Wildlights at the Zoo

Last night we went to see the lights at the Woodland Park Zoo. It was really, really neat and I think when the kids are a bit older they'll agree. Up past their bedtime, and cold outside, they held up well, but true to form, they were up and at 'em at 6AM this morning.

Sigh.

Merry Christmas 2013

Every year I am amazed at how fast Christmas Day just zooms by. We all spend so much time preparing for this day to come and in the blink of an eye, it's over. We had a wonderful day with each other and our family and I am reminded once again how very fortunate we are. Merry Christmas!

The Santa pic

So much love...

...for these two.

In his bed...

...and in her bed. 

FOUR

I had no idea 4 years could go so fast. Happy fourth, my sweet boy.

Oh, he's really into firefighters right now, in case that's not totally obvious. 

Christmas tree shopping

I think I've been subconsciously avoiding taking pictures ever since Maddie dropped my Nikon and broke the lens. I just haven't been taking pictures, which is why I haven't posted much lately. Not to mention this is what I usually get when I say, "okay, everyone smile!"

Disaster

This is a word used often in our house. Can you see why?

 

Eating yogurt. She'll only feed herself so don't think about trying to feed her. She has always refused a bib, making meal time even more fun. 

 

A mouth FULL of sand in the sandbox.

 

Here, Maddie very deliberately moved the chairs to the center of the room, carefully placed a box of wipes on top and then climbed up and sat on top of the wipes to eat her banana. 

 

While I was cooking, Maddie emptied out the the cheese drawer and stood in it. Incidentally, she broke the drawer.

 

Wearing Hud's clothes.

 

And, again, in Hud's clothes.

I love her, but GOOD GRIEF! She is a walking DISASTER! 

Take 2

If you missed take 1, see previous post.

So, this morning THIS is what it looked like around 8:30AM.

PERFECT, beautiful Seattle morning- great opportunity for another attempt at photos for the Christmas card...oh, until Maddie drops my Nikon and breaks the lens. Yes, that's right, friends. If you didn't believe me earlier when I said she was a walking disaster, believe me now. I'm considering hiring a nanny because I don't think one person alone (me) can handle her. No joke. The next year of my life is going to be absolutely brutal. Whatever I did as a toddler/child/adolescent is coming back tenfold.

Here are the sweet shots I captured this morning with my broken Nikon lens.

Take 1

I'm pretty sure this is NOT what we were after for Christmas card photos.

Tonight's Bath

Scott was traveling today and since he normally does bath time, I snapped a few pics to send him to let him know we were missing him.

Halloween

This was the first year Hudson really got into Halloween and it was a really fun day for him. He decided weeks ago that he wanted to be an astronaut for Halloween, and he sure looked cute dressed as one. He was so excited to go to school this morning in his costume, and he had so much fun at school. Then, this afternoon we stopped by Scott's work where the kids trick-or-treated around the office. Hudson and Maddie both got a ton of candy, and since Hudson doesn't like candy and Maddie likes it a little too much (even with the wrapper on, we learned), I think we'll be making it magically disappear. Maddie had a less enjoyable day than Hudson did, largely due to a new tooth coming in. When she's getting a tooth, we all know about it and it is brutal. See below for proof. And, if her costume looks familiar, you have seen it before, here.

Carving Pumpkins

Once again, it's been a long time since my last post...life has been very busy and free time is something that just doesn't come along much.

Scott took the day off yesterday and we planned on carving our pumpkins, but as usual, we ran out of time and it didn't happen. So, today I decided to take on this task alone. WOW. What was I thinking? For future reference, this is not something I recommend doing when outnumbered by your kids.

I think our pumpkins turned out ok, although next time we probably do need to purchase an actual pumpkin carving knife. Lessons learned...

As you look over the photos below you might wonder where Hudson got his shiner. That was me, mom of the year, here. We collided in the kitchen and not knowing he was behind me I accidentally whacked him in the eye with a plate. SWELL.

I love Hudson's school!

Remlinger Farms

Yesterday we met Alicia, Evan, Scarlett and Dahlia out at Remlinger Farms, it was so much fun!! Train rides, roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, bouncy houses....the list is endless, we couldn't even get to everything in our first visit, but something tells me this will become a yearly tradition, so I'm not worried. There's a lot more of this in our future.