She thought the cake was good too.

Kaylin knows that presents go under the tree. She started to put Lauren's birthday presents there too.

One of Lauren's fabulous new toys.

I'm not sure who was more excited about Lauren's birthday, Lauren or Kaylin. I'm going to go with Kaylin. She loves Lauren's new toys and is constantly telling us and Lauren that Lauren needs to share them. It's good that Christmas is soon and Kaylin will have her own new toys to play with.

Lauren is such a sweet and fun girl. She is drinking milk from a sippy cup and loves it. She eats pretty much anything we put in front of her. She is growing up so fast. She's even starting to get some hair. We love her so much and are so blessed to have her in our family. Happy birthday, Lauren!

Thanksgiving Snow

I was excited for the first snow. The excitement lasted a couple of hours. I think it stopped when it took Eric over two hours to get home when it normally takes him 15 minutes. But his commute was good compared to others that took 3-12 hours. Then we were stuck at home the next two days because the roads were icy and Eric took the family car to work. I wouldn't have wanted to drive in the ice anyway. Seattle doesn't get weather like this often, so we're not really set up for it. The schools close. People work from home or take days off. The cities practically shut down. But apparently banks need to be open so Eric had to go in to work.

We ran to the store before it got too snowy. When we got home Kaylin wanted to check out the snow.

Hmmmm... I'm not too sure about this.

I think I'll touch it.

Okay, I'll walk in it.

This is kind of fun! But I'm cold!

Also, please note this is one of the few times I can convince Kaylin to wear a coat.

The next day we got bundled to actually play in the snow.

Lauren wasn't a fan. She didn't even try to crawl.

We took a walk to our neighbor friends' house. Kaylin stopped part way there to build a "snowman" on the sidewalk.

Kaylin tasting the snow outside our friends' house.

The neighbor kids were out playing and asked Kaylin to play with them. She didn't want to play in the snow. She just wanted to go inside and have hot chocolate. I spent more time getting the three of us dressed than the time we actually spent outside. Oh well.

Kaylin showing off her cross-eyed look while eating a cookie and hot chocolate, which she won't drink hot or even warm.

Playing on the couch after hot chocolate.

Apparently we had 6 inches of snow in the front yard.

I saw a tutorial online for making snowflakes out of coffee filters. I happened to have some so we got to work. Kaylin had a tough time cutting through all the layers, so we resorted to painting the filters.

Cutest Frappuccino

Even though I don't drink coffee, I signed up for Starbucks' birthday club. I got a free breakfast sandwich for signing up (FYI, NOT as good as McDonald's :-)) and a free drink on my birthday. Eric and I both love the strawberry frappuccinos, which are basically cream, strawberry flavoring, and ice. Our Target has a Starbucks and one day after our shopping trip Kaylin and I picked up my birthday frappuccino. The barista was super nice and gave Kaylin a little cup of her own. She topped it with whipped cream and cut down a straw. It was so cute I had to take a picture.

Kaylin loved it! She got whipped cream all over her face on the way to the car. She was so happy to have her own drink and talked about it for the rest of the day.

Mt. Rainier

A couple of weeks ago we drove around Mt. Rainier on Eric's day off. We were lucky we went when we did, because the pass closed a few days later and won't be open again until spring.

I like the frozen river in this shot.

Kaylin and Eric on the icy road. She tells me she wasn't cold. I don't believe her, it was super cold outside.

We stopped in a little town for lunch on our way home. We asked some people where a good park was and they sent us to a great one. Kaylin had a blast.


Lauren had fun going down the slide with me.

We were home by nap time. It was a fun short day trip.