Random

We've had a great week - driving to look at Christmas lights, watching White Christmas, hosting a soup swap, surprising my sister for her birthday, enjoying Sunday lunch with our dear friends, and a super special date night.  I was able to borrow a camera and have a few new pictures that I'll post later, but until then here are some random shots from the past month:

Rooke and I made our own version of the Memory matching game one morning.  He helped me pick the images and then glue them to an empty cereal box.  I was curious to see if he could pick up on the "rules" of the game.  Let's just say we asked for the real Memory game for Christmas!

It's a toss-up on which Payne red-head likes to eat more!  This girl would eat an entire can of black beans if I let her, but I still change those dirty diapers, so we try to keep the little fiber nuggets under control.

Trader Joe's honey wheat pretzels - I can't blame her on this one.  We're all big fans!

Gretchen has developed her own dance move that I like to call "twinkle toes".  Rooke had his own little groove at this age two years ago.

The Christmas Train

I've been doing my best at making the pictures last, but we've come to the end of the line since our camera is . . . broken.  Sigh.  Since this blog doesn't exist without two adorable red-heads and a camera, we're lacking a pretty key ingredient right now.  I'm sure I saw someone using a disposable camera the other day, so there's hope! =)

In the meantime, here are some shots from our most recent family fun Christmas outing.  I keep pinching myself to make sure it's real that Ryan is getting to experience all of this with us this year!  We rode the bus to check out the train display at the Seattle Center.  Rooke was in two-year-old heaven!

And having nothing to do with trains, Gretchen loves her baby doll.  This was actually a gift for Rooke when I was pregnant with Gretchen, but he never really got into it.  Gretchen, on the other hand, didn't need any encouragement to grow attached.  It's amazing to watch her cuddle, hug, kiss, and drag her baby around the house.  I'm in total denial that she is going to be one full year old in just two weeks.

Rookeisms

My friend left a comment once saying that Rooke is quite the chatterbox - so true!  He cracks me up every day with his 2-going-on-18 style of communication.  He can pretty much say whatever is on his mind!

Daddy: "You're going to eat dinner with Mommy at church tonight."
Rooke: "But I already had breakfast!"

The angels sang to the shepherds: "Glory to God, Glory to God in the highest . . . and peace in birth"

While eating dinner with friends he was asked what the best and worst parts of his day were: 

Best part: "I don't know."

Worst part: "Having to decide between veggie sticks and pretzels for my snack."

He loves singing anyone's name in the "Rooke, Rooke, bo Booke, banana fana fo Fooke . . . ." song

To Mommy: "When I was a daddy and you were a baby I used to make breakfast for you."

Trying to find a specific story in his Bible:  

"I'm looking through the insex to find the story."

The Hat

Is it just our kids who like walking blindly in hats?!  Watch Rooke do the same thing here.  Our fearless munchkin is ok. I promise.

The Perfect Tree

'Tis the Season!  Since living in Seattle, I've wanted to cut down our own Christmas tree.  But law school finals have always been looming and prevented our favorite dad from fitting that into his schedule.  So this was the year (Ryan: I passed the Bar).  We didn't have to drive far to find more perfect trees than I've ever seen.

The tractor trailer wasn't running on this particular day, but he didn't seem to mind.

Warming up the saw for when we found our perfect tree

After finding several trees we liked and then listening to Mom and Dad discuss the pros and cons of each, Gretchen grew impatient, "Enough already.  This is it."  And so it was.

"Time to go, Gretch"

"Just a minute, Mom.  I'd like to enjoy this spot a bit longer."

Our perfect tree!  It's beautiful and smells amazing!

Fearless Munchkin

What would our family do without this fearless ball of laughter?!

Day After Parade

With the McTaggarts in town for Thanksgiving, everyone bundled up and we headed downtown for the Macy's Holiday Parade.  Rooke and I went last year and I teared up then because we were having so much fun while Ryan was studying.  This year I teared up because Ryan and Gretchen (and McTaggs) were there to enjoy the parade with us!

We needed a little hot chocolate to get warmed up.  Evelynn drank hers in 42 seconds flat.

Thanksgiving Snow

Wait, what?!  SNOW???  Yes.  Snow.  It snowed all day on Monday and has stuck around in the freezing weather.  I'm a fan.  It's beautiful, all my shopping for tomorrow is done, and for the first time in three years law school finals are not keeping my family from being together at home. 

He's played in snow before, but didn't remember.  He spent a long time looking out the window before he decided he wanted to go play with our neighbors.

Off to play!

She stayed inside on her 11-month-birthday.

The digger did a great job in the snow.  And after 42 tries, I finally convinced Rooke that it was fun to eat snow!  We also engaged in a bit of a snow ball, eh . . . toss?

The next morning I had a couple errands to run and a Starbucks gift card with hot chocolate written all over it!  So Rooke and I headed out.  These pictures paint part of the story, but what you don't see is that it took us three tries to get out the door with a good attitude, and then we still struggled a bit during our walk.  Just keeping it real for those of you who might think we have it all together.

He was so excited to have a lid on his cup and drink just like Daddy does when he gets coffee!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We Have So Much . . .

It's amazing how quickly my perspective changes when I take time to really look at our blooming Thanksgiving Tree.  We have SO MUCH to be thankful for!  A basket of leaves sits on the table and each morning at breakfast we each get a leaf to write on something we are thankful for.  We started on November 1st and I love seeing how full the tree is after 22 days of being focused on gratitude.  Seeing as how we usually write during breakfast, there are lots of food-related leaves!  One of my favorites being "bacon and strawberries and cereal".  But with a bit of encouragement to think beyond the present, Rooke has been pretty creative.  We let him decide what Gretchen is thankful for as well: "warm pajamas", "her bottle", "being able to walk". . . it's been a great exercise for all of us to grow our Thanksgiving Tree.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Catching Up

It's been a while since my last post.  I didn't do a great job with the camera last week, but we've been staying plenty busy!  Here's a glimpse of our past couple of weeks:

Lots of smiles!

A new toy from my rainy day bag . . . glow-in-the-dark light sticks (thank you Target Dollar bins!).  At the time, I'm not sure why I bought two, but I'm sure glad I did.  They were a hit with both kids!  We turned off all the lights in the house and, since its basically dark by 5 these days, went crazy with our glow sticks! 

A meeting of the minds with James and Averie at the Shoreline play gym

Both kids had a small pumpkin this year.  Rooke painted his blue the day after we brought them home.  We decided last week that Gretchen wanted hers painted blue as well.  Why blue?  It's the only color of paint I had in my craft supplies!

Most recently, we enjoyed some family time at a free "concert".

Three 12-year-olds gettin' down with a couple violins and a guitar.  They were great!

Now that she's fully walking, we're in trouble.  Her extroverted and social side are really starting to shine through:

"Hello there lady sitting in front of us - are you enjoying the show?!"

"Oh, these are so cute!  Where did you get them?"

"See that woman smiling?  She thought it was cute that I rested my head in her lap.  Come on up, Big Brother.  It's fun!"

And at home we've enjoyed playing in the "tent house".  It's enhanced the "hiding game" quite a bit!