Annual Fondue Party

The cutest little drooler you ever did see!
















Ever since we moved to Seattle in 2000 we've had an annual Holiday Fondue Party with Sara and Darren.

















Alice and daddy checking out the cool glasses that make the Christmas tree lights look like snowflakes, snowmen and other shapes. Rad!






Awww :)

Combo Family day

Theresa's sister, Natalie, came up from Portland with her boys (husband Erik, son Sebastian and foster son Isaac) to hang with all of us for the day. The whole gang went to a family version (aka: shorter) of The Messiah, it was lovely.













We got there early so we got front row seats!













Back at home they decorated a gingerbread house.













At the end of the evening everyone wanted a piece of that house!

Happy 6th birthday!!

The party room is ready to go--all red, yellow, green and blue balloons and cupcakes to go with the Lego theme.




























But before the party room we all had a blast in the bouncy house area!













Go Oma!!













Taylor is in the house!













Uncle Kevin and Auntie Theresa flew in from California just in time for the party.

















Sha Sha came too






Wheee!!!





















Eva wasn't too sure at first but then she ended up having lots of fun with the other kids.













Time to chill out in the party room.
Ezra wanted a little bit of cupcake with his candy...






























I wore my R2D2 shirt--Lego + Star Wars = Ezra's personal heaven.













Santa (Opa) came!! Cool.


















Although not everyone thought Santa was cool! Day was so not happy...
Oh well, the big kids loved the surprise visit!

Party Preparations

(I've got a lot of catching up to do! I'll try to do a few days at a time... Keep checking back)


















I might possibly have gone just a tad overboard with the party preparations... I made little Lego chocolates (yes, those are little chocolates, not soap!) for everyone coming to Ezra's Lego-themed party. I made batch after batch after...

The loot bags were kicked up a notch with stuff from the Lego Mothership. One of my best friends works at the Lego HQ in Denmark and she hooked us up with stuff from the employee store there. How cool is that?!

Birthday treats...

The birthday boy getting serenaded by his class. It was the last day of school so I brought in treats for his upcoming birthday.













Opa and Oma came to town for Ezra's birthday. Opa led Ezra's class in singing "Happy Birthday" in Dutch. Then he, like, oh my gosh, totally embarassed Asia by singing in Dutch to her class too! The rest of the class loved it :)

Teachers' gifts

I made a little box "card" for each of the teachers (three in all since Ezra has sisters who job-share).













I was really happy with how they turned out! You can click on the image to see it bigger.

Holiday Sing-along

We're always glad that the Fire Marshal doesn't make surprise visits during assemblies!













Each grade sang a song. Here are the Kindergarteners singing "Jingle, Jingle, Jingle."

More serious Wii-ing

Love the expressions!!

Our resident Storm Trooper playing the Nintendo DS

That's one relaxed Storm Trooper!

Sharing the love...

...with the teachers.

I volunteered us neighborhood moms to do a "Thank you for all you do. From the PTA" holiday crafty thing for all (ALL) the teachers at school. It only took us about two hours to pump out 96 reindeer rootbeer bottles.

Working hard...












Festive, eh?!






























The finished products--rootbeer bottles decorated to look like Rudolph.

Super Exciting Carousel Ride

Okay, so it actually was so *not* exciting. There was a grumpy old man working that day and he had the thing going so slowly that the pictures weren't even blurry! Yeah, this was taken by another mom, Michelle, while we were moving. Good times.

Gingerbread Man Day!

Today was Gingerbread Man Day in kindergarten!

Everyone got a turn putting candy on him...











The finished product, ready for the oven.














All the kindergarten classes got to make their own gingerbread man but then after they'd put it in the oven it ran away! The excitement!! He left a note on the oven door and after a few clues the kids found out that they wouldn't find him til the next day.

That next day the principal happened to see the Gingerbread Man running around and he managed to catch him. Phew! Wow, was that exciting.

Pretty sunrise

The view of the sky was so pretty from our kitchen window this morning!

Happy 1st Birthday, Michael!

The birthday boy, Michael (our neighbor)

















Woo hoo!
















We're not sure who had more fun at the bouncy house place--the adults or the kids. (this is where Ezra's birthday party is going to be in a few weeks)
Yee haw!!!!













Whazzuup?!













See, there really were kids there too! Michael's dad tried to get a picture of all the moms and kids. We think this looks like a life raft full of women and children, as if we left our husbands to die on a sinking ship or something...

Asia and her girlfriends hangin'

Craftyness for my friend

I've been eager to post these pictures but wanted to wait til my friend got this in the mail. Now that she's gotten it I can share with the world.

A dear friend of mine who lives near Calgary, Alberta, has been having some tough stuff in her life so I wanted to send her something that she could keep around as a reminder that she is loved.

Here's the front of the box "card"













The first inside page



























The whole thing pulls out like an accordian. You can click on the photo to make it bigger so you can see more of the details.

I was pretty proud of my craftyness on this one! And it made my friend cry, so that means it was a successful project :)

Lego party

Ezra said he wants every birthday party for the rest of his life to be Star Wars themed but since I did that last year and since I like to mix things up, I pulled rank (as the event planner/mom) and we're going with a Lego theme for his 6th birthday party.

His favorite things in life are Star Wars + Lego + Wii so I figure we're good going with one of the three. And I have an inkling that he just might get some Star Wars Lego sets for his birthday. Just guessing since I helped someone pick some out for a birthday gift for him... ;)

Check out the invitations! I'm quite proud of myself if I may brag a little. I thought using actual Lego for the invitation would be rather cute and effective. Not to mention these are the big Lego blocks that A & E have quit playing with, so what a good way to start getting rid of them! Creative recycling, don't ya think?

Babysitting practice

We had two of our little neighbor friends over for the evening, Asia got to practice her future babysitting skills... Gabo kept wanting her to throw him on the big bean bag again and again. Lots-o-giggles.

Buddies.