The first weekend in December found us at a Christmas tree farm, ready to chop one down and take it home for ourselves.
Eureka! She's the one!
I fell in love with their red barn.
Big kids in an even bigger chair!
Peppermint things are still an exciting new flavor for the kids. That wasn't really a thing in Europe, so...
We had a cookie decorating party with our friends from Lux, the Packers.
Sienna leaned into the cookie cutters with Play-doh later on...
We went downtown one evening with some friends to search for Christmas cheer. It was no European Christmas Market Spectacular, but it was still fun! (PS look at all this space surrounding the giant Christmas tree ... I smell a Christmas market in this spot's future.)
A Christmas Market could be placed near this happy carousel as well. Think of the possibilities, Seattle!
The Macy's window trains were adorbs to the max.
Seeing the kids glued to the window like this ... so cute.
We stopped Santa on the street and demanded a picture. He was very nice to oblige.
The gingerbread houses in the Sheraton Hotel are always fun. This year's theme was Whoville.
Christmas tree shaped lights on top of the Space Needle just peeking over...
We got together with more Lux crew during the month as well. It was so fun to see everyone and meet Star's new baby.
My brother, Owen, came into town a few days before Christmas.
My kids were occupied with school, so we had brunch at The Fat Hen and went to Swanson's Nursery with his friends.
The guys gave great advice on plants and I went home with two cuties!
Adam realized recently that Amazon employees can take up to six visitors through the Amazon Spheres anytime. What were we waiting for?? He took us through on a Friday evening and it was amazing.
The Spheres were constructed as Amazon HQ and as a respite to employees from the office ... a place to lounge and relax and get those creative juices flowing amongst exotic plants and high humidity. It was a glorious place. I must say, I was truly amazed at the structure, the views, the variety of plants (there are 40,000 varieties!), the vastness. It was all quite stunning. Owen, a plant obsessed creature, was in his happy place.
Noah, as you can tell, just wanted to be in all the photos.
Sienna hates when I take photos of her lately, but this one she was fine with. She's drinking wassail from a thermos I brought and she's in her happy place.
Noah the yogi ham.
Cool, cool, cool.
Owen and I made croissants. They turned out okay. It's a long story. It's boring. But I know what to do to make them better next time.
We spent some time outdoors at Green Lake on Christmas Eve to really get the kids good and tired. Owen took this picture of our family. LOVE THEM.
My inner Greek goddess came forth under this archway, so Owen captured that important moment.
And I had to capture the sun coming through my window onto our beautiful tree that I've been enjoying all month. The sun! We needed it.
Maybe a decade ago, my family started eating crab legs and shrimp for Christmas Eve dinner. It's really the best tradition ever. So we did it for the first time ourselves. I made Owen and Adam break apart the legs and retrieve the meat before we sat down to eat. Scissors and hammers were all part of the action.
Owen made a plat du charcuterie et fromage. Magnifique!
It was a delicious meal and filled me with maximum joy.
We sang around the piano.
We laughed over homemade gifts.
And dessert was lemon pound cake.
Next morning: Owen got his first Ina Garten cookbook and was very happy about that.
Owen dresses like Santa on a regular basis, so he was in his element on actual Christmas day.
It was a very relaxing day. My kids are in a new chapter of life where they leave me alone for hours while they devour books (especially the graphic novels that are so popular now), so we all sat on the couch reading half the day. It was bliss.
Adam helped Noah put together his catupult.
The day after Christmas, Owen left and Diane and KC came.
They read stories and put together gingerbread houses.
We went to movies and ate out.
I made orange rolls because why not?
Adam and KC spent two days ripping up the carpet on our entryway stairs and turning it into beautiful hard wood that matches the second floor.
It looks so good, I'm really thrilled with it!
Look how tall these kids are!!!
