Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

8 Months Old

Shortly after Katie turned 7 months, she figured out how to roll from her tummy to her back. However she only rolls occasionally and does not use her new skill to get anywhere (yet).

Likes to munch on my cell phone and/or cover

Is starting to babble and growl

Abigail taught Katie to lay her head down when she's eating in her high chair. Katie got quite the reaction from her siblings so now she thinks it's funny. Cute, but it makes it a bit harder to feed her.

She also thought it was funny to do when I was taking her monthly picture yesterday

I can sit her up now and not have to worry so much about her falling backward (although it still happens)

Currently struggling with naps. Okay, maybe I'm the one struggling with her naps. It's strange to have a child that doesn't sleep a ton. She does great at night though, usually down by 6:30pm wakes up around 7:30am usually with a brief feeding somewhere in between.

Is starting to get a little more hair

Prefers her mom over anyone else, but she thinks her siblings are pretty cool too

Is learning to drink from a straw cup. I've bagged the bottle idea, so we're trying to find alternative means of getting liquids.

Eats lots and lots of cheerios

Something has changed in the last week. Though I'm not sure I know what it is. She has been so stinkin cute, so happy (even with short naps), more content on her own, she's cracking me up with the things she does... I guess she's showing her little personality. I'm loving it.

Holiday Zoobilee

Last night was Carly's holiday musical. Each if the five first grade classes was a different zoo animal. The students in Carly's class were elephants.

It was a cute program and I left amazed at how comfortable she seemed on stage. She didn't hold back at all and sang all the songs and parts with gusto. I love to see her confidence; she's come a long way.

Carly wanted to share part of her favorite song with her Grandma in Utah.

Festivities

Last night the kids and I picked Justin up from work and had ourselves a little festive fun. We hoped the rain would let up while we wandered through the holiday lights at the botanical gardens, but we weren't so lucky. Thankfully it was free night so we felt ok rushing our way through it. It is a beautiful, unique display.

Katie hitched a ride with Dad (Oh, how I love a man in a bjorn!)

Next stop was snowflake lane. We found a great spot in front of the cheesecake factory's outdoor heaters to watch the show. The girls danced around while we waited for the show to begin.

The girls warmed up the stand for our own drummer boy

Various characters walk around while drummers play holiday music. We had a whole bunch of characters in our area.

The girls posed with the polar bear

And the super-tall soldier (though I noticed he didn’t look THAT tall when he was standing next to Justin)

Jason wanted nothing to do with them. However as we got in the van afterward he was saying how much he liked the mouse (the same mouse he hid from when it came our way)

And we could've guessed that he would spend most of the evening doing this.

Katie seemed to really enjoy it (in spite of it being way past her bedtime).

We didn't get out of there till almost 8pm so the evening was made even more special (for the kids) by getting an ultra-late dinner at McDonalds drive-thru.

We sure love spending time with these kids!

House Update

We headed up to Snoqualmie after church on Sunday to check out the new house. It had been just over two weeks since I had been there (Justin went by last week when he was already driving that way to avoid traffic). The framing was just about complete, which is exciting and a little nerve-racking at the same time.

This was my first time walking inside. It was awesome to walk through what is basically the skeleton of our house. We can visualize where walls will be and start to imagine our family living there.

Our surprise arches in the living room and dining room. We didn’t like them at first, but they are growing on us.

It was really windy. We get a lot of wind where we currently live, but I this was much stronger especially since there’s nothing around us yet to shield us from the wind. We'll be at a higher elevation so it will also be much cooler with greater chances of snow (grumble from me, shouts of joy from the kids).

Since the lot we picked is up the hill a ways from the rest of the homes we have some awesome views (only until they start construction next to us).

View from the window above our kitchen sink

Gorgeous views from the bonus room

And in case anyone is wondering, we had our appointment last week to pick out materials for the house (tile, carpet, hardwood, backsplash, etc...) And it was WAY stressful and I have doubts about some choices, but we did the best we could with the time, budget, and products available. Hopefully will be happy enough when it all comes together.

These last 48 hours have been crazy! Tuesday morning I got the phone call I've been dreading, an agent calling from my driveway asking if she can show it to a client right then. Um, sure (so much for requesting 2 hour notice). Thankfully the house was pretty clean so it wasn't a big deal. Ends up the woman is moving here from Utah and she was spending a few days here looking at many, many, many homes. Later that afternoon another call from the agent asking if they can come by again. Sure, when? Of course they were just around the corner. Just enough time for me to get out if my pjs.

Yesterday morning another phone call setting an appointment for the husband to come see the house. This time they gave me an hour notice and said they'd come between 11-12:30. She told me they had 5 houses to look at and that they would be buying one of them. I spruced everything up and left the house at 10:45 and didn't return til 12:45. As Jason and I were finishing lunch and getting ready to take him to speech at 1:30, our agent called and said the buyers agent had called him to ask if we would lower the price significantly to make the short sells look less tempting, which is of course ridiculous. She told him of all the houses they looked at our house is the wife’s favorite. Anyhow our agent continues to tell me the buyer’s agent still wants to bring the husband by (what! They haven't come yet?!?) then of course at that very moment (knock, knock, knock) they are at my door, an hour past the hour and a half window arranged just that morning. Jason, Katie and I quickly take off to Jason’s speech appointment and leave them to check everything out on their own. We are anxious for news. Evidently the wife LOVES our house, but the husband is interested in trying for a lees expensive short sell. We'll see what happens. Even if this isn't the house for them, it's great to know that our house is a frontrunner in this market.

Santa

Saturday morning was our annual neighborhood “Donuts with Santa” event. We had a busy day with just enough time to stop by and get a group shot of the kids.

Journey to Bethlehem

Friday night we went with a few other families on a “Journey to Bethlehem”. A local church puts on this live interactive production each year. This was our first year attending. The setup is incredible and I was surprised by all the details they incorporated into it – really amazing. They even had live camels, donkeys, and sheep throughout the journey.

I got this picture from the church’s website. These are the guards we had to bribe to get in the city walls.

I’ve driven past this large fortress before and never knew what it was – I’d imagined it was used for some medieval dinner theatre.

We had to pay our taxes once in Bethlehem. I believe this would be Caesar (again, history not my thing).

We followed the star to the stable where Jesus was born.

Katie spent the evening bundled up in her carseat. The villagers commented on her fabulous, custom-made “chariot”.

Our Pioneer

Last Monday Abigail participated in the third grade Pioneer Musical. The school had an open house beforehand with several fun crafts and projects for the kids to make all related to pioneers and the Lewis & Clark expedition (I could be wrong on that last part – history is my least favorite subject).

We waited until the last minute to find Abigail a costume. Thankfully, a friend from church served a mission in Nauvoo and had a dress we could borrow. With a little lifting and gathering around the waist with a belt it worked great.

After weeks (sometimes months) of hearing these songs at home it’s always fun to see it all come together on stage. Carly even sang along from the audience.

Abigail was in the back row so I was only able to get a picture of her during her small speaking part.