Of course, it wasn’t just us. We had the whole family involved: Kathleen, Dave, Amber, Joshua, Adrianne, Cody, Corey, Willow, Wesley, Aidan and Jillian (I think that is roughly by age).

The train heads down the tracks a short ways, stops near a small waterfall and then heads back the other way. While the train is stopped the engine is moved from one end of the train to the other. So our car was the first on the way out and the last on the way back in. The perfect combination if you ask me.  The train cars are from the early 1900s and in surprisingly good shape. When we were kids it seems to me that the engine was steam and the cars were more open, but I guess things have changed a little.

Starting at one end Santa comes down the train and sits with each of the kids. He takes their seat and does his usual thing. Wesley was really excited that he got to be the first kid on the train to sit on Santa’s lap. And Jillian didn’t scream at all this year!!

From the opposite end of the train as Santa comes Ben the banjo player. He plays and everyone sings carols.

We had hot chocolate, apple cider and lots of fun.  Look at these faces and tell me they didn’t have a great time.

 

More than being really difficult, the trouble with going homemade is just how long it takes. First we made the dough. This was fun and Jillian was a big help. But then you have to bake the shapes three times for each house. The roof and long side get baked twice and the other side of the pan, the small sides and chimney, get baked just once. But you can’t bake them back-to-back because the pan is hot. You have to wait for it to cool and that takes hours. So, for each house it took me three days. I’d make the dough and then bake each side a night. Then repeat the process for the second house. I wanted my own house, but I was too lazy to make any more.

Once all of the pieces were baked I took another day to assemble the houses so they could dry and be sturdy enough for the kids to work with. We used a pretty standard royal icing recipe and it gave us structurally sound little houses.

Finally, a week later, we were ready to decorate these little guys. Amber bought a ton of candy and there was plenty to go around. Interestingly, even though we divvied everything up 50/50 some strange things happened. Some of Wesley’s candy bowls were empty even though hardly any of them were on the house. Where did they go?

To start with we let the kids go there own way. Once they had made good progress Amber and I each started adding little touches and giving the kids some more complicated ideas. They each came up with great ideas of their own and copied from each other when they saw something they liked.

They had fun. Here they are with the finished product. The houses had to be moved to the mantle almost immediately since pieces of candy were being removed even before the frosting was dry.

 

He loves this mug!

Opening ballet outfit #1. She really wants to do ballet. We found a class for her that starts at the end of January.

In his batman cape/mask.

Then it was time for the adults to open their gifts – of course the kids had more too.

Jillian's pretty tutu.

A cool pretend mailbox and mail. Thanks Uncle Corey & Aunt Willow.

A knife sharpener from Mom and Dave - Thank you!

A very big counter-top griddle from Mom and Dave - Thank you!

Dave was surprised to find a gift from Santa under the tree.

Now it was time to play!

Aidan in the batman outfit & Jillian in ballet outfit #1.

Ballet outfit #1 - complete with gloves. Thank you Mom & Dave.

They are playing the quiet game to see who can stay quiet the longest. Jillian was out first, then Aidan. It was pretty much a tie between Corey and Wesley.

Then Aunt Lisa & Grandma and Grandpa Vert arrived just before dinner.

Opening their watches.

After dinner, it was more craziness. 

Trying to wear the tutu on her head - but it is much too small.

It fit Aunt Dri.

Dancing in ballet outfit #2. Thanks again Yaya & Papa!

Jillian getting cuddles from Yaya.

And cuddles from Auntie Lisa.

We had a very wonderful Christmas day.

And Wesley is already talking about what he wants to ask Santa for next year… 

 

Checking out their gifts from Santa.

Before we started making a mess the kids did pose for a picture in front of the tree.

We spent the next 50 minutes opening gifts from each other.

Wesley opening his gift from Jillian and Jillian opening one of her gifts from Wesley.

Thanking each other for their gifts.

Joshua opened the gorilla tape from Wesley.

They both got new water bottles "like mom's".

Joshua's woot shirt from me.

Opening Jillian's gift to me. Before I could unwrap it - she kept saying "it's a snow-globe".

Gifts from Grams

All the gifts are opened and they both want to play!

Playing with his batcave.

Building together.

We then had breakfast.  Joshua made super yummy cinnamon rolls and we drank some cold apple cider juice!

We then got dressed and ready to celebrate Christmas in Sedro-Woolley.  It was a great relaxing Christmas morning!

 

Excited to see that Santa brought him the pillow pet he wanted.

8:17 Goes and wakes up Jillian

8:17 Jillian is happy but much calmer than Wesley that Santa delivered gifts.

Here is how the next 23 minutes is spent:

Redmond jumps high for his toy from Santa.

