Couldn't find V today

I didn't know where V was today and I was looking around and I started to hear some knocking and I assumed she was in the bathroom making a mess. Instead I found her in a new hiding place. She is so funny, everyday she does something new.

Zoolights

Just some pictures of our trip to see the zoolights. Point Defiance Zoo does this every Christmas, it is so much fun. This Elephant is my favorite. It is just so simple.

Some pretty red trees.
Claire loved the lights. She is getting so big, she rolls over now and even has tried to push up on her knees. She loves to watch Violet and laughs a lot, she is such a happy baby. She also loves to just lay on her back and kick kick kick. Maybe we'll get a video of that soon.

Violet's favorite part of course was inside the aquarium, these are really the only animals you can see at zoolights, she loves fish so much and just gets so excited and runs back and forth from tank to tank pointing at all the fish. this was the first time my parents had been to the zoo with Violet and they loved watching her watch the fish.

A view up the hill. It is so much fun and really pretty, if you are ever in town during the Christmas season you should check out the Point Defiance zoo for Zoolights! We loved it.

Christmas

My post is all out of order too. It usually is though. So I'll start from Saturday. Sat was John's b-day and we went to Famous Dave's BBQ and had ribs and brisket. It was so yummy, the best sauce is called Devil's spit, I can't wait to have an excuse to go back!

V was bossing Peter around and grabbing his shirt the whole time, it was pretty funny. She is turning into a great bossy 2 year old.

Claire was trying to eat my food the whole time. She will be so excited when she can eat real food. She loves to eat and is growing so fast. The outfit she is wearing is one that V wore when she was learning to walk!!!

John didn't want Diana to sing Happy Birthday in the restaurant . She tried anyways :)

Violet is very busy chugging some water.

Grandma, Grandpa and Claire.

Bill and Michele.

We got John a play wrestling ring. He now can play Carlito's Cabana. Just what he's always wanted!

Diana and I shared Ribs and Brisket....yum.
Claire got a little bouncer thing from Santa. She loves it and I would recommend it to anyone having a baby this June!

Santa left V a Bike!! Yay. We obviously had to lower the seat but she loves it and we are going to learn to pedal this week.

Claire holding tight to her new ball. Violet stole a lot of Claire's toys, so she had to hang onto them while she could.

V got a slide! It's great we can use it inside and out and spent most of christmas morning sliding down over and over again.

Claire in her Christmas jammies.

Violet opened everyone's Christmas jammies.

Bill has the Christmas Spirit!

Violet got to color with all her grandparents Christmas eve. She has a lovely picture that we'll hang in her room.

We had a great Christmas. Peter and I got some wonderful gifts and the kids had a great day. We got a wii fit plus and Peter got an Ipod touch that he is very excited about. We had a great weekend but now we are tired and spent today sleeping in and playing with our new toys. V really helped Mom out on the wii fit, it's really fun to ride the bike with an extra set of feet on the board! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Morning

I had a hard time wrapping this plane so I taped the paper to the plane then finished wrapping it. Wesley had a hard time with the tape.

We sat on Santa's lap this year and Wesley asked for a Baukugon (how do you spell that?). I was very glad Santa delivered!

Thankyou all so much for thinking of us. We really did enjoy all the gifts. We remembered all of you too, but it may be a few more days until your gifts from us arrive. 2nd Christmas, right? Anyhow. . . here are a few moments from our Christmas, enjoy!

We could not see Sam and it got really quite. I saw him run into the kitchen a few minutes earlier, so I knew he was fine. I went over to check it out anyway and this is what I found. (listen for the "sure do Mom" that is one of his favorite sayings)

We had a really fun Christmas. It started off with a few tears, but after we fed the boys we had a great day.

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!

This year we decided to simplify our lives a little bit and one way we decided to do that is to not send out Christmas cards, but we still wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and tell you a little about our year so here is our Christmas letter. Every year is busy but it seems that this year was busy and full of life changes.

We started our year living in Houston, Texas. Peter had taken a job there a few months before and we were just settling in. We really enjoyed our time in Texas, it was a little shorter than we had planned but we are so glad for the time we were able to spend there. Peter's sister Emily lives in Houston also and we loved living so close to Violet's only cousins Wesley and Sam. We miss them very much. We also really enjoyed sitting out on our deck in the sun in the middle of February (We were particularly missing this last week when it was zero degrees here).

