Wonderful Festive Weekend!

The "weekend" started on Thursday.

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!