Gingerbread Houses

Christmas was kind of a bummer for me this year. Its been a stressful year and everything kind of compounded there at the end. The snow was pretty but debilitating. I missed church during the whole season so I wasn't able to get my "pick me up" that I need every week. Money was tight so we only bought for the kids and that made Christmas morning slightly....off. I didn't even get to be the one to take the kids to see santa because there wasn't time to do baking and santa in one day. So Todd took them without me. I was really bummed about that. Its the little things that give mom's pleasure I guess.

But there is one thing that happened as planned....

Gingerbread Houses!

Every year since Todd and I have been together we have an annual tradition with his family to go downtown and see the gingerbread house. Do you even know about them??? If not then maybe next year you can plan on going and seeing them at the Sheraton Hotel . You will be impressed. This ain't your mama's gingerbread houses!

We always park at Seattle Center and take the monorail down to Westlake to have lunch (or dinner)

During our lunch at Westlake, little Lydia was entertaining us with her cuteness

Caleb doesn't look like he thinking about mischief at all. Nope...he would never do that!

Look how generous Kaden is with his hard earned money. I think we all need to take a lesson from him

So here we have arrived at the gingerbread displays. Every year they have a theme nd I think its local businesses that labor over it several months in advance.

Keep in mind that everything you see is edible

Kaden is dreaming of all the sweets...Oh the possibilities!

This is the one we voted as our favorite. Of course...Super Mario!

Afterwards we rounded off the day with a trip to the winter carousal. Its Kadens favorite part of the day!

What hidden treasures do you know about?

The year I went insane over snow

For those of you who didn't know....we had snow this year. And when I say snow I don't mean the usual Seattle snow. I mean...SNOW! Piles of insanely deep snow!

This looks innocent enough on the first night

After the first night we had a little break. The weatherman said more was coming but really...whoever believes the guy? During the break we got a visit from the Arlington Fire Dept. They come by every year collecting food for the food banks.

We even got a visit from santa!

And then ...it hit!

And let me remind you that this is not the last time it snowed! I gave up measuring after this.

Be careful Lucy...don't get lost!

I had this insane idea that we should take some family pictures in the snow. I like to get creative that way sometimes. Or maybe it was the touch of cabin fever getting to me

If I would have had a computer at the time then I could have sent out Christmas cards.

Todd is such a kid at heart!

Sometimes he drives me crazy with it but most of the time I love him for it.

One of the days the sun came out so I took a walk around and tried to capture the beauty of it all. (Its only beautiful if I choose not to think about how all this snow is affecting our lives!)

I love it when the snow sticks all over the trees

And then like a nightmare happening over and over again....we got more! Now mind you....I have no computer, I can't go anywhere in my car, if I do need to go somewhere..Todd has to take me. Kyler has been out of school for a a week....I was going insane!!!!

You can't even see the Christmas lights anymore!
Here it comes again!

Todd, shoveling his way to his car. Can I just say that during this whole time he did not miss one day of work. Sometimes it took him an hour and a half to get there and most of the time it was for nothing but he still made it. What a guy!

Heres the tunnel he made to the door for us...not like we where going anywhere though

Kyler felt it was his duty to teach Kaden about eating snow.

We have this tree in our front yard that I usually hate because it crazy and ugly but during the storm it developed a "Who-ville" look to it. We took pictures of the various stages.

Its now 2 weeks later and most of the snow is gone. We have piles of dirty sandy snow laying around and the tree has taken its usual ugly form again but fortunatly life has continued. But.........

Like some horrer film....its snowing right now. If Kyler does not have school tomorrow....

Someone may have to commit me!