Christmas Day

We spent the night of Christmas Eve at my parent's house. So when we woke up in the morning my mom had two of Andrew's presents waiting for him. They were a cute little bench for outside and a Mickey stuffed animal that talks. The first thing Mickey said when we pressed his hand was, "Merry Christmas!" We thought it was quite appropriate. While Andrew was having fun with "Mi, Mi" and Nana, Micah and I got ready for the day. Then when everyone was up and ready we ate a wonderful breakfast my dad prepared-waffles, Canadian bacon, berries and whipped cream.
When we were done with breakfast it was time to open presents. It was fun watching Andrew this year. He had fun opening presents, and oohhed and aahhed over each thing he got. He even had fun helping us open our presents too.
After presents and cleaning up we took a short walk to the park near my parent's house. Andrew had fun playing on the toys until his hands got too cold, then we headed back to the house.


The rest of the day we just played games and relaxed until it was time for the rest of my dad's side to come over for our dinner together.

Christmas in North Dakota

Last week we headed to Bismark, ND to visit Micah's family. We all stayed at Micah's sister Kayla's house. While we were there we celebrated Christmas and had a great time visiting with family and playing games together.
Andrew loved playing harmonica with great Grandpa Seidler.
Playing with his cousins Eden and Violet.
Opening presents, some of which were Daddy's toys from when he was little. This one I also happened to have when I was growing up, so it's fun to see Andrew play with it now.
And we got to see Kayla and Bethanie with their cute pregnant tummies. I can't wait to meet the new babies the next time we all get together.

Christmas Eve Eve

My family has a tradition of going to downtown Seattle on the day before Christmas Eve, or as we like to call it, Christmas Eve Eve. Andrew was already to go in his hat and mittens from Papa Robin and Grandma Dawn. And he is wearing a sweater that my grandma knit for me when I was a baby.
We met my family at the link light rail in Tukwila. Andrew loved seeing Nana and riding the train.
When we arrived in downtown we walked to the Cheesecake Factory, and found out it was a long wait. We put our name in and then headed to the Sheraton to look at the amazing gingerbread houses. This year they had a theme of Christmas movies, so each house was based off of a classic Christmas movie. We decided not to wait in the loooong line, and instead just walked by them. We didn't get a close look, but it was enough. It still wasn't time for us to go back to the Cheesecake Factory so we walked to the Convention Center, took a picture by the Christmas tree and then Andrew spotted the fountain. He loved the fountain. He kept saying "ooohhh". Of course Uncle Justin had fun watching it with him too.
Then we went back to the restaurant to wait for our turn. We had a nice dinner and had fun tasting bits of each others meals. By the end of our meal it was time to catch the train back home so we could put Andrew to bed. It was a fun evening, and helped get us ready to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Projects Part 3

The biggest project I tackled was to make Quiet Books for my nieces, Eden (age 4 and Violet age 14 months). One of my aunts made me a Quiet Book when I was little and I still have it. I recently got it out and Andrew has enjoyed playing with it. Then when I saw that the blog I found the burp cloth templates on also had templates for Quiet Book pages I just knew I wanted to make ones for my nieces. I used ideas from the blog and from my aunt's book to make the pages. I also made up one of my own. Eden likes Hello Kitty so I decided to make a page where she could dress up Hello Kitty. I looked online for pictures of Hello Kitty and then drew my own kitty and clothes. So here are the pages for Eden's book:

The Cover
Page 1-Mailbox where Eden can open the mailbox to find a postcard from Auntie Kim.
Pages 2-3-Eden can button on her first and middle names. Unzip the tent to find a polar bear. (I didn't have any brown felt.)
Pages 4-5-A ladybug to unzip and hide things in. And a fish tank to velcro on the fish.
Pages 6-7-Dress Hello Kitty in clothes or a mermaid costume. And then button the flowers onto the stems.
Page 8-Open the barn to find a chicken, cow and pig finger puppets.

And I used some of the same pages in both girls' books (fish tank, barn with finger puppets and button-on flowers). Here are the pictures of Violet's book:

The Cover
Pages 2-3_Hang the clothes on the line, and match the colored balloons.
Pages 4-5-A clown for Violet to velcro on his eyes, nose, and mouth. And a mitt for her to put her hand into.

Christmas Projects Part 1

On Micah's side of the family we like to make Christmas presents for each other. This year Micah's sister Kayla, and our sister-in-law Bethanie are both pregnant so I thought I would make them some burp cloths for when the babies come. I found this website: www.homemadebyjill.blogspot.com where she has a template for burp cloths. She also makes bibs, so I decided to give those a try too. Now I am addicted, they are so easy and fun to make.
Then since Bethanie is going to be doing cloth diapers I thought I would make some wipes out of some of the leftover material from the burp cloths. And I thought Kayla could use them as wash cloths. These were super easy!

