Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Friends and Family! We wish you the best in 2010!

We are SO ready for Hawaii! We leave on the 4th for Oahu for 5 nights! We are celebrating my Mom's 60th Birthday & are super excited for a family vacation!

This is how we get to start 2010...

Happy New Year!

Christmas

We made our trek to Spokane for Christmas! This was an interesting one to say the least! All was fine, Christmas morning was a blast and then the stomach flu hit! Brindley was the first one in my family of four to get it on Christmas evening (Brindley and I had to miss Xmas dinner)! However there were a total of 16 family members together and we are now to a count of 14/16 getting this awful stomach flu. Luckily, Brian and I got it when we got back home and Colden is suffering through it now.

The good news is that we don't have to worry about "when" we are all going to get it since we are going to Hawaii on Monday! We will be more than ready for this vacation! = )

I hope your holiday was wonderful! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

(click picture to enlarge)
Christmas Eve (Grandma & Baby Jett, Danny & the girls, Colden & Gigi, Colden, Judith & Brindley)

Prepping for Christmas Day (dessert, setting out cookies & milk for Santa, and Santa delivers!)

Brindley spotting what Santa brought her!

An Easel!Colden playing with his new GeoTrax!

Great Grandma and Brindley

All dressed up and ready!

Daddy playing with the kids!

Christmas dinner minus a few!

Atkins Family Christmas Party!

Today I hosted a brunch for Brian's family! It was great fun to get together with everyone! We enjoyed good food, laughs, gift exchanging and great company! We are so thankful everyone could get together and celebrate the season!

Gingerbread Extravaganza!

We've been busy building gingerbread houses and trains! Brindley got to make her own gingerbread house with some other friends while Colden was at school! And last night, Colden got to make his gingerbread train!

They weren't as awful to do as I thought...my expectations were very low! = ) They weren't too hard to put together and the kids did a great job decorating them! I will say, I was hoping they would look a certain way, so maybe I'll get my own next year!

Before

After

Before

After

Christmas Musical

Last night, we got to enjoy Colden's Christmas Musical with his preschool! I could go on and on about how absolutely darling all these kids were! It must be the teacher in me...but I love, love, love watching little kids sing! They all did so great and as usual I'm beyond proud of my handsome little boy!

Next year, both of my babes will be singing together! That makes me crazy giddy just thinking about it!

Getting lined up!

He found us!

Brindley is so ready to be up there singing too!

Snowflake Lane...and some proud Mamas!

We decided to brave the cold and hit Snowflake Lane in Bellevue with the wonderful Menold family!

We had dinner at Red Robin in record time (eating that is) because we had to wait 45 minutes packed in like sardines and the kids were AWESOME! Then we had to inhale our food so we could catch the show outside!

All the kids were incredibly patient and wonderful! We all had a really nice time! This may become an annual tradition!

Brindley is still talking about this "bear!" She asks where he is all day long!

Colden & Jaxon watching the drummers so intently!

Here comes the snow!

Brindley was elated to get her picture taken while she held the tamborine!

Put this on your to do list for next year...

My wonderful mom (aka Gigi) did a fantastic project for Colden and Brindley! She heard about this a few years ago and decided to work on it ALL year long! It was so worth it Mom...we LOVE it!

She collected books...mostly Chirstmas, but some "winter" and wrapped each one! She put numbers 1-24 on each one! So every night starting December 1, the kids open a new book! It is absolutely awesome!

Put that on your to-do list...if you start early in the year, it wouldn't so hard!

THANK YOU GIGI!

A Glimpse of Christmas

So many festivities!

We had a busy weekend with so many great festivities! It all started with Brian's work Holiday party! Lots of food, drinks & laughs!

We saw Santa today and Colden kept practicing what he was going to tell Santa he wanted! It was so cute...he asked if I would help him tell Santa just in case!

And lastly, our wonderful neighborhood, put on a Christmas festival...complete with a horse carriage ride and a live nativity scene! It was VERY cold! Nothing a little Starbucks wouldn't cure! ; )

All ready for a night out!

Waiting for Santa!

Enjoying a sweet treat from Santa!

Brindley and Mommy freezing on the horse carriage!A real camel!

MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR...

We have been busy decorating for the holidays! Garland, candles, lights, 2 trees, etc. all ready to go for Christmas 2009!

I bought the kids an artificial tree to decorate (we will be stringing popcorn and cranberries soon) & we went and cut down our tree today! That is always a fun experience!

After we put the lights & garland on our real tree, I really liked it...I didn't want to add any ornaments especially since the kids used a bunch...BUT I do have about 7 Starbucks ornaments...which suits us perfectly, so we have a "Starbucks" tree! WE LOVE IT!

Happy Holidays!

"This is the one!"

Kid's tree!

Country Starbucks Tree!Daddy reading our favorite story, "The Polar Express!"

Thanksgiving Feast

Today was Colden's Thanksgiving Feast at preschool! Brindley and I were able to go and her words were, "my turn to school..." meaning she really wants to go to school! Too cute!

We had a great little feast of turkey, ham, rolls, cheeses, fruit and desserts! They are darling, don't you think?

Group Shot

Singing a few songs

Brindley wearing Colden's turkey hat, thinking she's pretty cool to be having lunch at school!