Starting point

Well, as with all of you I'm sure, we have had a busy (and wonderful:) week around here! So in effort to catch up I'll start with what we did leading up to Christmas:) Sunday I got to pick up my dear sweet Mamaw @ the airport and we all have had a great time with her this week:) There was much coloring

and puzzle putting together

 We did some baking (no pics:( and Wednesday morning it was time to brine the turkey for the big day!:)

Yup a WHOLE bottle of wine!Yummers! Mamaw took us out to dinner @ Famous Dave's and then we went to look at Christmas lights! Here are some of the highlights...

Nubi enjoyed the leftovers:)

My folks arrived late that night and look what came in the mail for me the next morning!

Oh yeah, I have an awesome hubby! Thank you honey!

 Everyone wanted to try it out!

I think the kids liked the box better:)

Look out here comes Papa!

Whered' Max go?

Max sure was happy to see his Papa:)

and I quickly put my mom to work in the kitchen helping prepare for the meal that evening:)

Thank you for all your help Ma!

In order to not make this a marathon post, I'll move on to the rest of the Christmas Eve festivities in my next post:)

Birthday Date night!

Well last night we celebrated John's birthday in style! Grandma took the kids for the night! (thanks Margie!) and we shuffled off to Bellevue to Daniel's Broiler for dinner:) John couldn't decide which steak to get:)

 I had the Fillet, oscar stlye

Yummy!

John went with the ribeye

My handsome husband

cute couple, I love us

the even gave us a birthday dessert! Oh MAN it was go-od! Then we went to "Snowflake lane" They had real Toy soldiers!

and drummer boys

they played Christmas music, lit up the buildings and made it SNOW! (I tried to get a pic of the snow, but it didn't really work out:(

it was pretty crowed. I joked that only in Seattle would crowdloads of people come to see fake snow!:) But it was fun:)

I had such a wonderful evening baby. Thank you! You are the love of my life!

 Oh Nubi, did we bring you something?

Happy birthday Pug!

Tonight the kids found the Santa hats I got for them

Merry Christmas everybody!

Tra-Di-Tion!

Another family tradition is making a butt load (yes, and actual butt load) of Tamales! Yummy! Thanks to Mom for putting it all together:)

The kids were so happy to be at Grandmas!

and to check out her Christmas decorations:)

Sister Lyssa was there of course

and our good friend and neighbor Tanisha joined us:)

I had a Dr. appointment that morning so by the time I got there with lunch they had been at it for a couple of hours!

 Mina tried her hand:)

Good job Bee! Don't worry, we made sure to perform quality control checks:)

The finished product

15 DOZEN tamales! And what did the kids do during all this?

What else!

Tanisha came bearing gifts!

Scooby Doo match game!

Max loved his Scooby Doo cars!

How did she know they liked Scooby Doo?!:) Thank you Tanisha!
And thank you Grandma for sharing the tradition....and Tamales!!