Holiday Haps

Sugar Cookies:

Edie made us masks and they are fabulous:

Our cold, clear ferry ride to Vashon Island to meet Maggie's baby:

Hot cocoa on the island:

Little Lucy:

Our pretty ferry ride home:

Mother Daughter hot dogs at Po Boy in Ballard (she picked out the fake glasses to match her BFF who has legit glasses):

Meeting Santa!

Walking to the crazy Christmas house in our neighborhood:

In which I share a lot of dark, grainy photos

Late November and the first half of December have been full of activities. Here are some terrible photographs to prove it. First up is a trip to the Triple Door for Kristin and me to see a burlesque show that was A-mazing. And a little weird and funny.

On Thanksgiving night, we hosted some friends with babies for appetizers and had a nice, low key evening:

Baby Otis snoozed the entire time:

Baby Adeline skipped her nap and wore a jaunty, French cap that she pulled off before this photo:

We also spent some time in November at Nordstrom Rack trying on accessories.

We went to Orcas for the rest of the holiday weekend and ran into all our favorite relatives on the ferry, also heading to the island. Edie and Obie:

Edie and Luna at the cabin:

This looks super serious, but really we were just starving and digging in to dinner. This was Kathleen's birthday dinner (hence the sparkly disco ball):

Birthday dessert:

The weather that weekend was amazingly cold, crisp and clear. Javi and Jeff took an early morning hike out to the point and took these photos:

Meal time:

"Elsa came!!"

Play clay time:

I read this book approximately eleventy million times that weekend:

Jeff and Edie visited the famous gum wall at Pike Place (barf):

We hosted Edie's BFF for a movie night playdate after school and the two had a terrible time:

And of course, we picked out a christmas tree at our favorite in-city Hunter Tree Farm:

This was one of those rare times when expectations line up with your real life experience. I always want the tree process to be magical and it rarely is. But this year, we had fun picking a tree, played loud Christmas music, dimmed the lights and decorated the tree and the house with enthusiasm and it felt so much like christmas.

I'll share more photos soon of the last week or two.

Dear Santa

Edie's letter to Santa is killing me with cuteness. Her words run from line to line without dashes, and no matter how many times I suggest that she put a little more space between words, she loves for them to all run together into one giant stream of consciousness (or one epic hashtag). That said, with very few exceptions, she wrote this entire letter and spelled everything without any help. The exceptions are "Dear Santa Claus", which I wrote on a separate piece of paper for her to copy (she doesn't like me hovering and telling her each letter one at a time - I'm told it's "VERY ANNOYING"), and I suggested she add an "e" to the end of the word "like", at which point I was summarily dismissed and she wrote the rest completely by herself while I was in a separate room wrapping presents. I thought this would be almost impossible to decipher but friends last night were able to figure out a good chunk of it without much help. I'll de-code it below the photo for those interested.

Dear Santa (giant comma) Claus, I woud like stompeez slipprs, an Elsa stufee (what we call stuffed animals) rappeng papr andb and sum suprisis Iv ban a good girl. 

ho! ho! ho! Marry Crismis from Edie Bee Culevr

Seriously. 

I can't believe how determined this kid is sometimes. I really had my heart set on a perfectly worded letter that I recited to her letter by letter so it would basically look like a grown up wrote it in cute, kid handwriting. But she had such different ideas and I'm so glad I turned the control freak in me off (it wasn't easy) and just let her do this because, well maybe I don't really have to say why. I actually have no idea if this is advanced for her age, but to me, it feels like she just wrote a novel I'm so proud. 

Sadly, I'm pretty unimpressed with the actual items on the wish list. Stompeez slippers are these cheap made-in-China garbage that Santa sucked up and bought despite Jeff's (accurate) protests. And the Elsa stuffed animal is something that I think one of her aunts purchased to give her, so Santa isn't going to deliver on that one. I'm unclear if she wants a roll of wrapping paper, wants her presents wrapped in wrapping paper or if she just saw the roll of wrapping paper on the ground while writing the letter and threw it in for fun, but regardless she'll be getting some form of wrapping paper. I probably should have made her write the Santa letter earlier. But in my defense, Edie does things like this when SHE wants to and not sooner. As Jeff says, I think our issue with this kid is not going to be intelligence, but rather motivation. I'd asked her so many times earlier in the season about a letter to Santa and she shut me down every time. Until yesterday. SOO… sum suprisis it is! 

December

I met up with my parents this afternoon, halfway between Seattle and Bellingham. Edie is staying with them until Thursday while I hop on a plane to the East coast for a work trip. I helped her into their car and then turned around and drove home by myself. As always, I have mixed feelings about leaving Edie behind, but this is an annual trip that I usually really enjoy, and Edie was super excited for her visit with my parents (and her cousin Caroline who is also staying with them this week), so I'm trying to let go. My parents managed to make it seem like I was doing them a favor to let them have Edie for 4 nights, so I couldn't be luckier on that front. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I apologize for the lack of quality posts of late. The truth behind my blog-slacking is that:

1. I fell down a Gilmore Girls rabbit hole. I never followed that show when it was current, but stumbled upon it a month or two ago and promptly began an epic marathon of 7 seasons, wrapping up tonight with the show finale. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do now without all that quirky banter in my life.

2. I've also been struck lately with a recurring desire that plagues me on occasion: to write a book. This happens about once a year and instead of inspiring me, it cripples me. I get all these flashes of ideas at the wrong time, like when driving on the freeway when I can't write anything down and then feel pissed when I can't remember the brilliant phrase or story line that ran through my head in the car. The obvious solution to this problem is to do absolutely nothing, right? Sorry, that was sarcasm. Because nothing is exactly what I've been doing and I'm pretty unimpressed with my response.

UGH! It is now almost 11pm and my alarm is slated to go off at an ungodly hour tomorrow… signing off until my return later this week. Happy almost-Christmas!