December

This is going to be a LOOOONG post with LOTS of pictures. Let me start by saying this was the first Christmas since 2006 that we have spent with my family IN Yakima. My mom had an electrician add another circuit to the breaker box.  That's how crazy excited she was for us to come.  The kids played in the snow for the first time ever.  It was hilarious. We so very much missed Andy's family.  We were lucky to spend some time with some of them before taking off.

This picture was their fist time facing forward. I was adamant about them being rear-facing in their carseats until their 2nd birthday. If you know my driving history, then no explanation is needed.  However these rascals kept growing. I finally gave in and turned them around at 23 months.  They seem to like it better, who can blame them though right? Although, kicking of the seats is now happening more and more.

My Mothers of Multiples Club (Yeh, that's how I roll) put's together a Christmas Party for the group each year. It's nice to get over all of us together. All of us includes over 20 sets of twins, not counting the singleton siblings as well.  Verona wanted NOTHING to do with Santa. I tried and tried, but she clung to me. Trenton on the other hand was just shy and kept his head down the entire time.

Whenever my parents come to visit, 90% of the time they drive. And they always arrive with stuff from my childhood to give me.  This year was no exception. My mom has been keeping these jewels from my elementary school days.  Since I have no use for a stocking I made out of construction paper and used a hold punch to punch out the toes (really Sydney?) I elected to have Andy take pictures of me holding each item for prosperity then I delightfully recycled each item.   We are a colored light tree family.  I have done the white lights in the past, but I prefer our purple, orange, etc lights. Plus, these are LED!

Andy's brother Matt came up before Christmas and brought gifts for the kids. But they like his guitar waaay better.  They are mesmerized when he starts playing. Trent likes to pound along and Verona does the strumming.  Matt got them musical instruments.  We just LOVE the drum! ; )  They are getting better at the train whistles though, and sometimes I am being told "stahp, mama" when I play it too much. 

I let Andy open up his big gift before we left for Yakima.  He has been carrying around this newspaper since I met him. It is from 1985 Superbowl.  Andy is the biggest 49ers fan. I thought that this newspaper clipping needs to come out of the cardboard box it was living in and be put on the wall.  He was excited.  I purposely wanted the tack holes in the corner left to be seen to show his devotion.  He had this pinned on his bedroom wall as a kid.  He was 7 turning 8 when they won. 

This pretty much shows how we fly.  We flew from Sacramento to Seattle, then on to Yakima.  We we got to Seattle we were going to be there awhile. Like 6 hour layover awhile.  There is a children's play area. and we spent a few hours there. We explored up at the D Gates. They were all quiet, so we parked and set up Sesame Street for them. Thank You Elmo!

We got into town around dinner and it was go-go the rest of the time.  One of the best parts was the snow. I can't remember the last night I was in snow, and the kids had never seen it.  We were so lucky that there was snow on the ground, but even luckier that it snowed on Christmas. 

 Andy and I got the kids a Little Tikes Kitchen.  This is after Mass, after dinner, and the drinks have already been poured.  Stacy, my brother's fiance and I did maybe 7% of the putting together. We drank and watched Andy and my brother do the rest.  There were mallet's, hammers, and a few curse words involved.

Christmas Day was the best.  After all the stockings and presents were opened it started to snow. And lots of it! We immediately got the kids dressed for the weather, pulled out the old sled and we played in the front yard. They had a blast. And they enjoyed with Uncle Adam would pull them around the sled.

Andy and I took a day trip up to Ellensburg, went to The Tav, walked around downtown, and just enjoyed each other's company for a bit. We went with Adam and Stacy to the new theater and saw "The Hobbit".  The food was very good and it was a cool new experience.  We did our fair share of shopping as well.  Watched lots of football and ate lots of sugar cookies.

The kids decided to play "nap" with some place mats. The Love seat they are fighting over is Raggedy Ann and Andy.  My mom got that for my brother when he was a little kid. It rocks, and the hair is yarn. They LOVE to sit on it when we go to visit. Verona beat Trent out for the seat though.

Overall, we had a wonderful Christmas. We came back on New Years Eve, went to bed around 9:30 and called it good.