Christmas Projects Part 2

The project that took the least amount of time was the set of candles I made for Micah's mom. I found this tutorial on one of my favorite websites http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/stamping_on_candles/
I also put together a DVD of a bunch of videos from Andrew's first year for her.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We have been busy getting ready for Christmas for the last month or so. Our tree is up and decorated. Our Christmas cards are made and sent out. We had our neighbors over for a brunch.
We made Christmas presents (more blog posts on those will be coming). And most of our presents are wrapped.
Now that most of that stuff is done I feel ready for Christmas and ready to reflect on the coming our Savior and the meaning of the Season.

Disneyland Day 3

On Saturday we were able to get into the park at 7am. And since it was my birthday we wanted to spend as much time at the park that we could. We took advantage of there not being very many people in the park by taking some pictures and walking onto rides. It was so nice to be in the park and have it not be crazy busy like it was on Friday.
When California Adventure opened we went over there to ride the new Toy Story Mania ride. It is such a fun ride. It is a lot like the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster where each person has a gun type thing that they use to hit targets. Only the Toy Story one is in 4D and you get to wear some great glasses.
By then it was time for lunch. We went to the Wine Trattoria restaurant and shared a wonderful lunch. Then it was time to go shopping!
After some time in Bug's Land we went to the Blue Bayou for my birthday dinner. My family has a tradition of going to the Blue Bayou every time we go to Disneyland, but this was the first time we were able to sit next to the water. We had a nice dinner and time of celebrating.
After our dinner we went to Main Street to watch the Candlelight Processional. We were lucky to be at the park on the day they did the processional. It ended up being my favorite part of our whole trip. At first the choir members walked down Main Street signing sacred Christmas songs. Then when they got to the train station they formed into a living Christmas tree. Jon Voight was there to read the Christmas story from the Bible. It was amazing to see so many people hearing about our Savior's birth!
Overall it was a wonderful 30th birthday, and I don't think it could have been any better.

Disneyland Day 2

On our second day we woke up early so we could be in line before the park opened. Then we headed for some rides. First, we went on Finding Nemo subs. Andrew didn't seem too impressed.
After a morning of getting on as many rides we could, we headed to our character breakfast. I thought Andrew might be a little afraid of the characters, but he actually did pretty well. At first he ignored the characters and became engrossed in his breakfast. He was even taking his blueberries and placing them on top of his waffle. When Chip came over he was imitating Andrew, it was so cute. When Captain Hook came by we told Andrew he is a pirate, so Andrew did his sign for pirate. Capt. Hook thought that was pretty funny.
Then it was time to go to California Adventure for the Playhouse Disney show. Andrew had fun sitting next to Nana on the bench watching Mi mi. We rode some rides, then headed to the hotel for a nap. After we rested for a few hours we headed to Disneyland for the Jedi Training show and Toon Town. For dinner we met my parents at the Golden Horseshoe and watched the show while we ate. The rest of our evening was spent going on a few rides and then saving a spot for the Fantasmic show, only to have it canceled. It was a big bummer!

Disneyland Birthday Trip

Since Disney was doing the get in free on your birthday promotion I wanted to go to celebrate my 30th birthday. When we started planning the trip it was just going to be me, Micah and Andrew going for one day, and then it ended up being me, Micah, Andrew, Justin and my mom and dad and we all went for three days. It was a wonderful trip, and so much fun to see Andrew's reactions to everything.
For the first time we took the Disneyland Express bus instead of renting a car. It ended up working pretty well, and we didn't have to bring a car seat for Andrew which was nice. We got to the park around 1pm. And when we walked in we got to ride in one of the fire trucks. Then we walked through the castle to find Alice and the Mad Hatter. And Alice was the first character I got my picture with on my first trip to Disneyland. So it was fitting that she is also Andrew's first character. Then we took Andrew on some of the Fantasyland rides. We ended up running into my friend Starr, who we knew was going to be at Disneyland the same time we were. It was fun seeing her and her family there.
Later that night we met up with some family friends who live in Southern CA for ice cream sundaes. While we were eating them the castle was being lit for the night, so we went into the middle of Main Street to watch. After the castle was lit it snowed on us. Andrew loved the snow, it was priceless watching his reaction!
And a great way to end our first magical day was to spot Mickey and Minnie on our way out of the park. Before our trip I had Andrew watch a Disneyland sing along video and told him who the characters were. And right before we left whenever he saw a picture of Mickey he would say Mi mi, Mi mi. And when we were waiting in line to get our picture he kept repeating Mi mi, Mi mi. It was so cute!