The kids actually slept in until 7am. I was waiting for them to wake up. They were tired kids. Then when they did get up we made them wait for about 20 minutes so that Darin could get the burgundy mushrooms marinating on the stove. They were amazingly patient.
In the afternoon Grandma & Papa came out to bring us Aunt Edie's cinnamon roles and to have dinner with us. Darin made prime rib this year with burgundy mushrooms and roasted potatoes. Yum!
Nana surprised to get a mini Keurig. :-)
Zach loving his camera.
Darin is surprised by the Atari iPad game I got him. He was impressed, but after playing with it a little decided that it wasn't put together very well. I guess it's going back, but I still get props for surprising him. :-)
LOVE these new corning ware dishes I got!
The little bit of sun we got before the storm blew in.
Zach was excited to get this Batman car from Grandpa Frink & Grandma Myrna. Now he has one just like his buddy Brady.
Do you think Elissa is excited?! She loved her horse & Barbie from Grandpa Frink & Grandma Myrna.
This crazy car got the coolest and most annoying toy of the day. Nana got it while she was in Texas. It flips and twists and plays music. A Mexican type music very loud. You can't turn it off. We must find wires to clip!
Probably Elissa's favorite gift. Her previous skates were "Dora". She was definitely due some roller blades. She rode off like a master. :-)
I didn't take another picture.
We had a wonderful day enjoying family and staying in our PJs.
The day started with the annual Girls Christmas Breakfast with Chrissy, Amy & Amy Jo. AJ informs us that this is our 15th year of this tradition. This year Chrissy got to host. So fitting for the new bride in her new home. :-) She put on an elaborate spread of fancy potato cakes, eggs benedict, sausage, muffins and cranberry bread. LOTS of food! She also gave us really cute holiday wine stoppers & charms. It is also great to get time to catch up with these girls!
I'll post a pic once I get it from Amy.
3:30PM
Then that afternoon we had Christmas with my parents and my brother and his family. I always intend to get a family picture, but it just never happens. :( Here are a few of my favorites.
I love the faces of the boys. :-)
Elissa's pregnant Jessica family. All the kids were getting an education. LOL!
The kids had a great time and the grown-ups always enjoy catching up with each other. We left at 8:30pm to make it to our churches Christmas Eve service.
9PM
We went to the LSCC Christmas Eve service. It was surprisingly packed. It was a very nice service and the kids did really well for the time that it was. Poor Zach was so tired, but he was able to make it through.
I don't know how I didn't take any pictures the last couple of days. I have had lots of fun. Too much fun to stop and take pictures I guess. :-)
WEDNESDAY MORNING
Two years ago Amalea had a bunch of us over for "breakfast in bed". It was a really fun morning of showing up in our PJs, having breakfast, watching movies and chatting over coffee. I decided to host one this year. I'm really sad that I didn't get any pictures. Someone even brought it up, but I was too busy making waffles for the kids. :-)
There were 6 Moms and 15 kids. Whew, that is a full house! Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day, so the kids brought their bikes to play outside too. I also blew up the aero bed and put it by the couch so the kids could lounge around and watch movies.
It was a fun morning with Renee, Amalea, Kari, Julie and Jenny and their kiddos. I am so blessed by your friendships!
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Every year we have a Seattle Weekend with Kirstin & Kirk. Well since they have a new little one this year, it didn't really work to leave our kids for a weekend. So we worked out a day to be in Seattle together - Thursday. Grandma decided that she would take the kids (and the dog) Wednesday afternoon to keep them overnight, so I took advantage of that and arranged for Darin and I to stay downtown Wednesday night and Thursday night since Nana would keep them the second night. So I had them all ready to go at 3:30pm and I met Darin at the Sheraton.
We had a nice evening walking around and enjoying good food. It is so fun being downtown during the holidays and seeing all the lights and feeling the fun of the Christmas season everywhere.
THURSDAY
Darin went to work and Kirstin met me downtown to have a day of shopping. We really did more sitting and talking then shopping, but we did get in a few hours at Macy's wrapping up the little bit of loose ends of Christmas shopping we had left.
Then we met the guys at 6pm at Sea Star for dinner. This was the first time that Darin and I have ate there. YUM! It was good food and of course the company was the best!
I wish they could have stayed the night, but they had to get back to their little one.
FRIDAY
Darin took the day off. We didn't have any shopping we needed done, so we went to an early movie. We saw the new Mission Impossible at 10:10am. A good flick! I like all of them.
Then we headed back home to get ready for the Christmas weekend.
I'm so thankful for the times I get to do fun things with the kids and friends and I feel so blessed that Darin & I get to regularly get away together.
I was able to spend the whole day - literally - with one of my favorite people, Renee Chandler. We left her house at 8:30am to head up to Alderwood Mall to spend the day. If you haven't been there lately, it has been redone and is very cool. Lots of good food, a big Starbucks, a great mall and outdoor shops to stroll through. Then on the way home we hit University Village and just had time for a couple of shops before having dinner at Lunchbox Laboratory in Seattle. Very yummy burgers! We were going to take in a movie too, but time just ran out at 8:30pm. Thanks for the great day Renee!
