Santa made it!!

Man, is it time for XMAS again? It's only been a couple of weeks, but it was so much fun! We should have XMAS at least once every 2 months. This year, we traveled to Oma and Opa's the week before XMAS and had a great time. Oma was playing with Finley and me all the time.



They were always making funny faces at each other.

Finley and I managed a couple cleaning sessions while in Chicago. These were the sacred pools of kitchen-landia.

Finley was working on her "water catching" skills.

I was working on getting Finley wet :)

One afternoon, Mom's friend Kim brought her kids over, Jack and James. They rock! We ran in circles for hours, at least, that's what I remember. . .

And then, one morning we went to the "Shadow" aquarium. I got a cool face painting.

And, I chased a couple of turtles around too. But, I couldn't get past the glass.

And, we hung out with Oma a lot.

Mom managed to stay out of most of the pictures, but we did get a picture or Oma, Dad, and Finley at one point.

And, we managed to see Pat and Dennis one evening. I think Pat and Finley match nicely. . .

And then, the night before we had to get back on the plane to Seattle, we had XMAS Eve dinner at Uncle Brandon's place. We still haven't pulled together all the pictures of the great time we had, but we did get a couple good ones. . . Finley and Omi were having a couch party at one point, smiles all around.

And, towards the end of the night, a little nap time with Oma. It's good (for Finley) to be the princess.

Sleep me :)

And then, on XMAS day, we flew back to Seattle and Gramma and Grampa were there to greet us. Turns out the Santa also stopped bye, so there were more presents :)

Finely took in a good haul. PRESENTS!!!

There was a lot of energy in all the opening. Finley and I teamed up a lot.

The Christie's got me a Razor scooter. I opened it at blinding speed. Is it summer yet?

Grampa got a whole assortment of hangers. Very exciting.

I helped Gramma open a couple gifts too. Here she got some jewelry. One of these days, someone has to explain to me the big deal over jewelry. It doesn't shoot, explode, go fast . . . nothing.

Okay, so I helped open most presents :)

Rare Mommy sighting. Any good pictures of Mommy must be displayed.

Of course, what kind of special mother/daughter moment would it be without Finley gnawing on Mom. Lots of love. Merry Christmas!!

December is a busy month

I can't believe how quickly time goes by. It feels like it was just Thanksgiving. Well, we did a lot in December, and that doesn't count XMAS :)

Auntie NayNay has a birthday in December, so we celebrated of course. Mom made a cake. . . YUM.

And, to practice for XMAS, I helped NayNay open her presents.

And, I helped blow out the candles on the cake.

Gramma and Grampa were up that weekend too to celebrate with NayNay. Grampa made sure to get a hold of Finley for some quality time.

Grampa helped Finley open the XMAS present that Great Gramma sent.

You can see the tree we have up in the house in the background, and Finley is starting to stand while holding on to things. We're not sure if she is going to crawl or walk first, but either way, it makes Mom and Dad look concerned.

The final event to NayNay's birthday was dinner in downtown Seattle. I started eating early cause I was getting hungry.

NayNay got some time with Finley. It was like a rosie cheek parade.

We even got a picture of Mom. This is rare folks. Mom sightings are few and far between on the blog.

Finley again, showing off for the camera with Gramma.

And yet, when we got home, there was ANOTHER CAKE!!! I love birthdays!

I helped practice blowing out the candles on this one.

Look at all those candles. Is Auntie NayNay 100 years old? I can't count that high yet.

Man, its almost a forest fire?

Practice makes perfect. NayNay let me help blow out the candles too.

All done. Is it XMAS yet?

Which comes first, Thanksgiving or XMAS?

Have you ever noticed that Thanksgiving is getting upstaged by XMAS these days? I mean, I love to celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior just as much as the next guy, but what about a little turkey respect? Well, maybe I'm guilty too. I got a cool reindeer hat that I've been wearing around.
And Thanksgiving was barely in the can before we put together a gingerbread house.

I thought this looked really nice, although not as good as the gingerbread train from a couple years ago. We'll bring the train back next year.

And of course, Daddy had to eat some of the building material.

I did too.

Earlier on, we went ice skating. It was my first time!

We started out with a lot of excitement and fun.

But, I had a little trouble once Daddy wouldn't carry me around the ice anymore. Skating while balancing is hard!

Finley watched us skate for a while. It was a little cold, so thank goodness she had her jacket.

Once Dad and I had done a couple laps, I was really getting the hang of things.

And, before skating, we were in Portland for Thanksgiving. This is a preview of our XMAS card picture.

They had a really cool train setup next to Santa's area, so I spent some serious time there watching things go round and round.

We got a chance to see Erika and Rob over Thanksgiving weekend. I got a chance to ride Rob, which I know is one of his favorite pass times.

And, what would a holiday be without an obligatory baby bath in the sink?

And finally, on the week leading up to Thanksgiving, we had snow in Seattle.

I started out a little tentative, but got aggressive pretty quickly. I love sledding saucers!

And, after I ran the hill for a couple hours with my sled, I conked out on the couch. A days good work.