West Seattle Tree Lighting

Every year since Josie has been around Marty has been asked to help light the West Seattle Christmas tree. 

Notoriously and without fail, the day of the tree lighting we have horrible weather.  There has been snow, hail, freezing rain.  I'm not exaggerating.  And every year we debate (read, "fight")about weather or not to walk up or to drive. We walk almost everywhere and most times during the year if we were to travel the 1.5 miles to the junction we would walk but when the weather is so crappy it is hard for me to bundle us all up and freeze through the walk up, the hour long tree lighting ceremony and then walk home.  Can you tell which one of us wants to walk and which one of us wants to drive?? Well this year we were running late and so we had no choice but to drive.  Of course the weather was unseasonably balmy.  See the photos below with the kids in only long sleeved shirts because their coats were too warm.  Whether we had walked or driven we were all pleased with the nice weather. 

The kids always think it is cool to get up on stage with daddy.  

 And afterward some crazy family photos in front of the lit tree. We were trying to get a photo for our Christmas cards but Josie was in a "be crazy for the camera" mood and Benjamin had difficulty actually looking AT the camera.

Even Franziska and her friend Daniela came out for the tree lighting. 

Thanksgiving 2012

Seriously, the very best meal of the entire year is at Thanksgiving up at Liz's house.  Not only do I not have to lift a finger but the meal is DELICIOUS and beautifully presented.  I look forward to it every year.  Here is the only photo from the day.  If you look closely you can see at least a part of everyone's head except for Oma... I think she was just behind Stephanie. 
Thanks again, Liz and Ed!!!

Going Crazy

Josie and Benjamin discovered that if you hit the empty 5 gallon jug with a plastic bat it bounces around.  Just one of the many crazy scenes you might find at our house at any given moment.

ART

We used our final art coupon and both kids had a ball painting in their paint room.  The photos are dark but one of the rooms in their studio is covered with paint.  The kids could paint on paper or right on the walls. A great place to let their creative juices flow and not have to worry about clean up. 

 After the paint room they worked on individual projects.  I'm thinking about just taking Benjamin back.  With the amount of glue he uses it will be about the same to buy all that glue as the price of admission.  Check out that steady stream of glue coming out of the bottle.