Seattle Christmas Party

The first Christmas party of the season at our house on Sunday, Dec 10th! Jeff and I wrapped the presents the night before the party. Then on Sunday morning, the boys got up (at 5:45, as usual), they watched tv, as Jeff, Chloe and I slept in. After an hour of Jay Jay the Jet Plane, we heard, "Hey, look at all these presents!" They crowded around the christmas tree and within minutes had identified their names on gifts. Jackson had surrounded himself with his gifts. We told them that they needed to wait until after nap, then Traci, Peter and Hudson were coming over and then after we eat, we can open the presents. About 20 minutes later (at about 7:30 am), Jackson was asking to go take his nap.

We went to the zoo that morning, to get their minds and hands off the gifts. Traci and Peter came over at 4:00 with little Hudson. Chloe just loves Hudson. She was looking at him and touching him. She went to get her baby dolls and was putting them in Hudson's car seat. Hudson slept throught almost the whole party, until the very end. He was 3 weeks + 1 day old.

Finally, our meal was over. The boys probably ate one bite each. It was time to unwrap!

Earlier in the month, I had asked the boys what they thought that Santa was going to bring for them. Sam said, "um, a clock!!!!" Jackson said, "monsters- Boo, Mr. Waternoose, Sulley, Mike and Slug" (Monsters Inc. movie toy action figures). Well, Sam got his wish, but Jackson's were only available through an obscure source in Hong Kong and I wasn't willing to bet on it. The boys opened Sam's clock and burst out, "A CLOCK!!" They were so excited about a clock. It has all the numbers on it, except for there's the date where the number 3 should be and they couldn't stop talking about that missing 3.

Now the clock hangs idly on the wall and what they're really playing with is the new wooden parking garage, fire station, gas station, wooden road track system and the new cars. This system hooks up to their wooden train tracks too. They love it.

Chloe probably mostly liked the wrapping paper. She was too busy playing with her babies.

Christmas in downtown

Christmas in downtown began awhile ago. Here we are at one of the boys' favorite downtown spots- the skybridge between two buildings. The windows are decked out with holiday stickers and the boys peer down at the cars and people who now appear green. Chloe darts back and forth to see out both sides of the skybridge windows. I try to keep her in check, as people are walking all around her. After the skybridge, we go into Nordstrom to see the fish tanks and Chloe also likes to look at all the shoes. Last night we went downtown too and Chloe kept wanting to go into all these stores- she's the complete opposite of the boys at this age. The second we'd try to set one foot into a store, they would scream. Chloe dragged me into a jewelry store, a hip clothing store and of course, the channel 9 (PBS) store, where she did not want to leave the shelf full of stuffed Elmos. The boys were thrilled to see the "snow". This one indoor mall has a nightly "snow" fall, where they blow foam soap pieces down from the fourth floor into the atrium; it looks like snow. Kari

Chloe- from baby to toddler

Chloe began walking on Thanskgiving and now she wants to be like everyone else in the house. She walks around and moves things from here to there. She thinks, "It must be very important to pick things up and put them in places. I think the toilet seems like an important place to put objects." That's what she was thinking, no doubt, when she plopped a small photo albumn into the toilet which Sam had just used. yuck! She keeps very busy.

Now Chloe is potty training with the boys.

Resident expert, Sam, shows Chloe how it's done.

Painting

Snow in November closed schools for three days. We decided to make some paintings for Sam & Jackson's room. Everyone pitched in to help.