Friday was the kids last day of school before Winter break.
Elissa's school had a holiday sing-a-long at 10:45am, so Zach and I went. I have fond memories of doing this when I was in elementary school and Zach has been learning Christmas carols this year so I thought he would enjoy it too. Not so much. He just wanted to run around.
It was Santa hat day, so here is the sea of 1st, 2nd & 3rd graders. I never got a good pic of Elissa.
At 1:30pm Zach had his preschool Christmas program.
Zach is the last one on the left.
Zach's a donkey.
His buddy Christian was an old dog and Brady was Joseph.
I love his little shy smile you can see here.
Here is a little bit of their singing. :-)
He is waving at Elissa trying to get her to wave back.
Then he brought me a present. His shirt says "I melt Mommy's heart", so true.
It was a very cute program!
Then it was time for the Mother & Daughter Christmas excursion.
My Mom and I have been doing something every Christmas together for a lot of years. I don't remember when we started. I'm sure she does. :-) And many of the years we have gone with other mother & daughters as well. I really need to dig out the pictures that she has taken and that I have taken and make a scrapbook. That will be a goal for 2012 (start digging through your pictures Mom & writing down all the dates & times that you remember!).
This year was the first year that Elissa got to go with us and we invited Patty along too. There was a Groupon a while back for tickets to "The Nutcracker" performed by the Evergreen City Ballet at the Renton IKEA Theatre. I talked to Mom and we decided this would be a great intro for Elissa.
Unfortunately our girls night ended up falling on the same night as her friend's birthday party who lives just across the street. I told her that we would take her and Kendall ice skating on break to make up for the party. That did not appease her. :(
We also got one without her.
She was like that until we got to the restaurant. Actually she fell asleep in the car and got a nice little rest for about 20 minutes. We ate at Claim Jumpers because she really likes the ribs there.
She turned around and really enjoyed the ballet. It was good. The theatre was a nice size where every seat had a good view. It was about 20 minutes too long. It was a really full day. :-)
Then tonight was the LSCC Women's Dinner.
Mom and Aunt Edie hosted a table.
It was so pretty and had yummy jars of candy all around. They gave us a bag and had us fill up our bag with all sorts of goodies. They also gave us really cute Christmas night lights.
I got to share the evening with some of my family.
Millie (my cousins significant other), Mom, Aunt Edie (Mom's sister) and my cousin Tammy.
It was a wonderful evening of fellowship and listening to a play done by the Taproot Theatre called "12 Days to Christmas". It was really good and so true! We let the hustle and bustle of season distract us from the true reason we are celebrating - Christ's birth!
Thank you Mom for the evening! I love you!
And thank you Hubby for watching the kids 3 nights in a row! Love you too!
He has been in our family since 11/19. I guess it was time. :-)
He actually did really good. He just stood there and let me wash him, though toward the end he was trying to jump out. It was hard for Zach to take these pictures.
But he LOVES getting dried off in the towel. He thinks it is a game. We have a towel at the garage door when he comes in from playing outside to get him dried off from the wet grass. He goes right to the towel and waits for you to wrap him up and dry him off.
I am SO thankful that I don't regret getting him at all. I prayed that I would love him and the Lord was gracious. :-) We all love him. Elissa comes home from school and goes right for him. She tells me all the time that he is the best gift ever. Zach wants to carry him around all the time. Zach wrestles with him. I think Newman thinks that Zach is another puppy. Zach barks at him and Newman barks back. At first Zach was a little afraid of him, but no longer. He man handles Newman all the time. I have to watch out for Newman. Zach also tells me how much he loves him. He is worth the headache. :-)
Thankfully the accidents in the house are subsiding. It has been a few days since he had his last one. Yesterday he even started going out the dog doors to go potty by himself. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!!
That was the name of our church Christmas play this year.
The main actors have been practicing since September and the rest of the kids have been practicing every Sunday since the 1st of October. This is a bigger play then we have ever done. It was 45 minutes long and had a lot of lines and choreography.
It was about a little girl who is in a toy story and ends up telling the toys the story of Christmas and discovers that there is more to Christmas then getting all that you want.
Elissa was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, which most of the kids did not know who she was. She got to sing a special number with 3 other kids and was in the choir. Usually the you have to be 5yrs old to be in the play, but the 4 yr olds got to play a little cameo in the very beginning playing bells. Zach was Superman.
I helped out in the play this year too. I got to sing in the first song and then the rest of the play I was directing the kids on where they should be on stage and when they should move.
It has been hard to wait for the results of the video EEG 24 hr study that we had done on October 26th. It was hard to go to the appt today. The last EEG results back in June was such a blind side, that I was really fearful of what information was going to come back this time. I wanted the information, but dreaded it also.
Thankfully, it was all "good" news today.
