Friday, December 18, 2009

Merry Seattle Christmas

Yesterday was our Seattle Christmas. We had a big breakfast, did some babysitting, enjoyed a crab leg dinner, opened presents, and watched movies. Today is the packing and cleaning day, and tonight we are headed home for the real Christmas!
These are the twins that we were babysitting.
Jackson has a lot of fun with them.
Jackson's favorite present so far is his new train set.
Thanks again, Costco, for your Christmas genious.
Can you see the joy on his face?

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Garden D'Lights

There is a botanical garden near where we live that does a free Christmas light display. We went this week and it was amazing. You walk along a little path and they have a bunch of different scenes and sculptures made entirely out of Christmas lights. So fun!

Just Like Mom

When I grow up, I want to be just like my mom, especially around the holidays. My mom is really good at Christmas. I use all of her recipes and decorate our house the same way she does. I copied her countdown calendar, and Jackson and I even enjoy Amy Grant Christmas music because that's what my mom always plays. She taught me everything I need to know about baking holiday goodies, and I'm pretty sure she learned it all from my Grandma, so in honor of them, I've been teaching Jackson. He seemed completely facinated when I explained to him the secrets of perfect toffee. And he was a very good little helper when it came time to deliver the treats to all of our friends.
Here he is all bundled up. He has his own gloves that fit, but he likes my fuzzy gloves better.
And here he is pouting because I won't let him hold the camera. Don't you just almost want to give in.
And this is what Tyler did while we delivered goodies. I guess finals have been pretty exhausting.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Chocolate

We've been very busy getting ready for Christmas, so here's a picture to hold over the grandparents until I have time to put up more. Jackson has been enjoying all of the Christmas goodies, and is very good at helping me with my baking (i.e. emptying the entire tupperware cupboard and stacking slippery bowls under my feet while I try to cook) He also occassionally insists on drinking out of the grown-up water bottles instead of his boring sippie cups, which is why his shirt is soaked.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Nutritional Project

Here is my project for this week. I am always paranoid about nutrition for Jackson, which is silly because he's a very healthy little eater for the most part, but Tyler and I are meat and carb lovers (we're working on it), so I worried about Jackson being more balanced than us. I never really know how much Jackson is supposed to be eating, if he's eating too much or not enough. So last week I got a nutrition chart from the State of Washington Health and Nutrition Department. It gave me guidelines for toddlers 18 months - 3 years. I decided to make a handy little chart for my fridge. That way, when I'm making dinner and can't remember what Jackson had for breakfast, I can see what he still needs to eat. I know that posting pictures of dorky projects like this is really lame blogging, but I put the chart on a "The Office" magnet board so that it's not quite so lame, right? I know that lots of my friends have kids in this same age range, so if anyone wants the actual nutritional information (or if anyone wants me to make them a handy little fridge checklist*) let me know :)
*The black writing is permanent marker, and then I fill in the squares with dry erase marker so that each night I can erase the blue squares but don't have to re-write any of the actual information.