Leavenworth

Ben and I haven't been to Leavenworth since before we were married and every year we talk about going. We made it happen this year and it was the best little getaway before Christmas. It was perfect timing because right when we got home both of the kids got really sick and were miserable for a few days. I'm so thankful we had these memories tucked away in our minds as we trudged through days and days of no sleep and cranky kids.

Over the river and through the woods we went..

We scored another fantastic vrbo just a few minutes drive from the downtown area. We got into town early Thursday and after checking out our little townhome, we went to town to go in some of the shops and look at the beautiful lights. We finished the night at a super yummy pizza restaurant.

We woke up Friday morning to a dusting of snow, but it was plenty for the kids to play in. There were a couple huge piles of snow from snow plows, so the kids had fun playing king of the mountain and throwing snow balls at each other.

After warming up in the hot tub, we ventured back into town and went for an incredible walk at the waterfront park. It was such a beautiful day.. the fog slowly lifted and the blue sky started to peak out. It was chilly, but so so so beautiful trekking through the snow along the river.

In the afternoon we went sledding and went back to town one more time. The skies God gave us as the sun went down were indescribably beautiful. It almost felt too perfect.

                                      

On Saturday we woke up to a ton of snow and it continued to dump HUGE snow flakes all morning. We built a snowman and relaxed all morning.

The drive home was a little nerve racking for a while because of the amount of snow, but we were soon out of it and back home.

There is not much better than getting away from all the distractions and to do lists that always pop up when we're at home. Love this family of mine

November recap

Wow November seems like a long time ago.. maybe because it was! I'm just a little behind on blogging. Unfortunately my phone ended up in the washing machine, so I lost quite a few pictures :( I'll do my best to catch you up on the month!

Enjoying the last few beautiful fall trees while on a walk. We have a favorite tree we call the "fire tree" that is the most brilliant shade of red.

Fun with fort building

One of our favorite local parks.. the rhododendron park. We happened to catch a maintenance worker doing leaf blowing in the parking lot and the kids were fascinated by how many leaves he was blowing around. It was so chilly, but Colter insisted on wearing this size 18 mo. fire jacket.

We met my sister at Target for our annual Operation Christmas child shoebox shopping/red cup Starbucks sipping. We have quite the crew these days. haha

Ben and I took the kids to Bothell country village. We rode the train and played on the playground. I was so proud of Colter for climbing all the way up to the crows nest.

We had a pumpkin/apple party with some ladies at church. For the first time ever, everyone besides one person brought something apple! I think there were 3 or 4 apple crisps. It's been fun to have a couple church events lately where i've had the opportunity to get to know some of the women more.

We took advantage of an incredible day and went to our favorite park/beach in all of Seattle.. Lincoln Park. We braved the zipline, played on the play ground, did some fort building on the beach, and walked the beach path. It is such an incredible place.. I just wish it was closer!

My sister and I raked up a ton of leaves at the park across from their house and had the kids jump in it. It lasted about 5 minutes before everyone was freezing.. but it was 5 really fun minutes!

Visiting dad at work is always fun!

Ben took on a big project this month.. building a wall tv cabinet. He wired all the tv wires through the wall, which meant a lot of time spent underneath the house with Colter, I mean Bob the builder, thoroughly enjoyed. Colter spent HOURS underneath the dark house with his tools and head lamp. I was so proud of Ben's hard work.. the finished product turned out awesome!

On Veteran's Day, Ben had to work for a few hours in Bellevue, so we met him at a new park on Mercer Island that I've been wanting to explore. It was such a spectacular park.. except for the part that I thought it had a fire truck play ground and it had recently been replaced.. poor Colter was all decked out in his fire jacket and hat and was quite dissapointed at first, but fortunately it was an awesome park so he quickly forgot about it and ended up having a ton of fun.

We took James out for a fun menchie's outing.. always good to the last drop!

We kicked off the holiday season by Swanson's nursery to feed the reindeer, look at the train display, and explore the grounds. This is always such a fun event. Colter loved the trains of course, and Maddie loved the stuffed dog.. she wanted to ride it forever.

We had so much fun at Swanson's that the next week we went again with some friends.

I got to spend some quality time with Maddie one afternoon. We visited a craft bazaar and went to Wight's nursery to look at their Christmas display.

We've been visiting the children's museum quite a bit. We were so excited to discover they brought the white building blocks back again! They also opened a new water exhibit that is awesome!

We visited Ben at work and walked over to see the festival of trees and the teddy bear suite. That hotel is absolutely gorgeous!

  

Gobble gobble! Unfortunately the Heavilands were sick, so we ended up having Thanksgiving last minute at the Wornicks. It was still a lot of fun, but we missed all the cousins! We took a morning walk, Ben put up most of the lights, and then we spent the afternoon at the Wornicks.

Ben and Colter went on a menchie's date, and we had the Wornicks over to watch the amazing race and eat some incredible knock off paseo sandwiches that were INCREDIBLE!

We got our first snow and cut our Christmas tree down on the same day! We tried out a new Christmas tree farm this year and got a beautiful full tree. We also consumed 90% of their pumpkin bread and homemade butter. yum! It was SOOOOO cold Maddie's hands about fell off, but it was still sunch a beautiful day. After decorating the tree we ventured out to look at some lights!

Maddie cut down her own tree..