Arizona

Last week we barely escaped the winter storm in Seattle and flew south to Arizona to visit Grandma and Papa. Our original flight was to leave on Thursday afternoon but when we got about 2 minutes from Sea-Tac airport we got a text message from Grandma letting us know that our flight was canceled due to snow. So, we re-scheduled for Friday but the only time slot available was 7:30PM. Which also happens to be the kid's bedtime. Thankfully, both kids did remarkably well. Traveling alone with two kids was a bit of a handful but it went MUCH better than I was anticipating. A bit of a preview for our Germany trip although that will be with two adults but 4 times as long.

Both Benjamin and Josie wanted no part of sleeping. They looked out the window, read books and watched DVD's.

Our daily routine didn't change much. We typically hit a fun park in the morning

And the pool in the afternoon

At night Josie always wanted to read the book she made earlier in the day to Benjamin

Other than the sunshine and seeing Grandma and Papa, the orange and grapefruit trees were a HUGE hit. Every time Benjamin went near the window to go outside, he would demand "ORANGE!" This is a new word for him and he got a lot of practice saying it. They each probably ate 3 oranges a day.

Papa would just keep peeling and peeling and peeling.

Everyday Grandma took Josie on "surprise adventures" while Benjamin took his nap. The first one was to get a pedicure. Her first real one. She was thrilled!!

On another adventure they took the golf cart out for a spin.

I didn't know, but apparently Papa is the resident popcorn maker. The kids loved eating popcorn outside with the fruit trees and the cactus.

Grandma treated us to a movie... Benjamin stuffing his face with Papa made popcorn

The day before we left was apparently "harvest". The kids picked 40+lbs of grapefruit and we brought it home in an extra suitcase for Marty. Not quite like being in Arizona but since he loves citrus so much it was almost as nice.

Here are some of the grapefruit that made it home along with the digital scale that Opa gave us for Christmas. It sure came in handy so that our suitcases weren't too heavy to check-in.

And one final orange eating, sun filled afternoon on the patio before heading to the airport.

Thanks for everything, Grandma and Papa!! We'll be back next year :)

SNOW!

We got our first snow fall of the year on Sunday and needless to say we all had fun playing in it. Our first outing was when we only had about 1 inch. Later in the day we got another 3.

It's nice that Marty has his video production studio in the basement. Here is a video of us sledding down our driveway. FUN!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg1a6VzBMkc&feature=email

More snow expected today and Wednesday. We are hoping we can still fly out to Arizona on Thursday to visit Grandma and Papa.

PLAY room

For years, I've been wanting to re-organize what was once my office when I was teaching into a play room for the kids. The past few years it has become a little bit of everything but mostly just a catch-all for stuff and wasn't really a useful space. Over the holidays we gave the old office a face lift and it has become the new PLAY room and definitely the most used room in the house. It is also right off the kitchen, the room I'm in the most, so it is really nice to have the kids close by and having fun.

Josie and Benjamin got a cool, new trampoline for Christmas (thank you Liz and Oma!!.) This along with the hammock, art table, easel and "kids" computer make this room a huge hit with both kids. Oh, and we also brought up Marty's iPod and docking station and loaded it with a ton of fun music.

Josie finally has a wall to hang all of her art work.

Putting the desk in the closet saves a bunch of room.

Benjamin loves his new BIG legos and Josie is in the hammock no less than 12 times a day. She often runs in and says "hammock time!" and in response Marty and I sing "It's hammer yo hammer MC hammer yo hammer and the rest can go and play... can't touch this"

Building towers

Doing art together

And a few videos of the room in action.

Christmas

Although we do not have photo documentation to prove it, we had a fabulous Christmas. One of the problems of Marty's fancy pants camera is that it looks just like an ordinary nice camera but it also takes video. He shot a ton of video but hardly any photos. I didn't take any, of course, because every time I looked at him he was taking pictures... or as it turns out, shooting film. Come over sometime, I'll show you the hours of video coverage. Until then, here are our meager photos of Christmas 2011

This family photo is just another one of our pre-Nutcracker shots. Below, the tree with the lights.

Santa came to our house on Christmas Eve morning. The kids actually slept in until 7. I was impressed. They both woke up around the same time and were VERY excited to go and see what Santa brought. Josie was thrilled that he ate the cookies and drank the milk (We have great video of this, too) and Benjamin was very excited about his new Elmo doll. He likes Elmo the way Josie used to like Dora. In other words, A LOT!!

