Holiday Fun

The Werners have been keeping busy the past couple of weeks ushering in some serious holiday spirit. All fueled up from our recent Starbucks binge, Steph and I have vowed to get everything done early this year, with the end goal of having Christmas week be 7 days of play, with no shopping, wrapping, or work to be done!

We kicked off Yulefest 2009 by hosting our annual Psi U Christmas get together. It was great getting together again with all of our friends, and pretty amazing to see the velocity of population growth within our little demographic. Just a few years back, we and the Jasons were the lone sets of parents, changing diapers while the rest of the group was sipping eggnog. Now the kids are just multiplying like crazy.

6 short years ago there were none, now there are many! Not pictured, Sam Forell, dozing away upstairs in the pack 'n play

We did the usual ornament exchange and kids gift exchange, and per the normal tradition, Keith stole the show with his unique offerings.

Kenzie borrows Jackson's candy "grill" that he got from Keith and Peyton

Craig proudly displays Keith's modest Christmas ornament contribution

Kenzie, pleased with her new Snow White puzzle

The following day, we got our tree, and the kids were their usual big help decorating. I love a Christmas tree decorated by little kids, with all of its little imperfections... such as 5 ornaments all on the same twig. We have a beautiful tree!

Smokey just loves decorating night, when he gets to wear a collar of jingle bells that rings in his ears every time he moves.

And finally, last Thursday was a big day for the whole family. I took the day off, and both sets of grandparents joined us to watch both kids' Christmas programs at their school. Jackson was perfect as a cow in his program. And he was very proud of how clearly and audibly he spoke his line into the microphone: "Who is coming to our house?"

We were also lucky that his class was short an actress, and enlisted Mackenzie to play the role of Mary. She very dutifully watched baby Jesus.

All smiles after their stellar performance!

After retiring to her trailer and being attended to by her entourage, Mackenzie returned for an encore performance as an angel in the 3 year olds' christmas program. Her versatility and professionalism really shone through!

In celebration of all their hard work and success in their Christmas programs, we took the kids straight to Bellevue Square, where Santa was scheduled to arrive and take in wish lists from good little boys and girls.

Celebrating a successful morning, and ready to go see the man!

Looking out on snowflake lane at lunch

Checking out Rudolph and the rest of the team.

the anticipation builds as the kids enter Santa's workshop.

Mission accomplished!!!

For the record, Jackson asked Santa for a slinky, a puzzle, and a new squirt gun. Mackenzie asked for a "tiny pink baby doll house with a green roof that looks just like my real baby doll house, only tiny", a pink squirt gun, and a pink leapster.

Tour de Starbucks 2009

Welcome to the Werner version of Black Friday. Tradition holds that Steph and I hit downtown Seattle for 12 hours of caffeine driven holiday jubilee. Specifically, we attempt to occasion every Starbucks within a 3 block radius of Westlake Center, mixing in a lot of window shopping, people watching, and a few occasional whim purchases.


Of course, we leave the kids with grandparents.... we're certain they wouldn't be interested in watching a parade, seeing Santa, and going to a movie all in the same day, so we elect not to force it upon them.

The final tally this year was 8 total coffee drinks, down 2 from last year. I guess we just got complacent when we went to dinner at Gordon & Biersch, and we have a strict Starbucks only rule, so ordering a coffee after dinner just didn't work.

For those keeping score, Steph had: a tall Peppermint Mocha latte, tall skinny vanilla latte, doppio (i.e. double shot) espresso, and a tall nonfat latte. I had a tall skinny caramel latte, doppio espresso, tall house blend drip, and tall pike place drip. We both had smoke coming out our ears at the end of the day.

My apologies once again for the sad blackberry photo quality. Please direct all complaints to Research in Motion.

Anyhow, please enjoy the photos from TDS 2009!!

Big thanks to Starbucks for doing the little things to make our day a success!

first latte of the day, at the parade

yeah, Kenzie would have just hated this parade with Raggedy Ann, a winter queen, and Santa Claus

the oft referenced American consumer

Making friends with Seattle's finest. When I explained our mission to drink coffee from every Starbucks in the vicinity, he told me "I hope you're almost done"... what-EVS!!!

Westlake Center Christmas Tree!

Nice to see others finding their own little way to help get this economy back on track

Pacific Place, loaded with shoppers, fake snow, and holiday cheer

Not our "greenest" day!

California 2009 (aka Steph's once a year blog submission)

Well, what can I say? We could not have asked for a more perfect visit to our California relatives. We were able to visit Great Grandpa and Great Grandma, and a few of their friends and extended family, plus a special visit from Great-Aunt Julie. It was a fun filled visit full of lots of hugs and bonding time.

The kids were so excited to see their Great Grandparents! I think this may have been their first visit down to California where they both remembered exactly who we were going to see, so they were both thrilled. They were also thrilled to cuddle, talk, read, and entertain their Great Grandparents as well as the revolving door of additional visitors. We did have a morning of shopping to burn off some energy (and for Mommy and Grandma to visit our favorite shopping area in Walnut Creek). I think they had a blast acting very challenging, and Mommy and Grandma just wanted to get out of our favorite shopping spot and end the stress and embarassment. The kids did get to burn energy when their Great Aunt Julie arrived though. There was arm wrestling, ballet dancing, tickling, wrestling, "horseback" rides. You name it, their aunt was more than happy to oblige- and they all had a blast.

We had dinner out at Marie Calendars, which provided us with the opportunity to bring home tasty pie which the kids liked. And we were reminded again how much the kids LOVE Chinese food for our dinner in the next night. Considering how picky they can be, I have never seen the kids down as much food as they did that night. I get asked all the time if the kids are part Chinese, maybe there's something to this...

The biggest event of the visit was the loss of Jackson's first tooth. Technically, his second tooth lost, but this one lacked a fall and a lot of crying. It popped out without notice during dinner and was found on the floor after Jackson realized it was missing after dinner. He chose to hold onto it until we got home because it was "so cute". Number two (three) fell out with a little more drama on the ride to the airport. Luckily, the tooth fairy makes all end well no matter how it begins. So, 2 shiny gold dollars showed up under Jackson's pillow his first morning back in Sammamish (I think about 6:00 am after a forgetful night to be exact).

Mackenzie started to write letters in her name for the first time and learned how to spell her name on our visit. She was entertaining and charming as always.

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for hosting our visit, and thank you Aunt Julie for making the drive down to see us. It was so wonderful to see you all, and we can't wait to get back!

bottleneck

blog content is currently backed up... waiting for Steph to blog about the Cali trip. I think the delay is because she is crafting a masterpiece of wit, whimsy, and sincerity.


I can't wait, it's probably going to be awesome!!

Halloween 2009

I'm a little late on posting pictures... my bad:)

This is the first year that both kids have been big enough to do a full round of trick or treating without needing to be carried at some point, so we were able to net a pretty impressive haul. This year Mackenzie was a beautiful Snow White and Jackson was a very intimidating Clone Trooper. And we love the energy in our neighborhood for Halloween. This year we counted 153 trick or treaters that came to our house!

Pumpkin carving

The kids watched Michael Jackson Thriller for the first time, part of the Halloween build up

One of Steph's favorite parts of Halloween... the one day a year where Mackenzie can wear makeup!

Finally on their way to score some candy!!

Stay tuned for the next post... Steph's once a year blogging effort, following her trip to California with the kids to visit their great grandparents.