Wooden airplane was on his list...

Proud to have her glass duckie ornament. She wanted a duckie thing from Santa.

"Santa brought me a new snow-globe! I have one again too." Her snow-globe was broken earlier in the week and was very happy to see Santa knew she needed another one.

And then she realized that Santa brought her the doll stroller she wanted!

The excitement that Wesley had for each item was simply amazing!

Santa brought her duckie chopsticks 2 years ago - but they broke. She was very happy to have another set.

Hugging the silly putty - so happy to have her own.

Content with her pillow pet.

Then Joshua and I opened our stockings.  But there are no pictures of us…

What a great way spend 35 minutes. 

 

Wesley and Jillian did most of the decorating, but we each took turns helping the kids put ornaments up on the higher branches.

Auntie Dri is so great with the kids!

And then we were done…

I wanted to try to get a family photo – but of course the kids would not cooperate for us.

We'll try again later in the week.

Trader Joe’s is selling large gingerbread men.  So we decided to try decorating them this year.

Adrianne and I worked on our own, while Wesley and Jillian got help from Joshua.

Adrianne with her Gingerbread Woman

Jillian's Gingerbread Girl

Amber with her Gingerbread Woman

Wesley and his Gingerbread Boy

All 4 cookies. Left to right: Amber, Jillian, Adrianne & Wesley

We could not have spent this very rainy Sunday in any better way!

 

We knew we wanted a noble fir – so we drove up to their upper lot.  They had a lot for us to choose from.

It was really hard to choose a tree.  Jillian liked just about everyone…

She liked this one right away.

Wesley was not picky – he just wanted to cut them all down!

Practicing his cutting.

Jillian really liked this small one!

Another suggestion - but we still can't decide.

We finally found one!

Trying for a group picture in front of the tree...

Joshua started the cutting – Wesley tried with all his might…but could not finish the cut – the Joshua finished cuttting it down.  Good thing the tree’s trunk was pretty small.

Doing his part to cut the tree down.

Back to the car we go.

While Joshua tied the tree to the car – I took a few more pictures.

With Yaya & Papa

They choose the tiniest tree to take a picture next to...

We then drove to Sedro-Woolley to make pizzelle cookies.

Heating up the irons.

Everyone dig in!

We all worked together to make a ton of little balls of dough.

We have enough to start cooking!

Can you tell which ones the kids made?? 

The iron on the left is ours. The iron on the right is Kathleen's - who got it from her grandmother, Nani.

Quality testing...

They are so beautiful.

So as you can see… we had a very busy Saturday!

 

I guess we had a pretty good Halloween this year. I say that because Wesley has told me no fewer than three times tonight how much fun he had yesterday. He’s also mentioned that it was “a great day”. And asked at least twice how much longer until next Halloween.

Pumpkin Patch

Our Halloween started with our first trip to the pumpkin patch. That’s right, there were two.  Amber the kids and I went to Craven Farm in Snohomish. It is a nice place with lots of things to do: pick your own pumpkins, a corn maze, and kettle corn. Not exactly cheap, though. On the way there we saw a farm with some cows which happened to be eating about 40 pumpkins. At the Craven Farm rates you could have bought a used car for what those pumpkins cost. We were able to save money by enforcing a rule I remember from my childhood: If you can’t carry it, you can’t get it.

A week later, Wesley’s Preschool class was back in Snohomish for a pumpkin patch field trip. This time they were at The Farm at Swan’s Trail. Since this is preschool each kid had their parent or guardian drive them to the pumpkin patch. That meant that since Amber was going, Jillian go to go, too.  Both kids picked out another pumpkin. They also go to go on a hay ride out to the field, go through a hay maze and pet some animals.

Pumpkin Carving

Before we could carve our pumpkins we gave them a bath in our wading pool. The kids really liked it. And we learned that pumpkins float. Once the pumpkins were all clean the kids used their boots to drain the water out of the pool.

Inside we carved the pumpkins on the dining room table. Jillian wanted a happy face and Wesley drew and partially carved his own scary face. Amber made a smiley face with scary teeth and I made the pumpkin on a pumpkin.  Once the Jack-O-Lanterns were lit all the kids wanted to do was blow them out, immediately. I had to relight them after they went to sleep.

Trick-or-Treating

We went trick-or-treating up in Sedro-Woolley with Corey and Aidan. Their neighborhood is apparently the place to go in the area. There were car loads of kids being dropped off all night long. After only about an hour of walking the kids scored nearly 6 pounds of candy between them. We only hit about a third of the neighborhood. There were kids with so much candy they filled up entire pillow cases. It was really busy, but lots of fun with so many little kids running around.

Jillian the Duck:

Wesley the Penguin: