Happy Valentines Day!

Cheese!...No, It's Greek Yogurt

Christmas Day

We headed east of the mountains before Santa came into town and Elle woke up at Grami and Poppi's house with her cousins. 

Comparing her pillow pet with cousin Sophie

Wow, look at the cool stuff that Santa brought.

Mommy helping put together some new toys

All of the cousins in action

Here Poppi, check this out

Marcus got an awesome rocking horse that all the cousin's got a chance on.  the best part was when he tried riding it home in the back of the truck. 

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we gathered with Wendy, Donny, Erik, Great Grandma S, Grandma, and Grandpa.



Elle helping Grandpa open his gift.  She was great at taking presents to their correct owners and then following up to make sure all wrapping was properly taken care of.

Chilling with Momma during a break in the action

Daddy got a hat but Elle was the one to show it off.

Elle got a book from Great Grandma

I know these words mean something...

Elle's favorite gift was the rockin' cow.  She took to it right away.  Such a cowgirl.

Elle also got a dancing Mickey.  She wasn't too sure off the bat but now she can't get enough dancing.  She plays with it every day when we get home.

So glad we could have Great Grandma S for all the fun.

Kim got a cool piece to hold all our wine corks.  Now we will have the goal of filling it.  Too fun!

Showing off on the cow

We followed up presents with an awesome dinner.  Thanks Aunt Wendy and Uncle Donny

Lana even came along and joined the party.  Thanks for coming!

Christmas 1.0

This was our first christmas about a week before the actual day.  Thank you Randy and Shelley for hosting.

Colby with little Gavin

The amazing table decorations

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa after dinner.

Gigi gave Elle and Noah both a Tonka truck.  Thay loved them!

Nothing like a little bumper car action with the new toys.

Grandma made this awesome robe for Elle.  So cute!

Gigi checking out her brag book from Sarah and Josh.  It was a wonderful gathering and we were so happy to see everyone.

Cousins

Our best attempt at getting a picture of the cousins at Christmas

The Big Guy

We postponed for quite a while because Mommy and Daddy don't like to get anywhere near the mall but finally last week Elle got her chance to sit down with Santa Claus.  Elle and Mommy picked Daddy up at work and tried to beat the crowd into Bellevue.



Elle was in a really good mood to start even though she got her Flu shot booster just hours before.

This Santa has his reindeer flying above the crowds

Look!  There's Rudolf!!!

This was our view while we waited in line.  Unfortunately, by the time we worked our way through Santa's workshop, Elle's mood had changed somewhat.  We will be posting that picture in the next few days once we have it scanned into the computer.

Grandma's Bell

Grandma S came over to help Elle put her special bell ornament on the Christmas tree



Listen to it jingle...

Where should we put it?

How about right here?  Perfect!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!!

Iron chef

Colby and I were able to sneak away for a few hours of Christmas shopping and a nice dinner out.  The Mizu Japanese Steakhouse is nestled in the Home Depot parking lot not too far from our house.  Since we were out and about we figured it was the perfect night to give the restaurant a try.



Looking at the table next to us as we waited for our Chef.

 

As our vegetables were cooking the chef made a little volcano out of a stack of onions.  The flame was high and hot both of us were glad it was towards the other end of the table to be honest!

The Chef grabbed a little statue of a golf guy who then peed on the fire until it went out.  Seriously, it was hilarious! I am not sure if the other people at our table found it as funny as we did.   

At the end of dinner he brought out flame sticks and proceeded to put on a little show.  It was such a fun dinner!  Colby was the only guy at our table to actually catch the shrimp in his mouth!  None of us women would try.  Lame I know but in my defense the shrimp looked extremely hot as it had been cooking for a while!