January 2012

Griffin and Papa Dan have lots of fun together these days.  Papa Dan usually stops by about 2 mornings each week to hang out with Griffin and to greet Sophia once she's off the bus.  Here they are painting the wooden train that Papa gave him for Christmas.

 Griffin concentrates very hard when he's doing his art projects.

Baby Ty came for his first visit to our house.  It's become a little joke to have all the babies wear the baby cowboy hat for a picture when they're here.  :o)  Baby Ty was 2 months old in this picture.  Such a sweet little guy.

SNOW!!

 Sledding....

 ...and then lots of hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream!

 Our picnic table is somewhere under there.

Lots of snow and ice in January.  We lost power for about 3 days - luckily we had a generator this year!  It makes all the difference in the world.  We were cozy and warm the whole time.  All the ice really took a toll on all of our huge fir trees in the yard and we have a huge mess to clean up.  It's so messy that I'm actually looking forward to our clean-up day.  It will be a good workout and a dirty job.  :o)

Getting Caught Up - Christmas and New Year's 2011

Sorry for such a long delay in a new post.  I am behind in everything!  I will try to at least get my blog caught up, though.  Here we go!  First group of pictures is Christmas with the Rotters at our house on Dec. 24th.  The kids all love each other so much and have so much fun together. 

After the Rotters headed home we had a little down time and then headed to Christmas Eve Mass.  After mass we came home and started preparing for Santa's arrival.  Kids in bed and Kyle and I had some work to do!  Here is what it looked like after Santa arrived!

Griffin was crazy about his new workbench.  He still plays with it everyday!

Sophia got an Easy Bake - she was very excited.  A few days after Christmas we finally got around to using it.  She made pizzas the size of a quarter for everyone.  Disgusting. :o(   Maybe the cupcakes will be better.  She had a lot of fun making the pizzas, though!

After our Christmas morning at home, we headed over to the Hussey Christmas in the afternoon. 

Griffin and Sophia always get so excited to see little cousin Abby. 

This year they also had fun with Baby Don and Baby Ty.

Finally, New Year's Eve.  Don and Deniece hosted a party at the "Lakehouse" aka Grandpa Dick's.  It was mostly Don and Deniece's friends, but there were also a few of us representing the younger crowd.  Sophia even had a friend come!  The three kids all made it to midnight and were still going strong!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!  So glad I finally did this post.  More to come...

Nutcracker and a Sleepover

It has become a tradition that I take Sophia and Lauren to the Nutcracker every year.  This year we took Griffin for the first time.  They all loved it and Griffin was a very, very good boy and much more attentive than I thought he would be.  Here we are walking into the theater (sorry... Sophia moved right behind Lauren as I snapped the pic).  Do these two cousins both have the little Rotter chin, or what!?

Our pretty little ladies with their crossed legs and painted fingernails!

A picture at intermission with the Rat King.  Griffin didn't trust that rat and had a hard time having his back to him while posing for the picture.  During the show Griffin was pretending to shoot "dat rat", out loud...

After the show we headed home, where Carson met us for a sleepover.  (He was not interested in going to the show, but still wanted to sleepover.)  These kids have so much fun together and it is a complete circus around here when they do!  Lots of fun memories!

Winter Sharing Concert

I will get all caught up on these next couple posts and be ready for 2012 posts!  Here are some pictures of Sophia's concert they had at school the last day before winter break.  Kindergarten sang two songs.  One was called "Hot Cup of Cocoa" which was the catchiest little tune.  The second was jingle bells, complete with jingling bells, of course. :o)  Our tall girl is in the top row in a white sweater.  She did great!

 



Santa at Alderbrook

Every year we try to get out to Alderbrook on the Hood Canal to kick off the holiday season and see Santa.  It's so beautiful and relaxing there!  This year, after I made our little family's reservation, Grandma and Grandpa decided to make one also.  Then Aunt Kim and her family decided to make one, then Aunt Risa and Aunt Kora decided to come as well.  It was a fun and festive time with all the cousins!  First up to meet Santa was baby Don (7 months old).  He was okay at first but then decided that the stranger with the big white beard was a little scary...

After Baby D. had his turn, I went to get Sophia and Griffin.  I turned around and Griffin was already up in Santa's lap telling him about the brand new trains he wants for Christmas.  :o)  Santa is one of Griffin's best buddies this year!

Sophia joined her brother on Santa's lap and very politely told him that she would love an Easy Bake Oven for her special Christmas treat this year.

Baby Ty (1 month) also got to meet Santa.  He was perfectly fine with the big guy in red.  :o)

Abigail, on the other hand, would have NOTHING to do with that guy!!  This was as close as she would get to him...  Trying to get a picture of all these cutie-patooties was quite a fiasco.  Hilarious for us, probably really annoying to everyone else waiting to see Santa.  oops. :o)

Here are the little Wyckoff babies with Santa...  We had to keep Abigail (2 years) distracted so that she didn't figure out that he was right behind her.  heehee!

 The Faatoafe family looking beautiful, as usual...

Time for a sleigh ride!

Griffin's favorite part of the whole weekend - the big train in the lobby.

And before we headed out we took a walk out on the dock and around the resort.  It was a beautiful day!



Morning chuckle

Load this baby up and get him out of that barn!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Another successful trip to the tree farm this year.  We found a beautiful tree and just what we were looking for - tall and slender.  I learned another new thing - don't give kids gum if you want them to smile for pictures!  Griffin is chewing his gum in all the above pics, so it was hard to have him pause for a moment with a smile for the camera.

Both kids hung up lots of decorations for me.  Then took them down to play, then hung them up, then took them down...  Busy day!  Here's a video clip of my two goof balls at the tree farm.

Santa Visits Tenino!

We headed into downtown Tenino on Friday evening to see the tree lighting and Santa!  Griffin loved the motorcycle show that kicked off the ceremonies.

 Then we heard the sirens from the firetrucks that were bringing Santa!  Sophia was jumping up and down with excitement along with some of her friends from school.  Griffin was very excited, too!

The next picture is a little blurry, but you can see Sophia in the purple with her arm around her baby brother, walking him up to see Santa.  She takes such good care of him!

 Score!!

Posing in front of the fire truck...

Taking a little break to enjoy their candy canes...

 And the lit tree with a tiny speck of a moon in the background.  It was a beautiful, clear, and cold evening.  This is fun little ceremony and Sophia definitely loved seeing her school friends and hanging out for a little bit.  Very cute!