Merry Christmas!!!

Wow. I made it. I'm completely up to date on EVERYTHING here. AND my house looks all right! At the same time! Well, except for Santa ~Kimmy's~ Workshop (our office). I would deny having any connection to it if anyone saw how awful it looks right now. That's next, though. Then I can sit back & enjoy Christmas this year. For the first time EVER we are ALL well, we are on top of all the items on the Christmas Check List (cards, gifts, stockings, editing pictures for everyone, food, service, etc.) & we are all HOME. I hope with all my heart that all of you out there enjoy this holiday season just as much or more & enjoy the blessings from our Savior all year long.

The kids helping decorate the Kid's tree. Every year they LOVE doing this. And I love doing it with them. Because it makes me smile seeing 3 or 4 of the same kind of ornament on 1 tree bough (see background).

The Family Tree

We won't be having a White Christmas but have had 1 snow & it serendipitously snowed on a Sunday afternoon after church! Of course the kids didn't hesitate at all running out & playing in it. I told Julia she had to wear pants & long sleeves to go out. Not wanting to take her Christmas dress off, she put pants & a shirt on ~ UNDER her dress ~ and went out. I couldn't complain, she followed the rules! Next time I'll be sure to be a little more specific. Here's a giant snowball the kids were saving for Dad. He was gone ALL DAY with church meetings. But instead of sitting down to eat or relax or change his clothes when he came home, he suited right up & headed out in the back with the kids & made a snowman. I love it. That is exactly the kind of dad Quinn is & I'm so grateful.

My greatest gift this Christmas is definitely my family. The kids are all here, it's our first one with all 4 of them. They are all well & happy. I'm so completely thankful for family, the 5 that live with me & the rest the live all over the world! And for all our friends.

Here's me enjoying another sweet gift; Grant is on solid foods! Hooray!! AND he's sleeping through the night! Yipee! Merry Christmas!!!!

Leavenworth

Quinn's mom is so wonderful! She shares her timeshare program with us & we've been able to do some seriously fun things! This time we took the kids to Leavenworth, WA. It is the most charming little Bavarian village in the Cascades & each year they do Christmas Tree Lightings that are beautiful & FUN. It was our first trip with all 6 of us together! We stayed at a great hotel in Wenatchee, my folks even got to join us for a couple days! It was just so nice. Thanks for all you do for us, Bonnie!! We miss you!

Luke the Happy Camper on our drive out.

After we had all gotten settled with the kids & folks at the hotel Quinn surprised me with a birthday party!! He had even picked up a carrot cake (my ab fave) before we left home, packed plates & candles, matches, etc & everyone sang "Happy Birthday"! It was amazing!! Quinn at his absolute finest. Merci, mon amour!
Here's us! It was sooooo cold! I wore Quinn's fleece pants over mine & Jack borrowed Julia's hat, Grant had on as many things as we could put on him! Leavenworth is beautiful! I love all the European touches around town.
The folks! We had such a great time together, guys!!



The town Gazebo where the entertainment performs all day & the Tree Lighting happens at night.

There are dozens of holiday shops here & they are open year-round. Of course with all these small kids we do a ton of shopping but we did go to Kris Kringl. I think we even managed to leave the store without having destroyed anything!

Taking a little shopping break on Granddad's lap.

This store had ALL of your holiday needs! Their village displays were fantastic, this particular one with a Halloween theme.

And Granty Man was just a great little sport about it all!

We went to lunch at a pizza place across the street from the Gazebo that was GREAT for kids. When we stepped outside afterwards a trolley pulled up & took us for a ride around the town. Lukey LOVES trolley rides!!
The trolley dropped us off at the Icicle Inn for some fun.

We all got to play at the arcade for an hour & had a blast!! The kids even won prizes!

The Tree Lighting is really pretty neat. The town gathers together, they have a little Christmas program then we all sing Silent Night. After that a soloist sang "Stille Nacht" and one-by-one each tree lit up until the song was over. Then the whole town lit up & it was BEAUTIFUL. I gotta say, I loved the public showing of spirituality & the fact that they even mentioned the Savior & celebrated His birth when we were completely surrounded by all the "distractions" of Christmas. Really beautiful.

Even Santa Claus, Father Christmas (pictured with us here), St. Nicholas & a few others attended! (Jack's HATES camera flashes & by the end of the day Luke was DONE wearing "gubs" & his coat & hat ~ unfortunately they came off when he needed them most. Thank goodness he's a Hot Tamale!)

