Great Gifts

We're traveling this Christmas, but before we left Seattle, we were given one of the best Christmas presents ever!  It started with a special Doughnut Day with Daddy!  Rooke filled up his good behavior chart and chose to get a doughnut with Daddy.  

The kid behind Rooke is wondering how he can snag a doughnut that big!

After gobbling their doughnuts, we cashed in on our amazing overnight date gift!  My dear friend, Jessie, and her husband offered to keep the kids overnight!!  We've only had the pleasure of doing that one other time (before Gretchen was born), so we were completely blown away by the offer and thrilled at the opportunity to have an extra long date!  We did several of our favorite things that aren't as kid-friendly: saw a movie, ate pho for dinner, walked a lot, slept in, slept in, SLEPT IN! and went out for a relaxing breakfast.  Rooke and Gretchen did great and had fun playing with their buddies, James and Saisha.  Thank you, Heavilands!

The best french toast I've ever had!  This is now in both of our top three breakfast spots in Seattle!

Together again, we did a little family present-opening at home before we left for our trip.


Rooke scored some new cars from Auby and Scott . . .

His own computer from KayeK and Big Daddy . . .

and Nana gave both kids a fantastic set of blocks!

Happy Birthday, Gretchen!

Truly, where has this year gone?!  I'm just sure I was bringing Gretchen home from the hospital last week, but today she turns ONE!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Gretchen Ruth!

Gretchen is our happy-go-lucky, funny, outgoing, smiley, on-the-go, aggressive, dramatic little girl.  She enjoys being around people, gets super excited when she hears the front door open and knows that "Da da" is home, wants to do whatever her big brother is doing, and hams it up when she knows she's being cute or throws a mini-fit if she doesn't get what she wants!  She was young to roll over, crawl and walk, which doesn't surprise us now that we know - the girl isn't interested in sitting for very long.  She'll give her fair share of cuddles, but would rather be knocking down blocks than reading books!  God has blessed us with a rich dose of joy through our daughter.  We can only hope and pray we are more fortunate to spend another wonderful year with her.  

December 22, 2009 after just 70 minutes of labor - we got off to a great start!

 

 

Happy Birthday to our favorite one-year-old!  We love you, Gretch!

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!