On the way to Duvall

I am feeding a friend's cat up in Duvall.  Where the road out of Woodinville meets the road to Duvall is this sculpture. People around here like to dress up sculpture for the seasons. Since there was no one behind me, I stopped to snap this photo

Boxing Day, A Little Destruction and Some Lights

Today was our third day of feasting. Very casual today. Soup in the crockpot and mini cheesecakes with assorted sauces. Oregon Strawberry, Seedless Raspberry and a Dark Chocolate.  Rob, Janet and Drew were our guests. 

After dinner, which the boys did not eat much, they got to smash the gingerbread house! Or rather, ski chalet.  They were so excited about that!!

They were really going at it, and the ski chalet was still standing

Really starting to regret the hot glue choice. Because of last years disaster in gingertown, I used hot glue to hold the house together. The royal icing was just for decoration.

One more good strike, together this time!

And it's down! Pliers were key

Making it into bits for the Ravens

When Rob and Janet were headed out, we told them about the great house all lit up near here and we went too! We drove in our car. It was pretty to see it again.  The light show is set to music. All the lights go on and off at different times, except the little bear. He is always lit.
It was a good boxing day. Nice to spend some time with family.

Christmas Day

I did not get many photos today. Perhaps I should give Lon the camera and have him take some pictures for me! It would be fun to see what he would get! It was a wonderful Christmas Day

Evidence that Santa and the reindeer were here!

Looks like Santa was here, not just for cookies!   Lon was a really good boy! So many presents.

Look Grandma! This is AWESOME

This is just so much more fun than I can stand!! THIS IS SO COOL~

The poor cat just wants to nap

My family being goofy.
And that is the end of my photos of the day.
We sat down to Waldorf salad, roast duck with a balsamic cherry sauce (thinking that would be good on the beef too), rice pilaf, and asparagus. We also put out the last of the carrots and broccoli. Prachi brought over Rajam for Mark and some rice with cashews. 
Lon got a fun playmobile set from Grace, it makes noise! And Auntie Prachi and Uncle Rahul gave Lon a Lon size guitar! How very cool is that!  Lon can't wait to play it. I just have to figure out how to tune it. the stings came very loose for shipping.
If I get more photos of the day I will add more here.

Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful time with friends and family tonight.  Cousin Barbara and Joe were able to come over tonight, instead of tomorrow. (scheduling conflict at the last minute). Cheri, from the gym and her family, and Uncle Chong, Auntie Michelle, Brian and Kayla. A full house! It was a little crowded, but I think we all had a good time

Our cookie tray this year. Mmm, yummy stuff there
not pictured are the nut roll and poppy seed roll and fruit cake
I did not get alot of photos of Christmas Eve, and if I get some my Mom or anyone else I will post them

Kayla enjoying her ginger bread girl, after dinner. Our dinner was Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding (really good), Broccoli, carrots, mushroom gravy, with Christmas Cake and Ice cream for dessert

A Family picture for Christmas!

Lon showing Brian how to build legos. Brian is a quick learner and Lon is a patient teacher! Lon LOVES his legos!

Kayla was having a wonderful time giggling and playing with us

Cookies for Santa, and 9 tiny carrots for the reindeer (one for each reindeer and Rudolph)

Picking out just the right cookie

Cookies for Santa, with milk

Molbak's with Grandma!

After our incredible grocery shopping trip, for our three magnificent feasts and New Years  Day too. We decided that we needed to take a look at the poinsettias at Molbaks.

Lon really wanted the camel. Then he really wanted the reindeer. But we did not get any new critters for the house.  We ended up not getting anything from Molbaks. I think we were shopped out!

A Visit from Reyanch

We were very happy that Reyanch came for see us on Saturday! He brought his parents along too. The little one is so cute and happy!

I will get this big blond boy!

Hair! Hair is so much fun!

This toy is one of the best! It moves and plays music! How wildly cool is that? How does it work? It fascinates me.

Just chillin with my new snow buddy. I am THAT cool

Lon gave me a ride on his shoulders, with some help from Mom!  It was a good visit. We all had fun. Cute boys!

Molbak's 2010

We made our way to Molbaks on Thursday, the 16th, after school. I wanted to get 4 poinsettias for the half wall and our annual picture in front of the poinsettia tree.

Lon had to wear his Santa hat. He looks extremely cute in it.

The poinsettia tree

General cuteness

This is the only photo with someone else in the background. There were not that many people shopping. Lon was helping push the plant cart, not so many people was a good thing.  We did get our 4 poinsettias, two white and two red. Just like Lon wanted.