In the evenings we LOVED hanging out at the hotel. Here's all the kids watching a movie together, minus Grant of course. Every night the hotel would make fresh cookies & milk for everyone. We'd put the kids to bed then hang out in the lobby together by the Christmas Tree. So enjoyable. In the morning the hotel served a free breakfast buffet ~ TOTALLY great with little kids who are hungry the minute they wake up!

I have always wanted to go on a factory tour! I don't know, factories are amazing. They can make anything & tons of it so fast! I used to live in an old converted factory in Lowell, Mass, on my mission. We went to the Aplets & Cotlets factory in Wenatchee. Although they weren't in production at the time it was still amazing to see these rooms, not altogether very large, but ones that produce tons of candy every year.

We had to wear funny hair nets, which I will spare you all a picture or. Jack walked into this room & said, "So this is where the Magic happens?" Ha ha! Funny boy. Sometimes it felt like we were walking through Willie Wonka's factory when we saw signs that said "Flavor Room" & stuff.

Love the powdered sugar dust everywhere.

Happy kids after a candy factory tour.

You have to travel over 2 mountain passes to get to Leavenworth from where we live but I HIGHLY recommend a visit there! I hear it's fun even in the summer!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was at our house this year. Tom & his family came over & my folks were here & so was Merrilee. David & Jen came in later than night. Good times! Too bad it was so busy & so fun I didn't get any really great pictures of the actual feast ~ which was soooooo delicious & lasted about 10 minutes.

Play Time

This Fall Jack & Julia played soccer. They both have improved so much but mostly it was fun just watching them play.

One could argue that Julia mostly skipped around while others were playing soccer but she managed to give the ball a good kick or two!

My silly goose. I used to wear these curlers when I was a little girl. I know they're kind of a pain but dang they make cute curls!!

This, I thought, was hilarious. Luke was having a moment while I was getting breakfast ready the other day. So I grabbed a Buzz Lightyear party hat out of my party box for him to play with while I was scrambling to get breakfast on. He's totally into Buzz right now. It was a hit the whole day, too bad it didn't hold up the whole day! But Lukey didn't care!!

The kids LOVE to wrestle & rough house together with daddy. I just had to snap a few.

Luke cracks me up. I love his sunglasses upside down. He is just a great kid. Our little peacemaker. And so much fun. Super Ootsie Coconuts!!!!!!!


Tickle tackle! Quinn calls this "The Triple Tickle" ~ he grabs them all at the same time & tickles them to pieces. Julia had on 4 or 5 different play dresses on at the same time & said she had "the power of CLOTHES!"

Julia's Birthday

Julia turned 5 at the end of November. We can't believe our little girl is growing up so FAST. She had a great party with friends ~ we did a "game" theme since she LOVES playing games! And made ~ what else ~ but PINK cupcakes! But we brought chocolate chip cookies to her class at school & had a family party over the Thanksgiving break.


She just loves her Easy Bake Oven & everything else she received. (That sweater was mine when I was a little girl, hence the "Kim". Sweet!)

It was a super special day because she was also picked to receive a special academic award at school the same day!

And whadya know, so was Jack! They are both doing so great in school & love it. Great job, guys!

Halloween

Halloween this year was just so fun. We hit the Autumn Fest at the kid's school the night before & had a blast trick-or-treating to all the classroom doors & doing the cupcake walk. I think it's funny that dressing up for Julia wasn't a special occasion at all since she plays dress up anytime sometime comes over to play (boy or girl). So, when she walked out of her room like this I couldn't help but smile. Nice touch with the jeans, eh? Hey, they kept her warm. "I'm a gymnastic!"

This face just melted me! I looooove squishy baby cheeks!!

Now that we've got cousins IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD, trick-or-treating is a snap! We met here for dinner then trick-or-treated all over the neighborhood. And this is a seriously fun neighborhood at Halloween. Neighbors make hot chocolate for anyone who's chilly, they bring out fire pits, decorate like crazy...so much fun!!

Wellllllllll???????

Grant will be 6 months old already this week! We've been eagerly waiting to see what color his eyes will turn out to be. In some lights they are more blue with a little brown ~ in other lights he's pretty brown with a little blue. We've been told his eyes would pick a color by now, so what'll it be???? We gonna be 4/4 with the blue or will Quinn have a little brown-eyed buddy? Well, Quinn has a little green in there, too, I guess. I took this just last week so we could see...