White Christmas

This is what we woke up to the whole week before Christmas.
Liam and Eric are off to deliver the neighborhood gifts. Liam is in heaven in the snow.

Christmas Eve

Here I am tearing into the little hen that we have eat on Christmas Eve.
Anna and Ian adored their special tables. Anna felt so big and spent much of her time sitting on the chairs. She always insisted on the purple chair and would not stand for the blue one.
One of Anna's little monkey faces.
Inspecting the tree.
Inspecting the baby bouncer.

Eric reads Liam and connor "Twas the night before Christmas.
Grandpa Bill uses the nativity to tell the story of the Birth of Christ to Connor, Liam and Isabel.
We always open one present on Christmas eve. This year it was super cute jammies from Uncle Peter and Aunt Brooke. Thanks guys! Aren't they cute?
Grandma jingled some bells and brought in a gift for each child too. Everyone got their own Christmas quilt. It was adorable. They all laid them down and cuddled on them. Orion headed up a parade with the quilts wrapped around their little bodies. I think I saw a tear in Grandma's eye.
We kept the kids busy that evening making notes to santa. Liam drew a picture of the mighty hauler that he wanted and he 'helped' Anna by drawing a racing car that he thought she might want.

Christmas morning

THe Elton tradition is to make a train winding to the living room. It is mostly dark at first but you get to see the kids rush to the tree only to find out that the presents have name tags and they can't just start ripping them open.

Chaos ensues!

I saw this game at the store and somehow I knew that Eric would have some kind of tie to it. Also, It looked like fun. Unannounced to me, it was a game the company brought back and he played it in his youth. Yaaa! I win!

The Mighty hauler. Santa knew!

Anna, who is oblivious to chaos shows pleasure and awe in the simple things.

Playing with the loot

This is so cute! I love how playful she is.

All the kids were really good about Sharing their toys.

hang'n with the eltons

Here is a look at a typical day at the Eltons during the holiday. Life is never boring when your married to Eric.

Seattle

Safely crossing the street on the pier near Ye Old Curiosity Shop on our way to Pikes Place Market. Liam loved seeing the workers yell and throw fish but it sure was stinky.
Off to the Antique shops. One must always visit the Magic shop, shown here, and the comic book shop. After a bit of wandering it was off to eat piroshki.
We always visit this very cool music store. It has lot's of hands on instruments available so we made lot's of noise with the 6 kiddo's.

Rock climbing

Liam puts on a brave face while getting his harness ready. This was his first time and he was super excited.
In fact, all of the kids were so excited that they climbed for 2 hours. I only got to climb for about 20 minutes or so. The rest of the time we were belaying overenthusiastic kids.

Liz's sister cam e as well with her daughter who you see here.
Izzy was an excellent climber. She had no fear.
Liam climbed this wall twice and on the third time up he made the mistake of looking down. He was a little nervous after that but he got over it pretty quickly and continued to climb.

Cross bows and Catapults

Now son, do you see the Ogre atop the tower over there? I have set up a strategic system of fire that will eliminate all evidence of said Ogre.
oh come on, we're bored here. You think your gonna beat us with a baby?
ah ha! My secret weapon has arrived! Isabel the Irritable will strike you down for good.
(yes, I am a dork. I think I liked this game more than Eric did)

Free loot from the Chehalis Tribe

Time away..

This year Eric and I decided to be eco friendly and give an experience rather than a tree wasting, garbage adding gift. We gave all the parents a gift certificate for 'time away" from the kids. We dropped the 3 older kids off at a holiday camp at AThe Llittle gym and went to the movie 'Yes man'. The Grandparents offered to take the youngen's and received a little bonding time in return. All in all, everyone had a wonderful time.

Fresh air...

We burned off holiday calories on a hike around the beach. Connor found a live clam and all came to ooooh and aaaah only to be disrupted by Liam's foot crushing the poor thing. He was chided by all the clammers in the family but on the way home, when asked, what was your favorite part of the day, the reply was "squashing the clam".

Joy

We had a wonderful holiday this year. We hope that you found as much JOY in it as we did.

Happy New Year!

I have no pictures of the event but New years did happen at the Elton's home. Grandpa Bill purchased fireworks from the 'Res' at an incredible price and we blew stuff up at 7: 30 and had a count down to the New year at 8. After the kids were in bed the adults ate chocolate fondue and partied. Okay, really we just watched a movie because we were all so exhausted from it all.

My New years Eve resolutions: (Julie here, by the way)

1. Be less responsible:
a- The groceries can wait to be put away
b- the dishwasher does not need to be unloaded right this minute
c- the house can be a disaster, it's okay.
Managing my time with 2 little ones this year has made me re access my priorities. Liam and Anna need more play time and attention.

2. Be in a band with Eric:
okay, not really. But we are going to practice musical stuff at least once a week. E will pick up the classical guitar again and I want to learn, the harmonica, harpsichord, cello, triangle, drums and oh the list goes on.