Birthday Fun

A few days later, after I was done with my pity party, we went to Seattle for the night with my family. My mom put us up in the Hyatt (pretty swanky place). It's walking distance to the space needle and on our way we happened upon the Bad Santa pub crawl. There were at least a hundred people dressed in Santa suits dancing to techo. Their goal is to make it to the 12 bars of Christmas. Funny stuff.

It's hard to see but there was a guy dressed as a Christmas tree. The Pope was even there (not pictured).

Space Needle

Luke and Russ running around. They wanted to climb on the art structure so bad.

Then we went ice skating at the Seattle Center. Luke did much better this year.

Justin and Marie

ZZ and Jordan

We ran into our friends Jenn and Russ with their daughters Ava and Audrey. Ava and Luke were suppose to be born a few days apart but Ava came early and Luke can late. As you can see these two are smitten with each other. She immediately grabbed his hands and started dancing with him. Luke just had a sort of nervous smile on his face.

She kept trying to plant kisses on him but Luke kept turning away. He'll change his mind someday, too soon I suspect.

Turning 29

I'm surprisingly sad this year. 29 isn't exactly a milestone and I don't feel especially old. I think I am just reminded that things aren't going to way I had hoped this year. I've been thinking about the baby we lost. I would have been over 6 months pregnant and feeling the baby move. But instead, I get to go to work tonight and work with the pregnant girl who only says stupid things like "my baby will sleep through the night".

ugh. Again, I could really use a day to myself. That's not too much to ask for my birthday.

Thanksgiving

This year my mom and sister's family went on a Hawaiian cruise with my grandma and those who still had to work came to my house. I cooked all. day. long. with Naomi's help. The kids played and fought, played and fought. The guys watched football and broke up the fights.

We moved the kitchen table into the living room and added a card table for the kids, it's not glamorous but it's comfy, warm and lively.

Overly enthusiastic about the turkey dismemberment.

Overly enthusiastic about the turkey leg.

Before dinner I suggested we each say what we are grateful for, which all of the guys grumbled at (share feelings? NO). Luke was grateful that Ken, his fish, was still alive. Earlier that day he thought it would be a good idea to scale the dresser to see him. At which point the dresser feel forward, knocking over the fish bowl. Ken survived.

Good food.

Good dogs. Lucy and Hass (Jordan's dog) are patiently waiting for some scraps.

Catch up post: Halloween , fall, and the zoo

Super-Luke!

Luke was pretty into trick or treating this year. At every house we went to Luke was like "They gave me candy! Halloween is Awesome!" We did several blocks and even went inside a haunted house in our neighborhood. And like last year we let him go crazy and try whatever he wanted and then gave the rest out to trick or treaters that came to our house. And the best part? No rain!

I was a 90's mom. It was big hit at work but it was lost on older generations (probably because they still dress that way) but, it's been 20 years people! Note the fanny pack and super high waist jeans. Hot!

Perhaps the funniest thing about my costume is my sister-in-laws picture of her and her mom in matching outfits that are almost identical to my own costume.

Not to be out done, Alan threw together this little beauty. It's hard to see but he's also sporting some short shorts. He was calling it 80's dad but then settled on 80's Everett cop. By the way, absolutely no one thought me and Alan were even in costume while trick or treating.

Lucy went as a bad-dog

Diving into my carefully racked leaves

Luke has also been developing quite the sense of humor lately, which I love. Whenever I imagined what he would be like I always wanted him to have a really good belly laugh. The sound of pure joy that makes everyone smile. And he does, ever since he started laughing. He LOVES fart jokes, of coarse (kills him every time). He's got "pull my finger" down. I'm pretty sure I can blame his Uncle Justin on that. And he's even been attempting some knock-knock jokes.

Cheese!

Almost all the leaves are off the trees around here and it's getting colder. We even saw a little snow last Friday, not enough to stick but it was pretty.

Luke with the Orangutan.

I've been working a lot lately, close to full time hours. The extra money has been nice and we're saving money on health insurance (with way better coverage) now that I'm at starbucks. But it also means less time with my boys :( However I had the whole weekend off last week, so we went to the zoo.

Luke feeding the birds

Mommy and Luke outside of the Lemurs

Tiger ripping apart a turkey

We were there on a special day: turkey toss. They gave various animals whole turkeys to eat. Others got pumpkins and squash. The jaguar got a pumpkin pie with mice in it. Yum!

Jaguar yawn

Luke an Daddy

I love fall in Washington. The colors are beautiful and it's harvest time at all of the local farms. I'm also loving having my brother and his family up here now. All four of us in one state! Yay!

Marie is 9 and Russ is 4 now. They are growing up sooo fast. Luke gets along great with Marie but fights with Russ like he's his brother. Competitive little boys. Hopefully they'll outgrow it soon.

Anywho, back to the farm. There are amazing farms all over the place up here that have really embraced eco-tourism. Any chance I get, I take Luke to a farm to see where food comes from. It's really important to us that he appreciates the hard work that goes into making food and have a healthy image of it (as in, it doesn't come from the drive thru).

Plus, these farms have all kinds of fun things to do, like finding your way through a corn maze.

Luke is showing us his "mad" face. Are you scared?

Hay maze with tricycles

Picking apples

Laying on the hay bales.

I love him

Antarctica

My brother in law, Brian is in McMurdo Station, Antarctica. He's always been kind of a wanderer, but this is quite the adventure. I've been amazed by the pictures he's been uploading. He'll be there through their summer and will be driving a shuttle like bus called "Ivan". Luke is pretty impressed by the snow bus. Alan bought a book full of post cards that he can send to Brian periodically. It's called breaking bad news with baby animals.

I know Brian will find this very amusing (he has a sick sense of humor, as do I). We sent the first one yesterday. It has a picture of a very cute baby duck on it followed by the words "It's Syphilis".

Disneyland

We took Luke to Disneyland for the first time last month. It was a ton of fun and very nostalgic for me and Alan. Some of the rides have been updated and are based on newer movies like the Swiss Family Robinson tree house is now the Tarazan tree house (totally better the old way). It wasn't very crowded and we used the Disney Apps on our phones to tell us what the wait times were at various rides. I don't think we stood in line for longer than a 1/2 hour.

First we went to a character breakfast that Steve and Patti provided. We got to enter the park before it opened and have breakfast with the characters. Captain Hook didn't like Luke's shoes (crocs).

Tigger was his favorite. He had springs on his feet and jumped around a lot.

Winnie the Pooh.
Chip, Minnie Mouse, the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, and Goofy were also there.

Our first ride was Dumbo. You can barely see Luke. He wasn't so excited until we were done and he started to get the concept of going on "rides".

Luke liked to keep Dumbo up high.

Next we did the tea cups.

We got some much needed souvenirs: Mickey Ears and a light saber.

This is the Mouse-tache shirt I made for the trip.

Alan had one too but it's hard to see.

On the new (to me) winnie the pooh ride... Happy boy.

We discovered that Luke was in fact, tall enough to go on the big kid rides. Splash mountain and the Matterhorn were a little scary but he loved the rest. Alan was pretty excited because that meant we could all go on Star Tours which has been revamped to be 3D.

This is the last picture of Luke's red mickey hat. It was lost on the Matterhorn.

Matterhorn

Pulling the sword out of the stone.

We made it open to close. We hit most of the rides except Indiana Jones (Luke isn't tall enough for that one), and two of my favorites, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, which were closed.

Luke fell asleep the second we passed the gates.

Out cold and didn't move for 10 hours. He now keeps asking to go back to Disneyland, as if it's nearby. Maybe next year.