Santa, Sweet Snowflake Tapper, and Sisterly Silliness...

...that just about sums up our week.

I think we've done it all...

What an amazing way to top off the Christmas season. This was Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, WA (outdoor shopping district near Microsoft campus) where drummers come out every night at 7pm and play Christmas songs during Dec, followed by an entourage of holiday characters and these incredible lollipops they hand out to the kids (they are, of course, all natural made with pure cane juice, nut-free, and 100% organic. I am learning to expect nothing less in these parts.) :-) They also have a chocolate center, N was nutso for them and the drums. This was one of our most favorite things we've done here, so magical and unbelievably decorated (and free!) They also blew "snowflakes" made out of these light, airy bubble suds during it all. I imagine this was similar to the good ol' days when people went all out for the holiday parades and performances, we enjoyed it.


Drummers marched up and down Snowflake Lane and stood up on pedastals and played (turn sound on). We've played this 1.2 million times for N at our house. :-)

Nutcracker

The girls and I had a great girls night out at the Nutcracker this year. We went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Co. rendition downtown at McCaw Hall. We had nosebleed seats, which ended up being fine because it is a smallish venue and no one was sitting in front of us. The costume and set was designed by Maurice Sendak (of "Where the Wild Things Are" fame). There was a magician for the kids at the intermission, where the girls were chosen to "help" the magician in one of his tricks. After the ballet, we met up with my college roommate KB and her daughter and walked a couple of blocks to Seattle Center for a treat. We are truly blessed to get to do all of these fun things with our kids.

Learning Adventure

We took the kids to a place called Kidquest that is a children's museum. They had a good time and I was impressed with the types of things they had there and that we finally picked something that all the kids enjoyed. They made a bunch of really cool gadgets for the kids to play with, but then explained that it was built using a lever or used hydroelectric power to run things (and play instruments!) N was in hog heaven, he loves gadgets and buttons and lights, and of course, indoor MAC trucks. The girls loved the suction tunnels for the scarves and the wall sized light bright.