together again

Every year our friends all get together for a big Christmas dinner and over the last few years it has grown into a big family event. I love hanging out with friends around the holidays and having your kids there is even better :)

Faith & Allie opening their presents

you just can't get them all to look at the same time

Chad gave Ethan a horsey ride

Dawn & Jeff

Jesse & Katie

Lisa & Zach

Zach's turn for a horsey ride

Mark, Faith, Allie & Holly with a baby girl due 01/11

Chad & Steph (who also has a lil boy due in May in her belly)

E with his Sarah

we tried for a family picture

merry christmas

With the kids being so sick this year and my father in law selling most of the trees on his farm we decided to put up a fake tree. The tree was given to us after my Great Grandma Lane passed away 7 years ago. It's a great little tree and the kids had a lot of fun decorating it. Ethan was a little disappointed that we didn't get a real one from Papa but he got over it after the train went up :) Ethan saw me taking pictures of the tree and asked if he could take a few pictures of his favorite Christmas decorations. So here they are....I had to help him a lil with the ornaments but otherwise he took these.

what more could a mother ask for

All I wanted for Christmas this year was a happy and healthy family! And well they might not have been healthy (Gracie had a dbl ear infection twice along with both kids having fevers over 104 at different times) they sure were happy!! The last few weeks have been crazy, as all Christmas's are, but when your kids are sick too it just makes for one crazy holiday. Sometimes it all just piles up and you think you'll never make it out alive. With the doctors apts, shopping, doctors apts, baking, doctors apts, wrapping & more doctors apts I thought I would never make it to Christmas. But here we are and it's over and I made it. Sure I had a lot of little events, partys and activities planned that we didn't get to, the fact that Jake was home and we were all able to be together was all I could ask for. So I promise not to be so hard on myself trying to make the perfect Christmas because in the end Ethan and Gracie had a wonderful Christmas full of love and smiles for all.

gingerbread

I'm a little slow this year with all my holiday baking but I managed to bake gingerbread cookies the other day and we made our gingerbread house. I cheat a little by buying the house kit and some extra candy but I really do make the cookies. I also make the kids practice on gram cracker houses before thy are allowed to touch the real house (I know I need help). We started while Ethan was at school and then continued all day and into the night when Aunt Brittney & Uncle Brandon came over to help. Ethan was still not finished with all his "creations" that he had to finish the next day after school.

practicing on the little house before Ethan gets home

Uncle Brandon was very into his cookie

while Aunt Brittney just took lots of pictures

her favorite part "the ites on top"

yummy time to eat!

adventures in seattle-downtown seattle

On this day we went downtown for a lot of different adventures. We went to a few hotels where we saw a teddy bear suite and another one had gingerbread houses. It was during all the hotel running we realized Gracie was sick. So our downtown adventures were cut short but here are a few pictures before we went home.

big teddy mommy!

just look how happy they are :)

our favorite gingerbread house-snoopy!

as you can see she didn't feel very good, as it turns out she had a fever of 104.9 when we got home! So sorry mommy made you spend hours in the car when you were sick!!