Baby's First Christmas

Honestly, I'm just glad I survived the holidays this year! With the baby, Zach traveling for residency interviews, starting work again... it was a lot jam packed into December. But, we made it! And we had some fun doing it. We love our family time and it was even better with the little one. 

Em did so awesome seeing Santa. We went to The Landing and luckily there was absolutely no one in line for Santa! That was one of the things I was dreading about going to see Santa... waiting in line for over an hour does not sound at all appealing to me with a four month old. But Santa was SO nice. He was smitten with Emerson, too. Since there was no one behind us in line, he took his time holding her after the pictures were taken. He said he had four kids in college and missed having little ones around. So cute! 

Our favorite little present.

She mastered her "Hungry Tiger" face. I love it. She does it all. the. time. I think that's how she tries to laugh, but no sound comes out!

Someone got a little spoiled.

Me and my little Mini Me.

One of our weekly pics... I just love this one!

 

Christmas baby selfie!

 

Hanging out with GG!

 

Conquering the art of present-opening.

We continued our annual tradition of driving around to look at Christmas lights and opening our stocking gifts (and ornaments) to each other. I love this tradition! It's our first Christmas tradition that was between just the two of us when we got married. I love our families, but I also love this time we get just the two of us to exchange our small gifts and ornaments. This year we brought Em along (of course, although she was asleep the whole time), got our coffee ready and headed over to Ballard to the Olympic Manor neighborhood. We'd gone there a few years ago and it was awesome - the whole neighborhood is lit up! After driving around and giving our critiques, we pulled over and exchanged gifts - I got Zach a cell phone charger dock and a coffee mug with pictures of Em (from Shutterfly - awesome!) and he got me two silicone baking mats and a sweet coffee tumbler. Em and I made our ornaments this year (two actually) - salt cookie ornaments with her hand and foot prints (he loved). He got me one with boots, one big pair and one small pair that says "like mother like daughter." I love it!

We picked out Em's first Christmas tree from this awesome farm - Zach cut it down while Em and I supervised. As you can tell, she wasn't very enthused.

We had a great Christmas filled with lots of card playing, food, laughs and family time (with a little bit of rough sleeping nights thrown in). Overall, it was an awesome Christmas!

Happy New Year!

Hey guys! It's 2013! Can you believe it? So glad the world didn't end, because we had a pretty awesome holiday season with our families. We spent a few days with the Kane's and had so much fun. I love our loud and crazy family! We always have so much fun. We ended up having Christmas Eve and Christmas morning a day early since we left on Christmas Eve to head over to my parents' house. It worked out really well and it was fun having two Christmas mornings. 

At the Kane's, we frosted chocolate sugar cookies, ate way too much, made cute stocking place settings, and Buster enjoyed chillin' in his cousin's bed #awkwardpuggle.

On Christmas Eve we went down to Centralia and had a great time with my parents. More games, laughing, a couple movies (Django Unchained - yes, The Hobbit - Eh, I might have fallen asleep). We even got a White Christmas!

We rounded out the break at home with a chill weekend complete with Friendsmas, a Seahawks victory, a fun New Year's Eve, and a Homeland marathon. That show is good.

And I can't end a family holiday post without a shout out to my favorite boys (yes, that's a puppy mug I made for my husband) #christmasbeard.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Here's to an amazing new year!

Our Quick Trip to Leavenworth

Last weekend we took a super quick trip over the mountains and through the snow to the cute little town of Leavenworth. It had been a long time since we'd gone to Leavenworth and if you remember last year we almost got there. So I was pretty excited. 

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and checked in just in time to watch the last of the Seahawks game (GO HAWKS!). We stayed at the Enzian Inn and I would highly recommend it. The rooms are comfortable. The lobby and the rest of the hotel is pretty sweet. Decorated like a Christmas lodge it was so warm and cozy, complete with a sleigh and a two story tree in the lobby (literally a tree went through the floor!). You even get free snowshoeing and the continental breakfast is amazing (complete with a make-your-own-omelette bar). 

After the game, we bundled up and went downtown for the last Tree Lighting Ceremony of the season. The main drag was blocked off so people could walk freely down the snowy street. There were even a few free standing fire pits in the middle of the road for people to warm up. We stopped and got some hot cho and wandered through all the cute shops. All the shopkeepers are so nice! 

There were so many people, especially for the tree lighting. The street was packed, the snow was falling, and we were freezing! It was so cold! Tons of kids were sledding down the small hill in the park. They had a stage set up in the main park with the high school carolers singing Christmas tunes. When the tree lighting ceremony began, the whole crowd joined in and sang along with the carolers. It was pretty awesome when they first lit the big Christmas tree, then the row of shops along the main street, then the rest of the trees in the park. I loved it! If you don't know by now, I LOVE Christmas lights! They make me so happy:). 

After the tree lighting, we grabbed some yummy sausages at the Munchen Haus. Then we had to go back to our room to warm up! It was so cold (did I mention that?)! I just brought my rain boots so I was dry but freezing. We hung out for a while and then went back downtown after the crowds had cleared to take some pictures and walk around.

The next morning, we had amazing omelettes and coffee, walked around some more downtown and then packed up to head home since the passes weren't looking great. We ended up driving through a blizzard on Stephens Pass! It was quite the experience, but Curvy did great with the All Wheel Drive (and Z was a rockstar driving!). 

Here's some pictures of our trip!

We had a great (quick) trip and we can't wait to go back. Leavenworth at Christmas really is amazing!

P.S. 4 Days til Christmas!!! Hope you are enjoying the holiday season with your families and friends!

DIY: Tree Leftovers

We don't usually have this problem. Usually we buy a tree that is an appropriate size for our apartment or house. This season, we ended up buying a tree that was a little too big for our little house. I don't have a before picture, but we trimmed down the bottom portion so now it looks like this:

and the aftermath of what we cut off looked like this:

It was actually Zach's idea that we use the leftovers to make something festive. I think I'm rubbing off on him. :) And so it became my mission to make something festive. I landed on a centerpiece for our dining table.

1. I trimmed off smaller branches, so they were easier to weave together.

2. I got out my candles and lantern and started weaving. One piece at a time, I placed the chopped end of the branch under the three-branch end of another branch and they kind of attached to each other because of the needles. Keep weaving all the way around the candle until it is complete! It's that easy.

Plus it smells amazing. I don't think I could ever give up having a real tree for a fake tree. They smell too good to pass up. 

The arrangement looks great all lit up. So festive!