Christmas Day 2010

Christmas morning came at around 8am. Not too bad. The boys got up at 5 am or so and started in on their stockings. That kept them busy for quite a while for us to sleep in till 8am. 

Now the party begins!

 Gary scored with a new Machine Nerf gun and a whole bunch of Amo! 

 The boys are really racking up the presents. So nice to see happy faces! 

Mommy got some cool new Ughs! Just in time for the cold weather. 

 Just when they think they are done, 

Gary has a scavenger hunt ready for the boys. 

 Gary had clues everywhere. 

 Oh Man my fridge looks a mess. I better clean that up soon...ha ha.

 Andrew is pretty happy as his old DSI was just about dead. 

 Oh man, here comes the last scavenger hunt for the boys to become really really spoiled. 

Opps I should have closed my closet...

 The very cool new XBox Kinect

 I liked the sunset on the bottom of the long board. Too bad it is raining outside to try it. 

 Hello- Merry Christmas! 

Lots of fun calls to family in England. 

 Look at that mound of garbage. 

Yikes...good thing it is mostly recyclable. 

 This was a total surprise to me. 

Very nice...but now I have to learn a system. I don't like change. I hope I can learn quickly.

Thank you SANTA!!! 

Andrew is growing up so fast. 

This is the first year he has but together a huge Lego kit all by himself. 

I love Christmas! 

Christmas Eve 2010

 Christmas Eve

Yes, I did not get the memo about wearing yellow. Funny how it ended up this way. But Yellow is not really my color and so I stayed in black. 

We were doing pretty good. No major last minute rushing around for presents. Gary and I made a quick trip to Bell SQ and ToysRus. But I felt under control. Yes, our kids were going to be very spoiled indeed. But what else is new?

Before bed we watched a great video online about the birth of Christ. Very sweet. Then we talked about the true meaning of Christmas. How very lucky we are to have such a great Savior to help us return to our Heavenly Home. 

Andrew wanted to sleep downstairs so that he could stay up late with Vincent. 

Vincent and his Routson cousins had a date online at 11pm for Black Opps? An XBox game. 

I think they ended up playing till 3am. Ugh...

Gary and I got everything wrapped and ready to go by 10:30pm. We stayed up till 1am the night before. I think that is the fasted we have ever had things ready. It was so nice to be relaxed and enjoy the quiet time before all the excitement started in the morning. 

 The stocking were hung by the chimney with care.....

 A mug of milk and some cookies for Santa were out and ready for him. Per Andrew's request :-) 

 Santa had everything organized and ready by the tree. 

 The tree was decorated with all kinds of shinny things. 

I love my new star for the top of the tree. 

 All the Swarovski ornaments were shinning so bright.  I have been collecting a new one every year for a while. I just love them. Thank you Santa! 

 Our Nativity area was all set up.

 Hand made puppets by me and cute new finger puppets by Andrew. A small wooden nativity set is fun for the boys to play with. 

 A very cute count down to Christmas blocks made by Cindy.  Thanks Cindy- I love it! Andrew was sure to change to numbers everyday!

 Gary resting and enjoying the quiet. 

 The outside of the house looked very festive this year. 

 We got new lights for the house that are LED of course, and they change colors by remote control. Awesome stars on the chimney are a favorite for me. 

I love all the blues and the deep hue's of the led lights. So much deeper in color. 

Off to bed we went with sugar plums dancing in our heads ?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Dear Santa.....

We (well I) almost had a Christmas disaster! 

The Santa photos had not been done yet. Yikes....The boys were not excited about doing this. I tried a few times earlier with no such luck. Vincent was worried about being seen in Bellevue Square with his parents, and then being seen in the line for Santa was just too much for him.  So threats were made and finally I put down my foot...No Santa photos- No Christmas presents. Christmas Eve we stood (I stood) in line for 1.5 hours and we were able to save Christmas... It was a close one.

I love my Santa photos. I have a book with all of them in it from the first year Vincent was born.

Ho Ho Ho!  Merry Chirstmas! 

Seattle and Tron

Christmas break is here.

 Kids are out of school. 

I was trying to work and get things done. Not much luck,  I am having a hard time getting things done. So off to seattle we went.  Gary got a bunch of Soccer shirts framed for his office. I also got some soccer photos of the boys blown up and framed. They look awesome! 

We helped hang them in the office.  It was quite a job.  It was all worth it, they look great.  His office looks so much better. He is also collecting scarfs from some teams and games that we have gone to. 

When we got done we headed to Seattle Center on the Monorail to the Science Center. 

Off to the Imax theater to see 

Tron in 3D

 Vincent was playing around at Gary's desk. He looks very old here. Crazy! 

 Andrew!

 Gary's view out his office window. Lucky! 

 Almost finished office. Just missing a scarf over the couch.

 On the Monorail heading to Tron

 Very cool light out front of the Space Needle

 Handsome boys! 

 Hanging out waiting for the movie to start. 

 We found a very cool train set at the Center House. 

 It is very cool- even has a hot air balloon going up and down. 

 It was a cold clear night. 

 We really enjoyed the movie. It was very fun to watch. The special effects were very cool. 

I also enjoyed how they added some retro stuff to it. 

 Waiting for the Monorail to come. Very cold. 

We had a great day together down town. It was fun to do as a family. 

We will do this again soon. 

Booter's onto State Tournament! 3rd Place!

Andrew's soccer team this year did great!  They were undefeated in their league. We spent the weekend in Shelton- a very small town- to see who would play the final championship for first place. They won the first two games. Then the last game they lost. It was heart breaking.

The team they played- Little Mexico- was really good. It was a battle.  They kept going back and forth. But in the end the other team pulled ahead and we could not recover. The final score was 8-5.  I was very proud of the boys. But when you are 10 and get so close to winning it all...tears do fall.  As parents it was hard to see those faces and dreams crushed.

Here are a few high lights of the tournament....my video will not down load. ugh....

The weather was getting very cold and windy. We had to layer up the boys well so they would not freeze to death.

Ok So not everything is always rosey...

Last few days of Dad and Moms vacation were not too great. Dad had a cough that had been bothering him for a while. Then he got a virus that caused him to throw up alot. He then got dehydrated and could barely walk. Some how we managed to get him to the hospital. Turned out he had pneumonia  in his lungs and we know he needed lots of fluids pumped back into him. Dad has Diabetes and this was affecting his kidneys some. They were not working 100% and his oxygen level was really low.

So needless to say he was a mess. He ended up staying at Overlake hospital for two days to recover and get antibiotics in his system. All is well now and he is recovering at home great. I even think he went golfing the other day.

Don't hate me but I take photos at all of lives events. Good and Bad.

Well Dad does not look to good here. But he was doing much better. He was smiling and laughing. David and I did not need to wear the masks. But David likes to walk around with it on. It freakes out everyone in the hospital. He loves to be looked at funny. Ha ha.