Christmas Ships

In Seattle, there is a big company that does cruises, like dinner cruises. At Christmas time, this company take their boats and comes down the shore stopping at the beaches along the way. One of these beaches is about 10 minutes from our house. So on a very rainy night, we loaded the kids up and went to the beach. They had a choir on the boat with a sound system so we could hear the carols on the beach. The event was complete with a bonfire and Christmas cookies. The rain didn’t keep anyone away as we even had a hard time finding a parking spot!

 

O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree!

A couple weeks ago (I know I’m behind), we drove north about an hour or so to look for a cut it yourself tree. It was the weekend after we started to potty train Hannah Gray. So as an incentive to keep her pants dry, we told her we’ go pick out a Christmas tree. We arrived at the farm hoping we’d find a good tree in the “free” section, but no such luck. Perhaps, maybe, if our ceiling was 35 fee tall.

So after a couple potty breaks in the freezing cold, a couple temper tantrums (she fell asleep in the car on the way and we had to wake her when we got there), we ended up at the tree lot up the street from our house. It was much more fun than you’d expect from the parking lot. Huge selection, actually a huge landscaping business to walk around and super nice help. We found our tree thanks to Hannah Gray and threw it up on top of the 4Runner and managed to grab a few more pictures after another potty trip…

 

Can you see the blur?

Cold

“CHEESE!”

Hannah Gray’s silly face with B

Up top

Cascade Mountains on our drive home, about a couple blocks from our house.

Hannah Gray woke up at about 9:30 one night, totally awake. She came down to join Ethan and me as we were doing the finishing touches on the tree.

Potty Training Part 2

Well, we are to the point where I don’t even think to ask Hannah Gray if she has to use the potty 0r if her pants are dry! That’s gotta be a huge step, right? But I think the thing I realized the most is that it has really done a lot in our communication with each other. Nothing like being attached at the hip for a week to make you feel super connected to your daughter. But seriously, it’s as though we just both respect each other more and just kind of “get” each other more. We have really enjoyed a laid back, peaceful and restful week of not having anything going on (or not being able to have anything going on). We’ve had quiet mornings and Tenley had great sound morning naps that gave Hannah Gray and I some time together. It was cold and snowy a few of those days, so one morning we did our “window shopping” via a catalog with hot chocolate. Hannah Gray had hers in a regular mug and felt pretty special about that. We sat at her little table as we flipped through some toy magazines and she would show me what caught her eye as well as plenty of, “momma, what dat?”. I look forward to many more coffee dates with my big girl.

She has a huge chocolate mouth that’s kind of hard to see in the picture.

bath time!

this was the first time the girls have taken a bath together and HG has looking forward to it! But HG got shy and wouldn’t look at the camera…

Wow, what a week!

Hannah Gray successfully said good bye to her binky, learned to use a potty and had her first trip to the ER. We have been staying at home to work on the potty training. This morning ended up being a beautiful day, so I asked HG if she wanted to go outside to ride her scooter. So we started up the stairs to go get changed (she’s been in a tshirt and just underwear all week) when her little foot slipped off the first or second stair and she cracked her chin on top of the step. The sound was horrible and I expected to see a mouthful of blood, missing some teeth. I didn’t see blood and called for Ethan upstairs because I knew it was bad, somewhere. Ethan came down and we found the cut on her chin.

Hannah Gray was screaming, so Tenley had her sympathy cry going on. It was one loud house. We took her to the ER where we waited for about 20 minutes then another 30 or so back in the room. We tried to mj 8kuiprepare her as much as possible for what was going to happen. After the first nurse left, you could see that she was just scared. She wouldn’t get off of Ethan’s lap and her little lower lip just quivered as she tried so hard to not be. When the doctor came in, she saw that it was open pretty wide and needed stitches instead of the glue. They wrapped her up in a sheet like a burrito and she let Ethan cradle her head to lift her chin upwards. She did not move a muscle during the entire thing, and got up with 2 stitches. I guess it’s really not that bad, but when it’s your own kid, it’s different! I have had myself a bloody mess and been fine, but it all changes with your little ones.