Elissa was not having seizures during the EEG study. She did have some short bursts of abnormal brain activity while she was sleeping. They were generalized in the frontal lobe, both right and left. The doctor was happy with these results. The medicine is doing its job.
Elissa is on Keppra. She is at 6ml 2x a day. Her blood test came back normal and that the medicine is in low therapeutic levels. We are leaving it at this dosage since she seems to be doing well on it. She had an "off" day (unusually disruptive or forgetful) at school just after her EEG, so the doctor raised the medicine from 4.5 to 6ml.
Last year Darin had Elissa is ski lessons at Crystal. She loved it and was really good. We thought that she probably wouldn't be able to ski this year. If she is having short staring seizures, 1-4 seconds or longer, then she shouldn't be on skis where she would lose control. So we asked the doctor what she thought and she said, without hesitation, that she could ski. I was a bit astonished. She did not want to commit earlier this year. So Darin signed up Elissa and Zach when we got home. :-)
While we were sitting in the waiting area waiting for Elissa's appt, there was a Mom on the phone trying to get information about her son. Apparently her son had a seizure at school and was being taken to the hospital. During the conversation she said that they were just weening him off of meds and she was obviously distraught this happened. AND she was at the neurologist for her younger daughter and had to stay for that appt and try to get a hold of her son's neurologist in the same office. While the Dad was on his way to the hospital. Wow, that is a lot to handle. It made me count my blessings on how little impact Elissa's diagnosis has really had on our life and I just sat and prayed for that Mom.
There is still hope that Elissa will grow out of the epilepsy. That is our continued prayer.
Darin and I love to hang out in Seattle and we try to have opportunities where we take the kids some times too. :-) The problem is that they don't really enjoy just walking and looking around, so it has to be a very kid friendly plan.
Darin wanted to take them to a play at the Seattle Children's Theatre again this year, so we chose "A Year with Frog and Toad". Our initial plan included staying in a hotel with a pool, but oops! We have a puppy. Let's re-think that plan. We decided on a Saturday evening so we could go down a little early and look around the Seattle Center Winter Wonderland. Then I had a great idea to take them to Benihana for a late lunch. We thought they would enjoy watching their food being cooked in front of them. I also really wanted to take Elissa ice skating.
We left at 1pm after trying to get a Christmas card picture taken. That is always a "fun" experience. We had reservations at Benihana's at 2pm. The kids didn't know what we were doing.
They had a fun time. We all had a great time!
We left Benihana's and went to the REI flagship store to look around and get some new snow suits for the kids.
After that it was off to the Center House. We had enough time before the 5:30pm play to get some coffee and hot chocolate and watch the model train.
We got great seats at the play. As you can see the kids were not excited for me to take a picture of them waiting for it to start.
That was the only time they were bored. They thoroughly enjoyed the play. It was very entertaining. They really liked the actors who played the birds and the moles.
At the end of the play they had a short discussion time with the actors. One of the actors asked the audience to tell them what was their favorite season and why. Elissa was one of the ones that got picked to answer. She said, "Summer because we get a break from school." Nice. Then Zach raised his hand to ask a question and they picked a boy just behind him. He thought they picked him and he started talking. When I had to tell him it wasn't his turn, he got really embarrassed and hid under my arm. They tried to ask him next, but he was done at that point. Poor guy.
It was already late after the play, but we went to the ice skate rink anyways. At first Zach saw it and said that he was not going to do it. Elissa was ecstatic. So Elissa and I paid to go on the ice. I have only been ice skating once and this was Elissa's first time. She's been roller skating with friends a few times. As we are getting our ice skates on, Zach decides he wants to try too. So Elissa and I get on the ice first. I was scared! I did NOT want to fall. It just took one time around and Elissa and I were off. It was pretty easy to keep your balance. Well, that is, if there aren't little kids with walkers cutting you off and suddenly stopping. I am happy to say that I did not fall. :-)
Elissa is off and skating!
Zach is on his way with Mom right behind him.
Here is a little video clip of our adventure. Look for Elissa in the middle of the rink dancing toward the beginning. Elissa didn't need a walker, but she would use it when she wanted to go really fast. Doesn't Zach look like a little old man using the walker? He fell a couple of times, but he never got hurt. He would just get right back off and head out again. Though he did want to take rests in the corners or when we came back to Darin. He would walk off and then turn around and walk back onto the ice to go another round. I also had to tell him a few times that he was going the wrong way or not to stop right in the middle of everyone. He gets pretty "tricky" towards the end. I think him and Elissa were racing.
They did NOT want to leave when we finally made them come in when it was after 9pm. They really enjoyed themselves. Darin said that Zach was asking today if we could go again soon. I'm going to have to take them to the Kent rink.
We were all starving after roller skating since we hadn't ate since 2pm, so we went to McDonald's for a very late dinner. As soon as we were back in the car, the kids were out. They slept the whole way home. I love it when you have a full day and they just can't keep their eyes open. :-)
It was definitely a very fun and memorable family day!
