Christmas with YaYa in Seattle

Grandma Marty, (a.k.a YaYa) headed north a couple of days before Christmas to join us in a few festive traditions and an early holiday. To Magnus's delight, she arrived by train, which meant a trip to the train station to pick her up. To top it off, she had several suit cases, something else Magnus loves to play with. You can imagine how Magnus was nearly over the moon when he unzipped the suitcase once we were home and discovered it was full of presents! One of his favorites quickly became the pop -up version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas. Grandma read it to him a dozen times before her visit was over, in addition to many of the other wonderful books that she brought.

Grandma and Alden enjoyed their first visit to The Teddy Bear Suite at the Olympic Four Seasons in downtown Seattle.

A rare smile for the camera from Magnus--I think we may have bribed him with a candy cane...

Rough Housing with Dad

A sight for many years to come...

Dee takes one to the eye

Dee recovers while Alden and Magnus think of their next moves.

Magnus goes for the 'ol foot in face, much to Alden's amusement.

Early Christmas in Selah

A week before Christmas, we headed to Selah for an early Christmas with Chris and Sharon (a.k.a., PumPum and Mamu,) and were joined by the Webb family, making it a fun filled, full house. We discovered that we do a great job occupying every space of PumPum and Mamu's house (including the master closet which makes for a fabulous sound proof bedroom when you need it) and syncing nap times with 4 toddlers under 3 and a half can be tricky! Nonetheless, we enjoyed multiple trips down to the barn to feed the horses and play on the ATV's, tromping in the snow, and filling ourselves with wonderful food, wine and company!

Magnus gets his first shave kit!!

Alden is mesmerized by PumPum's banjo playing.

The boys spent a lot of time rummaging through some of PumPum's many pairs of boots. Getting them to pose for the camera was nearly impossible, as they kept falling over.

Magnus and his cousin Jackson get ready to ride! (For pretend that is.)

Little Red Riding Hoods

Somehow the napkins ended up on Magnus's head, which as you can see he thought was hilarious, and soon Alden followed suite. Silly boys.

This is actually a look of admiration from Magnus to Alden. He's going in for a kiss.

Candy Cane Lane

Kicking off our Christmas traditions and festivities, we headed to Seattle's Candy Cane Lane. Magnus has been especially interested in viewing Christmas lights this year, often shouting, "more Christmas light! More Christmas light!" in the backseat as we drive down the road and see neighbor's houses lit up. (There have even been a few tears when we hit a dry spell and there are no houses lit up within sight.) We walked up and down the block, taking in the lights on the houses and displays in the yards, while trying to leave them unscathed by a certain two and a half year old.

Alden enjoyed being on dad's shoulder as much as seeing the lights.

Santa Baby? Not this year

Following last year's epic meltdown when Magnus met Santa, Dee and I began prepping him for weeks prior to their reunion. With multiple copies of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, special ordering The Bernstein Bears meet Santa Bear, discussing exactly what would happen when Magnus did reunite with Jolly 'ol Saint Nick, as well as having him watch other children climb onto Santa's lap with giddiness at the various malls around town, we were in Santa training. When the big day had arrived, Magnus could not have been more excited. He knew exactly what he was going to tell him he wanted (cookies and hot sauce, naturally) and all morning he kept asking, "When are we going to see Santa Claus?" While we waiting in line outside Santa's hut, Magnus bounced around and talked about the candy cane Santa was going to give him. As the elf walked out to let us in, Magnus took my hand and slowly inched his way into the hut. As soon as he rounded the corner and saw the man in red, he looked up at me and said, "hold me." As I tried to encourage him onto Santa's lap, he begain to cry, "up, up." Thinking it would be a good idea to put Alden on Santa's lap and then his brother would realize it was okay and join him, (because surely Alden wouldn't object, right?) we did so. One look at this strange man and Alden lost it altogether. With Alden screaming, Magnus began crying, and then we had no choice but to put Magnus on his lap as well and grab a quick picture (we had waited in line and all.) So, a couple snapshots later, we saved our children from Santa's lap and were trying not to giggle as we selected another memorable meltdown moment with Santa Claus.

Moments after we left Santa's hut, Magnus was enjoying his candy cane and pointing out all the Santa decorations around the mall.