While we lived in Texas we found out that our family would be getting a little bigger! We were very excited to be having another little girl join our family. Claire was born in August and she is just a wonderful little girl, she is close to being able to sit up and she loves to smile and laugh. We have been blessed with really sweet children. Violet is 2 this year and she excels at throwing tantrums but even at her worse she's not such a terrible two. She loves nursery, candy canes and watching cartoons. We are planning to start a little preschool play group at the beginning of the year with a few kids in the area and Violet is very excited about spending more time with some friends her age.

Peter has had an opportunity to look for a different job this year ( I was trying to think of the best way to put that :)) It has been difficult but a blessing at the same time. We were able to move back up to Washington and live with our family while we transition to the next step. We really have enjoyed being so near both our families (My side of the family lives in town also) and all the grandparents have really been excited to spend time with the grandkids. The girls are the only grandkids on my side and the only ones in town for Peter's side so they are very lucky to have the undivided attention of four grandparents and 5 great grandparents! One great thing about starting at square one on the job front is that we have so many options in front of us, true there aren't many available jobs at this time but we the opportunity to head in any direction we choose and for that I think we are truly blessed. We have a wonderful family who has supported us in all of our decisions and has made it very easy for us as we lay out our plan for the future.

Peter has decided to go back to school and get his Master's degree. If all goes according to plan (knock on wood) he should be able to start this coming fall at The Evergreen State College.

Ellen is currently a stay at home Mom and loves spending time with her girls. She really cherishes the times when they both take a nap at the same time! It has been really fun to stay home with the children, they amaze me everyday. Ellen really enjoys cooking, especially experimenting with new recipes ( luckily her Mother in Law is good hearted about a giant mess in the kitchen, and the rest of the family willingly tries her creations). Ellen is currently accumulating ideas for her own small business, that she hopes to begin as the girls get a little older ( More on this in another letter)

Well it has been a great year and we are looking forward to whatever lays ahead of us this year! Merry Christmas and we hope you will be blessed with joy in the year to come!

Love,

Peter, Ellen, Violet and Claire

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

It's almost Christmas!!! I am so excited! We have our tree up (you may have noticed that all the low hanging ornaments are missing, Our resident toddler loves to play with them and has been redecorating the house)
We made a huge mess in the kitchen, but we got some yummy sugar cookies out of it. What's a little flour? Violet dumped all the flour on the counter so we had more than a cup to flour the counter and the pin. She had a great time cutting shapes out of the flour with the cookie cutters.

Peter took this picture and I think it is beautiful.

After the cookie making. Violet was ready for a shower and I was ready for a long winters nap.

Violet playing with the flour and stealing cookie dough.

Caught ya!! stealing all the dough?!?
Claire loves this little sea horse it's kind of the same idea as a glow worm. Claire is such a funny baby. Today is her 4 month b-day, she makes the funniest faces and is a real smiler and she loves to cuddle.

We went over to Hunter's Christmas tree farm and picked our tree. This is the first time in a lot of years that we've had a real tree, it smells wonderful.

Violet had a blast at the tree farm, she ran up and down the rows of trees and had a lot of fun petting the goats.

We don't have many pictures of us as a couple but I think we look ok. We are coming out of the newborn haze.... I hope :).

What a cutie.

Which one should we get?

Earlier this month was my Grandpa Sam's b-day. Violet really enjoyed the cake.

My Dad was giving my Mom Bunny ears, it was a fun day.

Violet didn't wait for the cake to be cut she just grabbed a spoon and dug right in!!!

Claire in her Christmas dress. She's growing so fast, it's barely going to make it through Christmas before she grows out of it!!!

Claire having a chat with Grandpa.

What a great gift!

Violet and Claire got matching jammies....well they usually have matching jammies but these have snowmen on them.

Claire was kind of mad at me because I made her sit still next to Violet.
Violet thought this was really funny.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. Emily: If you can your Mom would absolutely love a short video of Christmas morning. We really wish we could all be together, maybe another year. We love you guys!