Madeline's Snowman pretzels

Madeline saw these cute snowman pretzels in a magazine and decided to make some of her own. They were so adorable!

Christmas Parade

Madeline & Hayden played with their school band in the Sumner Christmas parade. They played Jingle Bells. It was the first time their school participated in a parade so it was cute. Sumner is such a cute little town. Madeline and her friends Tabitha and Kylie

It was cold, but beautiful and sunny!

Walking back to the car along the row of shops.

Getting ready for Christmas

Matt loves to get in the holiday spirit and decorate the house. He didn't go all Clark Griswold on the outside lights this year, but he did light up the staircase, the tree, the kids rooms, and helped set up other displays like these carolers. My mom made these ceramic carolers in 1979 and I just love that I get to decorate my home with them. They are so cute and I have fond childhood memories of them! We decided to cover our windows with snowflakes and it turned out really nice. Some of them were really ornate. Madeline and Hayden made the most intricate ones. Carson made a LOT. It was a lot of fun to cut them!

Here are Matt and Zoe setting up the Christmas houses on the bookcase. I buy a new house each year (starting from when we got married) so this year I added a 16th house to my collection. I got the Doctor's Office.

We made lots of yummy treats this season! Here's Zoe helping Dad make lemon bars. We also made peanut butter bonbons, ginger cookies, and I made toffee for the first time. We had fun packaging up boxes of treats and taking them to some of our friends.

Bunny on a rug

It's been so cold outside that we have been bringing Cocoa Puff the bunny inside to play on the rug so he can warm up a bit. He doesn't like the wood floor so he just hops around on the rug. Puff tries to play with him, but he just ignores her. He's such a cute fluffy bunny!

Happy Halloween

Here are the official Halloween pictures for 2009-- First up we have Hayden the Orange M&M....

Next we have Carson the 'Grimm Reaper' (that's what he called himself, but really it's just the only other costume we had laying around and it's just a random scary mask thing...)

Then we have Zoe the Hobo. She mostly just wanted to have a stick with a bandana sack tied to it.

This is Madeline the Cupcake. Grandma Gwen made this for her and it was so fun. She stayed nice and warm inside her pink fleece frosting too, bonus!

On this day 5 years ago...

I was going through old pictures on the computer and found this one of Zoe. I remember how much I loved this haircut on her! I just thought it was weird how this picture was taken on today's date 5 years ago! She was 4 years old, we had just moved to our house in Buckley, and this picture was taken at Game Farm Park at one of Madeline's soccer games. I remember how much fun we had that day playing in the fallen leaves. Time sure flies...

Take me out to the Ballgame!

Our old friend Judy Thompson gave us tickets to one of the last Mariner game's of the season. It was perfect because we got to see the A's (my other favorite team!) and since the season wasn't stellar, the stadium was a little empty so we sat wherever we wanted! We chose the left field line and hoped for some foul balls. One came pretty close! At the end of the game someone from the A's bullpen threw Hayden a ball and a Mariner field guy threw one up to Carson, so we went home with souvenirs :) The kids LOVED the garlic fries. Good thing we ALL like garlic fries, because that is definitely an indulgence that gets shared with everyone you are wiff, I mean with! There were lots of hits (Griffey had a homer and Ichiro almost batted the cycle), the Mariner's won, and the weather was perfect so it was a great night!

Hayden, Zoe, and Carson were too chicken to get their picture with the Moose, so Matt and I did instead.
The kids thought this big Pepsi sign was cool so we took a picture by it. There are like a million mini lights all over it and it shimmer sparkles.