Here are some pictures from our adventure today…

(ps, you know you’re in Seattle when there are Clif and Luna bars in a hospital vending machine)

waiting with her lollipop

Getting numbed

waiting for the numbing effect to kick in

and her being brave reward!

Thanksgiving

Wow, we had such a big year and so much to be thankful for! This year, we were not able to go home for Thanksgiving which was something that neither Ethan or I had ever done before. We both had always been with family every year. So we were so thankful for our friends who invited us to join them with their extended family for Thanksgiving. We had an amazing meal with wonderful company who treated us like family and loved on our kids like their own.

It was also Tenley’s first Thanksgiving, so we had to take a sibling picture…

I’d say that Hannah Gray is pretty thankful for her “baby sissy” or “b” and how thankful we are for both of them! Thank you Lord for the many blessings we have in our lives, especially our family and the health of our family, those that were with us that day and those that were far away. Thanks for your grace and mercy and for loving us!

potty training

Today is the Friday after Thanksgiving, so it gives us a long weekend. So we decided to use these three days to stay at home to try the 3 Day Potty Training method. And I am surprised, because I have mixed feelings about this. My routine, my idea of what it looks like to get out of the door in the mornings or to take off and run to the store or the idea of being in the car (or stuck in traffic for that matter) has to be adjusted. Am I selfish or paranoid? To be honest, I’m a bit worried about being in the produce department with Tenley sleeping and hearing from my eldest, “Mommy, I have to go potty”…

So we are on Day 6 and yes, I’m just getting around to finishing this post if that’s any indication of how this has gone. Hannah Gray is actually doing really well. We started on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and we had accidents all day. But that was to be expected. Naptime was a nightmare trying to get her to stay in her room without using the excuse of “I have to go potty” every .2 seconds. And she was on a sugar high from so many post-potty treats. But that night she stayed dry! And the last daytime accident we had was Saturday afternoon. We’re still working on the nighttime wetting, but we’ll get there. We are so proud of our big girl! She likes to say, “Mommy, daddy, where’d my diapers go?”. Then we say, “we threw them away because…” “I a BIG GIRL!!!!”. She’s so proud of herself and she should be. Bye to binky and diapers in a week!

Oh, we did incur one little issue. Constipation.

7 months old and her first snow!

Seattle actually got “hammered” with snow starting on Monday night. I used the word “hammered” because it’s completely relative. We actually only got probably 3 inches of snow, but Seattle is surprisingly super hilly. So not only did we have drivers on the road that have NO idea how to drive in the snow, then you throw in a mix of San Fran type of hills and it was a disaster. I actually tried to leave the house and couldn’t make it up the hills that surround us. So we turned around and came home and didn’t really leave until this morning (Wed). It ended up getting really icy as well, so schools have been closed and it’s felt like a snow day!

Hannah Gray and I played outside on her toboggan and then drank hot chocolate to warm up. She loved her “hot chac”. A little later in the day, we ventured out with Tenley for her first experience in the snow as well. Hannah Gray was reluctant to taste the snow as I was trying to encourage her to do it, then she warmed up to the idea and was running around literally licking the snow off of everything!

AND, Tenley hit the big 7 months old this week! So hard to believe it’s been 7 months already!!! It sure goes quickly with kids, but especially after you first!

 

Hannah Gray stood on the couch looking out the window with her binoculars watching the snow fall, just yelling, “no! no! yay!!”

Just cute

Last weekend, our zoo did a Thanksgiving Day “meal” for selected animals. I decided it would be a fun thing for me to take the girls to see. We saw the jaguar really up close just after he finished his turkey and Hannah Gray thought that was pretty fun. It ended up being a really cold day (this was just before Seattle got a lot of snow!), and I didn’t bring any mittens for Hannah Gray. So it ended up not being a ton of for her I’m afraid. Here she is, with her hands in her pockets trying to keep them warm. But I thought these were really cute pictures anyway and wanted to share them with you!

