A White Christmas

Christmas Eve

We usually go over to my dad's house on Christmas Eve for an early dinner and then we go to Todd's grandparents house where all of his (extended) family comes over for dessert and presents. This year those plans were scrapped b/c of the snow. Instead our family came to us! My parents parked at the top of our hill and trekked the 3 blocks down to our house through the snow. Todd spent a few hours digging a trench from our house next door to his grandparents house so they could join us for dinner. Todd's mom and sister walked the 4 blocks down to our house as well. Good thing so much of our family lives in close proximity!

The boys and I made pies on Christmas Eve, they were great helpers with peeling and coring the apples!
Chef Bryson

Chef Jaden

Crazy chefs!

Peeling and coring the apples.


We had a delicious Christmas Eve dinner of ham, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, fresh cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, bread and all the fixings.

Daddy and Jaden at dinner.

Then J got ahold of the camera and took some pictures. Here I am with my new dark hair, and Rachelle (who colored my hair) on the left.

Todd hoping for Peace for Christmas.

Bryson LOVES this train under our tree.

Todd and Grandma Jane and Gramps (they were so happy to get out of their house since they hadn't left it in over a week!).

Bryson taking his chef role seriously decided to cook some more after dinner (J took these pic's as well:)


As is our tradition Todd always reads The Night Before Christmas to the boys every Christmas Eve after they take a bath and get their new (matching) Christmas pajamas on.

2007

2006

After the book Jaden came down and put out the cookies chocolate-covered pretzels for Santa.


Christmas

Our tree with our leaning Angel;)

We always open our stockings first in the family room and then hit the big gifts by the tree.






Jaden opening up his Playmobil castle from Santa.


Bryson loved his Thomas drum!



Part of our tree and the snow outside, a very rare white Christmas in Seattle!

By far, Jaden's favorite present was his lightsaber (B got one too).

Bryson playing with his new gears on the fridge.

Christmas dinner everyone joined us once again! Unfortunately, my brother had the flu so he was not able to come.


After dinner we did a white elephant gift exchange and the boys got to open presents from their grandparents.

Mama and Luke Jaden Skywalker

Grandma Annette got Jaden a whole bunch of costumes to play dress-up in. Here he is a gladiator.

Race car driver

The Incredible Hulk!

Bryson and Grandpa Albert

Jaden and Bryson Christmas 2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003 (my Christmas baby was only 13 days old!)

Twas the Night Before Christmas

and all through Seattle,
the streets were all white and covered with snow,
that Santa said, "It looks like the North Pole below!"



Jaden and Bryson are now tucked in their beds,
while dreaming of new toys in their sweet heads.
Dada read the Christmas book and turned off the lights,
while Mama took pictures and kissed them goodnight.



Merry Christmas to all,
and to all a goodnight!

A December to Remember!!! (part 2)

11.20 (Saturday)

We took the boys to my dad's house in the morning. My mom was coming over there as well to make spritz cookies with Jaden (a family tradition of ours at Christmastime when I was growing up). My brother came over and we all decided to go sledding. We walked a few blocks over to Charleston (the BIG sledding hill in our area). Kula my dad's Husky pulled both Jaden and Bryson for awhile in the sled, then J hopped out and it was just B!




Bryson kept getting knocked back to a laying position because Kula pulled so hard!

He still loved it though!

Nana and her grandsons.

Todd about to hit Charleston, the big neighborhood hill.

There he goes!!! Seriously, this picture doesn't do it justice, this hill is very steep!

The boys, Nana and I stayed at the top while my brother and Todd went down. My dad took pictures from the bottom and Kula ran up and down the hill chasing Todd and Aaron.



Bryson and I posing by another hill on the next block that was not nearly as steep so everyone got to try sledding on it.

Uncle Aaron and J sledding.

Mighty was so exhausted by this point he even refused to ride in the sled! He only wanted his Mama to carry him. By this time it had already started snowing again and Todd and I decided we better head home. The boys were so exhausted that Jaden took a 3 hour nap and Bryson took a 4 hour one!

Later that evening our neighbors came over for dinner, here the kids are sitting on the couch watching Robots.


11.21 (Sunday)

Throughout Saturday night and into Sunday it snowed and snowed and we woke up the next day to another beautiful winter wonderland of 4-6 inches of fresh snow. It actually continued to snow off and on throughout the day. Here are a few pictures from around our house:

Our backyard, the dark gray things are the concrete blocks that separate the 3 tiers in our sloping backyard.

Our covered front porch even got a dusting of snow on it!



Once again we had another fun snow day. I took the boys out in the late morning and we discovered that we had "crunchy snow". Sometime during the night we had freezing rain so we had 6 or so inches of snow, a layer of ice and then 2 or 3 inches of snow on top, which crunched when we walked on it!

J wanted to try skiing.



My youngest snow boy didn't last long before he decided to go back in. . .

J started out skiing in our side yard but the snow was too deep and with the layer of ice it was too difficult. So we went over to the hill in front of Gramps house and that worked out great!

Grandma Annette and Auntie Rachelle came to watch J demonstrate his skiing skills.

Here is a video of J skiing on the hill in front of Gramps house:)




The many faces of my Jaden!



Todd by his truck with the snow still falling on Sunday night!

We went sledding with our neighbors on Sunday evening. We walked up the street to the big hill and there were quite a few of our neighbors up there sledding as well. We all took turns going down the hill on our sled and toboggan.

The "babies" got to ride up the while everyone else walked.

Daddy and Bryson.

Erin and Evan.


Sledding at night!

11.22 (Monday)

Todd made it in to work and the boys and I stayed and played inside all day. That evening the boys went next door to the Grandparents house while Todd and I went to the grocery store to get some things for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. The stores were completely out of eggs, almost out of milk, out of bananas and some other produce, and they were out of some other items as well since they hadn't had any deliveries because of the snow storm(s). I had fun taking some more pictures of they snow from the warmth of our house:)

The trees in the green-belt behind our house covered in snow.

Another view from the playroom. We had about 15 inches of snow on our deck!

The view facing North.

A snowy downtown Seattle in the distance.

Our front yard.

Some huge icicles!

The beautiful view out of our family room.

11/23 (Tuesday)

Kailee came over and the kids played inside for awhile and then we all got bundled up and headed outside to sled and play in the snow.

I love this picture of Kailee and Jaden!

The snow was too bright, they needed sunglasses!

Hiking back up the hill.


Here they are sledding!

Kailee made some snow angels,

while Jaden continued to sled.

Ready to go back inside for some lunch and hot cocoa.

That evening our neighbors (the P's:) invited us over for a delicious Christmas Eve Eve dinner. It was so fun to bring the boys over in a sled. It definitely seemed very Christmas-y out!

They had even made an igloo!

I think this post wins the prize for the most pictures and videos yet!