The tree and the new basketball hoop

Josie and Benjamin playing a new game.

Benjamin upset, I'm sure because he was too young to play the game.

And sadly, that is it for the photos. But after our own Christmas Eve celebration, we headed down to Oma and Opa's for the traditional German Christmas celebration. We feasted on German hot dogs and delicious potato salad, stuffed out faces even more with all of the chocolate and treats on our "Bunte Teller" Colorful Plate, in German and a very fun tradition where Oma fills a plate (to overflowing) with yummy chocolates and other fun treats and labels each plate with one of our names. We all get one, a hugely loaded, colorful, plate and we all eat waaaaay too much sugar. After dinner, the kids opened up all of their gifts and the rest of the night was spent playing with all of their new gifts. We all spent the night and the next day was pretty much a repeat of the day before. Eating, playing, eating and playing.
Thank you Oma and Liz for all of the delicious food!

Hoops!

More Christmas to come in a future post but wanted to post this video of Benjamin with one of his favorite gifts this year. Grandma and Papa gave him this basketball hoop and he LOVES it. He is always saying "ball!" and "shoot!" Papa, you'd be proud :) Of course, Marty is sitting on the couch giving it his best announcer commentary.

Giving Back

Since June I have been working part time for a great non-profit, OSL (Operation: Sack Lunch) They are the largest meal provider to the hungry and homeless downtown Seattle. I only work 10-15 hours per week and typically just go into their offices in Pioneer Square for a long day on Mondays and the rest of the work I can do from home or a coffee shop. Mostly I'm working on marketing and fundraising for the organization. A couple highlights to each Monday is that I take the West Seattle Water Taxi to and from work (photo above) The dock is about a 3 minute drive from our house with free parking and the crossing time is always 10 minutes each way. You never have to worry about traffic or parking. In addition to the peaceful commute the second highlight is that I also get a delicious, nutritious, hot meal from the phenomenal chefs at OSL. Food always tastes so much better

when someone else does the cooking! Working at OSL as been a perfect outlet for me while being a Mom remains my full time gig. It is so rewarding to know that what I'm doing is helping people who have so very little. Yesterday Elli, Josie and I went down to help with their annual Christmas Eve celebration. Josie and Elli sorted through boxes of donated toiletries, scarves, hats and gloves and made gift bags for the clients that come through the lunch line every day.
After bagging up over 225 gift bags, the kids were put on cookie duty. Very tempting for kids to sort through and make 225+ bags filled with various cookies and NOT eat even a single cookie. But they all finished the project with flying colors. At the end they were each given a bag of cookies to eat at home.

Josie and Elli waiting to help serve lunch

Josie took wearing the gloves (and not spreading germs) very seriously!

I was so proud of our little girl. She stood out in front of the food line and offered each person a bag of cookies.

Elli serving food

After we were done we went up to Pioneer Square to look at the art exhibit - very cool, "sweater trees"

And Josie chasing the birds

Cookies

I had two little cooking elves happily help me with my Christmas baking this year. They both helped with one part or another of each of the cookies. They both also ate a fair share of the ingredients that go into the cookies. We started with the all-time favorite, Monster cookies. They helped gather all of the ingredients, sat up on the bar together and helped me combine everything using the hand held mixer. Benjamin, such a boy, loves anything that resembles a power tool and Josie being a great older sister let him do it!! I was amazed there wasn't more fighting. I don't have any photos of him doing it because I was too scared he'd accidently put his hands in the bowl along with the mixer but they both loved it.

All was going well until the chocolate chips and M&M's went in. Then they couldn't keep their hands out of the bowl. I can't blame them. They are pretty hard to resist.

Reaching in for more.

Mouth so full he can't even chew!

Taking a break from the baking to decorate our annual gingerbread house. It is all pre-made but Josie loves decorating it. After working with the gingerbread house and making real gingerbread cookies at preschool, she talked me into adding some gingerbread cookies to the usuall mix.

So, back to the bar to mix up the gingerbread dough

She decorated and decorated.

It took a couple of days but finally we got them all decorated.

The reason it took so long may have been because she did not skimp in her amount of decorations per cookie.

And no Christmas baking season would be complete without the red and white candy cane cookie.

Josie crushing the candy canes to sprinkle over the top.

And a few plates of cookies ready to go out to friends.