The Day We All were Excited For...

CHRISTMAS DAY!

This is Santa's spread...I grew up with Santa's gifts not being wrapped and running to see what I got. TJ went with this tradition because he realized that Santa has a tough job:). Sophia's main things she asked Santa for were a pink guitar, cash register, and baby doll.

Evidence that Santa came to our house. The first thing Sophia said when she woke up was, "Is Santa here?" She seemed a little apprehensive because she loves Santa, but not up close. I reassured her that he wasn't here, but did come.

Yah a cash register!!!

And pink guitar! She jumped up and down with excitement. Those moments were priceless and made Christmas day even more special! Rocker girl:)

After playing and checking out what Santa brought her, it was time to open family gifts. Santa rocks and gives all the fun stuff. Mom and Dad just gave her pj's, game, and movie.

Daddy's turn to see what was in his stocking. TJ's favorite part is the stockings. Santa brought him practical stuff in his stocking this year, hahaha! Notice Sophia is right there to help! She did that with everything:)

Off to do Christmas morning with my side. The Uffens tradition is to wake up and meet on Mom and Dad's bed. The kids are ready to go. Notice the girl matching PJ's...adorable! Those pj's have turned into Sophia's favorite.

Here we are in the hallway waiting to run down and see what we got! (And yes, I still run!!!)

Sophia got loaded up! She got her Baby Alive. She was very particular and pointed to this baby every time we were in a store. This baby laughs, eats, drinks, and poos. Little did I know that I will be changing 2 diapers next month, haha! This baby will give Sophia lots of practice.

Time to drink...What a good mama!

Our day was not over. We went over to celebrate with TJ's Dad side and then back to my parents house for dinner. We are truly grateful for both our families and for everything they do for us, but we were all ready for bed at the end of the night!!!

Merry Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas with TJ's Mom's side of the family at his Aunt Kathy's house. Her house is on Kitsap Lake and beautiful! Alyssa, TJ, Jason, Kevin, and Caleb had a brilliant idea of jumping into the lake after dinner. Mind you, it was raining and freezing cold. The best part is that TJ squeezed into his cousin Alyssa's basketball shorts. Look how tiny she is, haha!

After the shin-dig we went over to Grandma/pa Brown's house to do Christmas with just the immediate family. All the kids were excited and Sophia waited patiently for it to be her turn to open the presents.
What could it be??? I think she was the daintiest gift opener;)

The last surprise of the night was for the girls. They both got new bikes! This is Sophia's first big girl bike with training wheels. She's getting more comfortable on it everyday.

About 10pm we finally made it back to our house. Sophia set up Santa's plate of cookies, milk, and big carrots for the reindeer. And yes, they had to be big carrots! Notice the attack dog protecting Santa's plate. We got that dog during the white elephant gift exchange at Kathy's house. I think we scored!!!

Sophia took awhile to fall asleep that night, but then Santa got to work!

Christmas Week Fun

BAKING COOKIES...

SWIMMING AT THE BAINBRIDGE POOL...
FINISHING TOUCHES ON OUR STOCKINGS...

ICING AND DECORATING COOKIES...

THE MASTERPIECES...I THINK SANTA WILL LOVE THEM:)

GETTING A LETTER FROM SANTA IN THE MAIL...SHE'S ON THE GOOD GIRL LIST, CAN YOU TELL SHE'S EXCITED ABOUT THAT? (Thank you GG/Gpa Vergeer)

CAN'T WAIT FOR MORE CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY FUN!

ooooo-ahhhhh

Gotta love Zoo Lights! We enjoyed the lights on Monday and it turned out to be a perfect night with no rain. Mollie, Sophia's cousin came with us to enjoy some girl time.

Aren't they cute?!
Sophia wouldn't go in the cave with me at first, so Mollie humored me and even posed for a picture:)

The girls liked playing on the playground and Mollie got stuck in her own spider web, haha!

TJ spoiled them and bought them a penguin light-up glow stick. They played with those all night and into the next day, so I guess it was worth it:)

I loved this tree!

We ended our night with the carousel ride. They were all smiles the whole time:)

After Zoo Lights, Mollie spent the night with us. These two girls talked all night and played so well together (it gave me a glimpse of future sleep overs with girls). Sophia had to have the air mattresses next to each other for her slumber party.

The only 2 girls on the Brown side (so far) have to stick together!!!

Tree Hunting

The weekend after Thanksgiving we have a tradition to go get our Christmas tree at good ol' Bacon's Tree Farm. We took TJ's clunker dunk (haha) truck, which he was very proud of. We decided to bundle Sophia up in her snow gear and boots to stay warm and so she wouldn't get all muddy.

Sophia thought this was a good size tree...
I am so picky (just like my mom) about my tree. It has to be a Noble and it seems like we're always the last ones to cut one down. After about an hour search, we found it! It was about 10 ft tall, green, healthy, and smelled so good. Sophia was a trooper, but hungry and needed a nap by then...check out her face!

TJ doing the man thing. I even helped carry it out (probably not the best idea, ha!).

One happy family with a great tree in the back of the truck! I love this picture because TJ looks like a true hill-billy, hahaha!

Sophia was SOO excited to put up her little tree! She picked out pink glittery stocking ornaments and we already had the blue balls. Isn't it a beauty?

TA DA!!!!! (Don't look too closely at the top, we hadn't trimmed it yet).

It makes me so happy when I look at our tree. We've had many nights reading books, playing with the train, and visiting at night sitting by our tree:)

Forgotten Carols

The day before Thanksgiving we went to a Christmas show called, "Forgotten Carols" at Ben Royal Hall in Seattle with some of my family and TJ's parents. We took the ferry over and had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. Sophia's favorite is the brown butter and mazithra!

Here's the group shot!
We were waiting to go in...

Once we got in, we had to wait some more to go to our seats, so we were entertained by some classic Seattle drama through the window...1 man that couldn't stand up, 4 police cars, etc. We found our seats and sat next to TJ's parents...

Sophia sat really well. She held her hands over her ears for awhile because she thought it was loud.

November Snow

We loved the snow, especially because I got 2 days off of school!!!

The first night of the wind/snow storm we lost 2 hours of power, which was just long enough for it to still be fun. We played games by our camping lantern and Sophia had fun with her flashlight...

We headed up stairs to play CandyLand. Sophia's favorite card was the candy cane card. After that it was time for bed. When we woke up we had our power back. We were one of the lucky ones! Thank you!

HALLOWEEN

Our Halloween was celebrated on Saturday night for the famous "trunk or treat," but before that we went to GG's house to show off Sophia's costume and get a treat too!

We've got a member of the SWAT team, Mario, a Sorcerer, another member of the SWAT team, and a butterfly fairy on the Uffens side of the family.
And a Scarecrow, Lion, Dorothy, Tin man, Flying monkey, and Bell on the Brown side.

I love trunk or treat because the kids get loaded up on candy and it's perfect for them because they don't have to walk really far! Every time Sophia got another piece of candy she would get so excited and would have me look in her pumpkin! Her pumpkin got so heavy towards the end that it was hard for her to carry.

After trunk or treat all the cousins came over for chili and a potato bar for dinner:) Sophia is lucky to have fun cousins and as she calls them, her "friends!"

After everyone left Sophia got to dump out all her candy. She put the candy in 2 piles, a Sophia pile and Mommy pile. I made it out good because she's not a huge fan of chocolate!

Our Halloween day was spent visiting GG and GGpa Vergeer, Nana Brown, and Grandma/pa Brown. She had to show off her costume one last time:)