Mmm, squash!

Tenley began eating squash last week for the first time, but then got really sick for about 12 hrs. It was scary, she was throwing up and anytime a baby is puking, it just seems wrong! So we laid off cereal and the squash before we tried again. But she did love it. Here are some pictures of her first tastes of it.

 

B is sitting up!

Since Tenley arrived home with us from the hospital, Hannah Gray has always called her “baby sissy” or “baby” (I know, so personalized and not at all generic). However, she began to shorten this on her own by referring to Tenley as “B”. So that’s kind of become Tenley’s own little nickname…

Tenley is SO laid back that she’s just been so nonchalant about everything requiring a lot of movement. She can roll over, but prefers to sit in whichever position she was put down in. She could sit up, if she wanted to. So this is big stuff that she’s sitting up and liking it! I think she likes being able to see what’s going on around her and reach further for her toys. So here she is, doing her thing!

“mmm, what’s in here?”

Momma’s Bday

I know this entry is a little backwards, but I didn’t have a chance to post some pictures of my birthday before we left for CA. Hannah Gray came in to see me that morning saying, “Haaappy DAY!” loosely to the tune of Happy Birthday. It was pretty cute. She kept doing this all day and anyone that we talked to, she would make sure that she said, “Momma, happy day!”. It was an absolutely beautiful day, hitting in the mid 60’s with lots of sunshine. We could see both the Cascade and Olympic Mountains just off our street. It had been cold and rainy the day before, so the mountains were covered in snow. It was beautiful! We headed to the zoo b/c isn’t the zoo always a fun place to spend some time?

Ethan made a great dinner and chocolate birthday cake for me. Hannah Gray helped blow the candles out and open presents with me. I actually had a soccer game later that night, so after the kids were in bed, I was able to get out and have fun playing soccer. It was a great day! 

What’s up Dude??

Last week we loaded up and headed south for a trip to see my parents who were in Napa, CA for a business trip for my dad. We left Tuesday midmorning and did the whole 14 hr trip in one shot. The girls were awesome the whole way!

We explored Napa our first day there and enjoyed the absolutely beautiful country. It was relaxing just to look around and see the huge sky, mountains and beautiful fields and vineyards. We even did a little bit of wine tasting that first night and we learned a lot about the process and flavors!  I have a new appreciation for it, especially since I thought all red wines tasted like I sucked on the dry stuff of a banana peel and then threw pepper into the back of my throat. I even found some reds that I really LIKED, not tolerated. And I even got to celebrate my birthday with my folks since we won’t be going home for Thanksgiving this year.

Napa and the surrounding area is full of cute little towns with amazing little delicatessens and shops, so we enjoyed exploring. We hit Sausalito, which is a town on the water that has a lot of house boats. Not houseboats, but houses that float. That was really neat to see as well. Of course we enjoyed the amazing Inn and Out Burgers (Hannah Gray can DOWN a thick milkshake like it’s no one’s business, so you have to protect your shake or it could be gone. Then she gives you these little puppy dog eyes and says, “pahlease?” Too stinkin’ cute).

Then on Friday we drove to San Francisco to spend the day. We did the whole thing- rode a trolley car (which Hannah Gray kept calling a train) and she LOVED it. We even had those great seats on the outside up near the front. We went to the wharf and saw lots of HUGE sea lions that were very active which HG thought was hilarious. There was a little boardwalk type of area that an old fashioned carousel complete with seals to ride on. We did that and she didn’t understand that when it stopped moving we had to get off. This was the first carousel ride that she really, really liked and didn’t get scared of. Mimi and Grandpa bought HG a little sea lion that barks that she named Frisco and has slept with her every night since. We just had a great time all around. The girls loved the time with Mimi and Grandpa and HG is still talking about our time together. In fact, she keeps picking up the phone to call either Mimi or Grandpa and talks about our trip together.

Thanks so much for inviting us down to join you on your trip. We had a blast!