december in washington

We're going to try and catch up on our blog, starting with December here in Washington. One of the first things to happen in the month...

...was this little guy turning six months old!

We can't believe how fast Evan is growing up!

We have a few little traditions every year around Christmas. One is the Christmas party at church...

...where Santa usually makes an appearance. Brooklyn asked for princess Legos.

We figure he's a little young to be terrified of Santa. Next year should be perfect.

There was a gingerbread house decorating contest at the church Christmas party this year. We didn't take one but somehow ended up coming home with one. Brooklyn was pretty happy about that.

Another tradition is visiting the nativity displays that are put on at an LDS church by the Seattle Temple in Bellevue. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of different nativity sets from all corners of the globe. It's pretty fascinating to see how different -- and how similar -- they are.

There's a little neighborhood out in a nearby town that puts on a fun, homemade, kitschy, kid-friendly Christmas lights show. It's much crazier than this cute little sign would indicate.

Another tradition we have is going to the Redmond outdoor mall, where they close the streets during Christmas and have fun things like a giant tree, ice skating (which we discovered involved zero ice), pictures with Santa, hot chocolate, a train, a reindeer, and a carousel, among other things. This year Brooklyn said she just wanted to watch the carousel for a little while.

We had a really sweet neighbor from China that became friends with Brooklyn. She was going back home to China and wanted to take a photo with B. She said in broken English that she was going back to her family but that we were her "American family." Aw!!

Cookie time!

Brooklyn usually avoids getting messy like nobody's business. But she was pretty excited to see herself in the mirror afterwards.

Austin had some money through work to make a fitness-related purchase and was lucky enough to score a pair of white Air Jordan 11s. Yum yum.

We thought we had The Polar Express but we couldn't find it anywhere. Austin immediately hopped on Amazon and a couple days later was reading it with B next to the Christmas tree. We love the symbolism and message of faith in the story. (We don't really love the movie, which we saw on TV a couple days later.)

We got the kiddos matching outfits to wear to church the week of Christmas.

Pretty darn cute.

It wasn't a white Christmas up here. Just gray. The upside is that it's not too cold or slippery to go for walks. :)

We love our new stocking! Since we had made travel plans to fly down to California on Christmas Eve, we arranged with the man in the red suit to come a day early. We did all our typical Christmas Eve stuff on the night of the 23rd.

The kids opened their Christmas Eve Eve present -- matching jammies!

Brooklyn left a letter and milk and cookies for Santa...

...and decided she wanted to try one.

B got to read a Christmas book after Evan went to bed. We'd done the nativity story earlier, so we ended our night with another classic -- How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

We got the kiddos in bed and left the Christmas lights on...

...and St Nick came through on his agreement to bring some of the presents a day early!

We thought Brooklyn would go straight for the princess Legos, but she was throwing down two-handed jams before we could even get the bow off the hoop -- which was a gift for both the kiddos.

Evan had fun opening presents and playing with some new toys.

As did B.

We continued the tradition we started with Brooklyn of Mommy and Daddy getting the kids their first teddy bear for Christmas. We found an adorable, soft, gray teddy bear for Evan. We can't wait to find out what his name is in a year or two. ;)

We enjoyed opening gifts together, and then it was to the airport and off to California -- with a nice, cloud-blanketed view of Mount Rainier on our way out.