Oregon Shakespeare Festival

A couple of weeks ago Micah and I went down to Ashland, OR for the Shakespeare Festival. This was our Christmas present to each other. We found a hotel that was offering a package deal of a one night stay, 2 tickets to any play and $30 off a dinner in their restaurant. So we flew down early on a Thursday morning, arrived around lunch time, and had a great lunch at a brew house. Then we explored the cute little town of Ashland. There were lots of cute shops to browse through. Later we headed back to the hotel to check in and took a nap. Then we headed off to dinner and our play. Dinner was wonderful! And we ended it with one of the best desserts I have ever had. It was a warm, melting chocolate cake with salted caramel ice cream on the side. Oh so yummy! I want to go back just for that dessert. After dinner it was time for our play. We saw Pride and Prejudice, and it was fantastic. They did a wonderful job. And our seats were amazing!

West Fenwick Park

A few weeks ago it was a sunny morning, and Micah was home, so we decided to take Andrew to the park up the street from our house. Andrew had lots of fun running around, going down slides, and climbing on the toys. I was hoping he would wear himself out and take a good nap, but no such luck. Oh well. It was still a fun morning.

Driving Around Fred Meyer

I just had to take a picture of Andrew in the car cart at Fred Meyer (our local grocery store). He absolutely loves cars, and loves to ride around the store in this cart. He even steers the wheel. He is just so darn cute!

A Few Announcements...

Sorry we haven't been blogging much lately. Things around our house have been pretty busy the last couple of months. For one thing, we bought a minivan. We are very excited about it. We have been saving for years, and were just waiting until we found the right van. I had been checking Craigslist for a couple of months, and ended up finding a great deal on a 2006 Honda Odyssey. And we ended up buying it! Andrew LOVES the van. The first few weeks we had it, he kept asking to go down to the car. So we would go down and get in the van. He likes pretending he is driving, and of course he has to push all the buttons.
Another thing we have added to our lives is that Kim became a Stampin Up demonstrator. (A Stampin Up demonstrator is someone who sells Stampin Up stamps, scrapbook supplies, etc. and does parties where she demonstrate the products.) Her friend who was a demonstrator was stepping down, and asked Kim if she wanted to take her place. So far it has been a positive addition to our lives, but it does take up more of Kim's time (thus less time to blog). And it has been a way for us to add more income, which has been nice. God continues to provide for all of our needs! Below is one of the cards Kim made with her Stampin Up supplies:

And the card goes along with our last announcement. We are expecting another baby! The baby is due around September 21st. So we are about 12 weeks along. We are very excited! It will be fun to see Andrew as a big brother, and meet our new little one.

Bath Time is Fun Time

Uncle Justin got Andrew a fun boat and bubble bath for Christmas. Andrew loves to take baths, and now every time he sees the bathtub he says, "boat?". The boat is the kind that you pull a string in the back and it goes forward. We love playing with it too.

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.