Two months later . . .

So, it's been a while . . . Sorry! Since Tristan's birthday, we've had a very nice Christmas at home and Karina cut her hair off and donated it to Locks of Love.

Here they are with some of their gifts.

Here's our Christmas tree early on Christmas morning (notice it's still dark - UGH!)

And these pictures were taken the Monday evening before Christmas when we went to Snowflake Lane and the botanical garden in Bellevue. It was super cold, but very festive!

And here are the kids putting their finishing touches on the traditional Christmas sugar cookies.

It was a busy holiday season this year! Here's to another year of trying to get the Christmas "chores" done early!

Yes, we did celebrate Christmas!

I'm late with my Christmas post (thanks for checking up with me, Shelly!). We will remember it as our first real white Christmas! It snowed and snowed on Christmas day!
We hosted the family Christmas Eve dinner at the request of Tristan. We had a traditional ham dinner with family members pitching in on the side dishes, and everything was delicious (especially the tried-and-true Costco ham!). After reading Luke 2, and playing the yearly pass-the-present game, we played Bunko. Somehow we even convinced Jarrett's dad to play!

On Christmas morning we got up and saw what Santa had brought. Jarrett's parents came over, too. The kids were very excited that Santa had brought each of them their #1 wish - a Nintendo DS for Tristan, and a "Bitty Baby" doll for Karina. After a nap we took our 4 wheel drive and picked up Cameron's family and went to Jack & Tammy's for a Prime Rib Christmas dinner. It was a great day.

Winter Wonderland

Alternate Title: When can the rain come and wash this stuff away??!?! We have had snow on the ground since my last post, and on Sunday night we got dumped on again. At least now the kids are supposed to be out of school! They had 4 snow days last week (wimpy school district would explain two of those). This is the most snow I've ever seen in the Pacific Northwest! Jarrett has been picking up staff in the SUV to get them to work for the last 3 days. The main roads are fine but the neighborhoods have snow packed on them and apparently they don't believe in salt around here because of the impact it might have on the Puget Sound or the salmon or something. I took the kids sledding again today. They never get tired of this stuff! We'll be having that "White Christmas" this year (and it's not even in the form of California fog)!

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family!

(Please leave a comment so I know you're checking in on us! Thanks!)