The Snowman And Warm Beach

This last week has been very busy for us. After a busy weekend Monday we decided to take the kids downtown Seattle to do our annual picture with Santa at Nordstrom. It was a spur of the moment decision and I hadn't got Knox an outfit yet so just threw something together. I kind of thought about stopping along the way but afterwards was glad I hadn't.

Alyssa prior to had been very excited and we have never had a problem with her sitting on his lap. This year was a different story. I don't want to say she didn't have an interest but all of a sudden got really shy. Yep, my little girl is a shy one. It's hard to imagine at times but she is. Knox had no interest once again and screamed his head off. After a couple of minutes of trying to get both of them to sit with him the woman decided to just have them in the chair and Santa would stand behind. It worked for a second or so and honestly I'm surprised that the picture turned out as good as it did! It's not one I'm thrilled with but it works. Thank goodness there were no lines etc. that we had to wait in.
When that was all over we went over to Grammy's and enjoyed the morning/afternoon.

Wednesday was Cory's birthday and since he had to work we didn't really do anything huge for it. I made him his favorite dinner and Alyssa helped make his favorite cake, carrot cake. We decided to do cupcakes and of course they had purple and pink sprinkles on them courtesy of you know who.

Saturday was a very busy day for Alyssa, Nana Gail, and I. That morning we were going to the Snowman put on by the Seattle Symphony. Grammy went with us as well, actually Alyssa and I were the ones invited to go with them I should say. We saw my stepsister and her daughter there too. Alyssa and Jianna always enjoy seeing each other and are so darn cute together. It ended up that they were sitting a few rows in front of us so we got to spend some time chatting with each other.

Again once the performance started Alyssa didn't take her eyes off of it and enjoyed every part of it. It was an amazing performance and I was so very glad we were able to go. It was well worth it and it's another thing I hope becomes a tradition for us. After the Snowman was over the symphony played music from the Nutcracker. Alyssa got so excited and recognized each piece and was tapping her fingers along to it. Very cute!

That same evening was when we did our annual outing to Warm Beach to look at the Christmas lights. As usual we were there when they opened and were there for about two hours. The lights were great and the warm doughnuts were good as well. It was freezing out and sprinkling. The kids had fun seeing all the stuff there was to do and see.
We came back to the house and ordered some take out and watched one of Alyssa's favorite movies, Ponyo. It's an interesting one and not sure exactly why she likes it so much but she does. Finally around ten we all headed to bed. It was a very long day!

~~~ The family picture of us isn't the greatest and is blury. It's the best one that I could find and wanted to add one on here. ~~~