Holiday Fun in Seattle

We decided to take a trip to Seattle with some of the friends Ethan plays with. What a group we had! It was a touristy day of holiday fun in downtown. We visited the model train village at the Seattle Center, took a ride on the monorail to Westlake Center, had a ride on the carousel, visited the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton, and just had fun running around downtown with all the holiday décor. A long day cruising all over with a group of babies and 3-year-olds, but we all had a blast!

Checking out the model train village with friends Jack and Jayden.

Getting wiggles out with Jack.

Our troop getting ready to ride the monorail.

Riding the monorail with Jayden.

Now to the carousel. Ethan's starting to look tired! While riding the carousel they were filming a local TV show called Seattle Magazine. The host of the show was riding just in front of Ethan and his friend Jayden. The two got their first minutes of fame in background on the show that aired the following evening.

At the Sheraton after viewing the gingerbread houses.

Wandering Seattle streets is much more fun when holding hands with Jayden!

Just being silly with Jayden and Carsen.

Wow! The Space Needle is so tall.

Oh Christmas Twig

So, our wilderness Christmas tree lasted no longer than a week. It’s bad enough to have a Charlie Brown looking tree, but when that tree looses most of its pine needles it’s a sad site! As you can see from the pics below, after stringing the lights the branches were almost needle free.

I don’t know what was wrong with this tree. We went and cut a tree last year and it was great and lasted through the New Year. This year’s sad tree lost most of the pine needles they day Jairo strung the lights, which was only a few days after cutting the tree. Then we finished with the decorations and there really wasn’t much green left to the tree. I was set on making this sad looking twig last through Christmas, regardless of the fire hazard, because of the work of cutting, transporting, trimming and decorating the tree. However, I started getting horrible sinus migraines and after a couple days of the headaches not letting up and our poor dog sneezing and itching her ears like crazy (apparently the dog and I have the same allergy) I decided the tree had to go.

Ethan, Mr. Positive, thought our sad looking tree was great and didn’t like the idea of getting rid of it. So, to avoid too much drama, like all great parents, we waited for Ethan to go to bed to dispose of the tree.

Jairo put one of Ethan’s handmade tree decorations in place of our old twig. I figured Jairo was the lucky one because he wouldn’t have to deal with a sad toddler in the morning because he would be on his way to work when Ethan made the sad discovery.

I heard Ethan come out of his room in the morning and head down stairs. I figured I’d just stay in bed and see what happened. “MOM. MOOOOOMMM!” He comes running up stairs. “Mom. Mom. The tree. Dad watered the tree too much and it shrunk! Come see. Come see.” I tried not to laugh. I got out of bed to realize that Jairo surprised me as well. Jairo got up early and pulled our old artificial tree out of the garage and put it up so Ethan could have a tree. Way to go Dad!

Ethan was initially disappointed that the new tree was smaller. I reminded him how our old tree was dying and wouldn’t make it to Christmas so Santa brought us a new tree. He liked that idea and has been happy with the tree since.

Nurse Mamas

This year we had quite a prolific group of nurses on the floor where I work. We had 6 babies born; 4 boys and 2 girls. While this may seem quite normal in Utah, this is a bit unusual to have so many new babies within one work group here in Washington.

We decided to get together at our hospital's annual Festival of Trees to have a group picture with the babies and Santa. We had a fun time and luckily 5 out of the 6 babies were able to make it. All of the babies were perfect little angels.

Ethan traveled along for his first visit with Santa this season. He wasn’t shy about sharing his wish list with Santa. I had to hurry him along so others could get a minute with Mr. Clause.

Ava on the other hand seems to have a bit of fear for the Clause couple. Get me outta here is written all over her face!