Little Toy Train

Today we finished decorating the tree. In between rain drops we got the empty ornament boxes put away. The floor is now all clean, Lon even took up his town rug. This was all in preparation for the Train! At a sidewalk sale, earlier this fall, we became the proud owners of an "O" gauge Christmas Train. Lionel North Pole Central!  It has a smoke feature, and a car that plays Christmas music (which I did not get the 9v battery for. It is on my list for tomorrow). We put the track together. It just fits around the tree. No need, this year, for extra track.  I bored the boys by reading, aloud, the manual.

Not the most flattering photo. I am putting the train on the track. It is tricky, you have to get it just so.

Here she comes! The smoke feature works well, stinks a bit, but works well.

Daddy! This is so cool. I want to play with it, and take it off the track and put it on and play with it and it is so cool.

HAHA! Mom let me DRIVE the train! Until I cranked it up to super high speed and the engine derailed. Then I was sort of done for a while.  But I got to DRIVE! I can not wait to do it again!  ALL DAY LONG!

Lon went and got his engineer hat so he could have better control of the train. He is still so excited!

The finished tree, with train. Something I always wanted and now I was able to get this for Lon!  I hope we can enjoy this for many more years.  There are expansion packs for next year too!

Christmas Tree and Gingerbread!

Today we got our Christmas Tree! We went to St. John Vianny Church. They sell the nicest trees and it helps fund the mission trips.  It is a win win, plus it is close to the house.

Inspecting the trees.

It is so hard to choose!  Which one should we get?

Loading the chosen tree into the car. We always take two cars. One for the tree and one for Lon

Mark has been working out! Lifted up that tree like it was a match stick!

The tree has reached the deck!

Our wonderful tree stand has a nail like thingy (technical term) in the center, so we drill a bit out of the tree so it will sit better in the stand. Mark was just holding the drill. Lon was actually operating it.  Lon was a little nervous about doing it at first, but then he was all over it. POWER TOOLS ROCK!

The tree is up! The Angel is on top, I need to make another one that looks a little better, the lights and garland are on. It is coming along
At this point I took a break and put the snowball lights on the garland outside. (I need to remember I am sensitive to spruce, and when putting up the lights I need to wear gloves and long sleeves. My hands and forearms are swollen, itchy and they hurt. Ew.)

Lon is so excited! He is unpacking the ornaments. He wants to put some of them on, and some of them he wants to play with! They are all SO COOL MOM!

A little more ornaments on the tree. You can see the snowball lights now outside too! Yes, I do know the tree lists a little bit.  It adds charm. We got the new box of luminarios for outside today. I will have to put those up during a break in the downpour.  

We took another break for dinner. After dinner I promised Lon we would decorate the gingerbread ski chalet. We found it at Trader Joe's.  After last year's disaster in Gingertown, I decided to skip the whole putting it together with icing. I used hot glue to put the house together, then just used the icing to hold the decorations on. It works much nicer. It is faster, neater and much less frustrating. Since it is a kit and we are not going to eat it anyway, it does not matter!  Lon only likes the decorating part. It was fun. Now we are going to go cuddle and watch Frosty the Snowman! 

Mail and a Leg Lamp

On Wednesday we mailed off 14 packages to all our out of town friends and family.  Even cookies to John in an undisclosed near east country.  I picked Wednesday because Lon wanted to come with me. Ever since he got his picture in the newspaper he wants to go to see if that can happen again!   (Wednesday is an early release day from school, so he gets out of school at 10:40. Not going to comment)
We had a great time!

Lon wanted me to make sure to put his (my) Santa hat in the car. He has to wear the hat!  I got him some chicken nuggets to eat on the way to the post office, so if it was a really really long line he would not be hungry.   His nose is healing well.

He is sitting the postal cart on the package for Grammalyn.  Surrounded by boxes. Love the flat rate things! Those worked really well in our favor this year.

One more picture from the post office. Only one more box to mail, when I get it done. And I will get it done.
















Lon and Daddy went out to get a few things after Daddy got home from work on Thursday. They also went around and looked at lights on the way home. They both enjoyed it. Friday night, tonight we went out as a family. I love driving around looking at lights. We will do this again this year. Mark even had the Christmas music station on the radio!!  We went to one house Mark read about in the paper. It was beautiful and I had my camera on the wrong settings. None of the photos turned out well enough to blog.  I did get one good photo.

This lovely lamp was in an upstairs window of a nice house. I almost did not see it.  This is one of my favorite lamps.