2017 Snapshot

It's that time of year again! Christmas is over, people are starting to make their New Year's resolutions and looking back on all that the past year included. I've recapped the past few year's in a snapshot type post here and here and wanted to do the same for 2017. So without further ado, a look back at 2017!

January was a slow month, but  we did kickoff the New Year with some of our closest friends, I had a quick trip to New York for work and Lincoln turned two and a half! 

In February, we had our fair share of trips to Home Depot for home improvement projects, celebrated Valentines Day, I made a quick day trip to Portland for work, and I helped host a bachelorette party for my friend/co-worker. 

In March we took Lincoln to the St. Paddy's Day parade and I had to fly to San Francisco for an overnight trip for work! 

April started to pick up with a little staycation, celebrating Daddy's birthday with a kiddo free trip to Portland and of course Easter! 

In May we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Baby Boy Hyde with a Where the Wild Things are themed baby shower. We also celebrated Mother's Day and took Lincoln on his very first camping trip to the Bowl and Pitcher over Memorial Day weekend! 

Along with some much needed sunshine, June had us celebrating Father's Day as well as the arrival of Baby Boy Hyde! Lincoln also started soccer for the first time and we took our first trip to Hat Island of the year.  

July started off with a bang when Lincoln played the very important role of ring bearer in my cousin's wedding down in Lake Chelan. We celebrated the 4th of July, went cherry picking and had a campout in the backyard, s'mores and all! A very special little boy also turned 3! 

In August, we made the trip up to Schweitzer to pick huckleberries and took Lincoln to his very first minor league baseball game! We also headed back up to Greenbluff to pick peaches and most importantly, announced that our little family of 3 would soon be a family of 4! 

September marks the beginning of my very favorite part of the year and my favorite season and it was jam packed full of events! We ended the summer by spending Labor Day weekend out at Hat Island before coming back for Lincoln to start his very first year of pre-school! We also took Lincoln to the Spokane County Fair where he was finally tall enough to ride the rides, attended Touch a Truck (probably one of his most favorite events to date), and took him to Wild Kratt's Live at the INB Performing Arts Center where he actually made it through the ENTIRE show. 

October included my birthday, our annual trip up to Greenbluff and Pumpkin Carving competition and we found out that baby number two is a BOY! We also celebrated Halloween and watched Lincoln overdose on Halloween candy!

November did not disappoint when we received our first snowfall the first weekend after Halloween and celebrated by building a snowman! We also trekked out to Hat Island for our first #HatIslandThanksgiving and went Christmas Tree hunting. 

We rounded out the year strong with lots of holiday cheer in December! We went to the Gingerbread Buildoff, saw Santa and attended Christmas Tree Elegance. We went sledding, viewed holiday lights, enjoyed a slumber party under the Christmas tree and celebrated Christmas with our family and friends.  

Merry and Bright

Happy day after Christmas! I hope everyone's holiday was perfect and spent surrounded by your favorites. Our's definitely was.

It's no surprise I am a big fan of holidays and a big fan of tradition and this year did not disappoint. We woke up on Christmas Eve morning and headed down to Rockwood Bakery to pick up our quiche for Christmas morning. We did this last year and it is the perfect breakfast for Christmas morning. You pop it in the oven to warm for about an hour and it cooks while you open presents. By the time everyone is done, you're ready to eat!

Since we stopped at the bakery, we had to get hot cocoa, coffee and a few breakfast pastries to start our Christmas Eve off right. Afterwards, we made a stop at Nana and Papa's to drop off a few apps to contribute to Nana's Christmas Eve part and then headed home for baths and naps so we were ready for the evening festivities.

Once we were all up from our naps, we got all dressed up for the Children's Mass at St. Augustines, followed by the annual Christmas Eve party! People started to arrive at my parents house around 6:30 and the rest of the evening was spent eating, drinking and being merry throughout the evening. Normally, we open presents at Nana and Papa's on Christmas Eve night after everyone has left for the evening, but the party was still going strong at 11 PM and we needed to get Lincoln home to bed so Santa could come, so we saved the present opening for Christmas Day!

We headed home, put out cookies, milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer and went straight to bed.

Christmas Day started bright and early at 7 AM when Lincoln woke us up and while I warmed up hot cocoa and coffee and popped the quiche from Rockwood Bakery into the oven. Lincoln could barely contain his excitement for the long awaited Christmas morning and Santa's arrival. Once we all had our warm drinks and Kevin had started a fire we set about opening our presents! Lincoln was a very good boy this year and Santa did not disappoint. He had been asking Santa for a robot and a Jack-in-the-Box all December long and was so excited to open both on Christmas morning. The robot was definitely the star of the show!

After playtime, yet another Christmas movie, and naps for all (much needed!), we headed back to Nana and Papa's for our Christmas Dinner! Dinner was our traditional prime rib, potatoes and caesar salad and it was delicious as always.

Christmas 2017 was definitely a success and will be a difficult one to top!

Merry Christmas 2017!

Wishing you and your's a very Merry Christmas!

As always, we ordered our Christmas Cards through Shutterfly! 

And a look back on Christmas cards from the past here, here and here!

Holiday Lights

Each year we try and take Lincoln to view all the holiday lights around Spokane. In the past, we've headed over to Manito's Gaiser Conservatory to view the lights in the greenhouse as well as journey'd to the North Pole to see holiday lights and Santa.  A few photos from past trips can be seen here and here.

This year, we decided to check out the WinterGlow Spectacular down in Cowley Park outside the hospital. They decorate the park so the kids in the Children's hospital can see the lights from their windows which is just so heartwarming. The lights are sponsored by KXLY and they did not disappoint!

We bundled up, packed some hot cocoa to go and spent about 30 minutes walking through the park checking out all of the lights. Lincoln even got an evening trip to the playground in, wet slide and all. If was a fun little outing to see the lights! If you haven't been yet, I highly recommend it.

Sledding Fun!

It FINALLY snowed this past weekend and we took full advantage! We have been waiting on the white stuff all December long, so when it finally arrived in full force last Friday, we knew sledding would be on the agenda.

Saturday morning, after our Christmas Tree Slumber Party, we had the normal gymnastics routine and a few errands to run, but made sure to squeeze in a quick trip to the park to take Lincoln sledding on Saturday. I had to miss Saturday's outing because my back was not feeling awesome, but made sure to tag along for Round 2 on Sunday! That's right, Lincoln is hooked and we made sure to take advantage of the white stuff on both Saturday and Sunday.

This was the first year he was brave enough to go "all by myself" too and while it stings just a little bit to see how big he's getting,  I was so proud of him! His little squeals as he raced down the hill were kind of the best thing ever.

In addition to the sledding, we also made snow angels and had a little snowball fight with daddy. Kind of the best day ever if I do say so myself!

A few photos from our sledding adventures below!

Slumber Party Under the Christmas Tree!

Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is gearing up for the final countdown to Christmas! In my never ending attempt to squeeze every last bit of festiveness out of the weeks leading up to Christmas, we threw a family sleepover underneath our Christmas tree this weekend and it was pretty much the best thing ever!

We dragged Lincoln's mattress out from his bedroom, piled up the pillows and blankets, started a fire and cozied up for a night of movies, popcorn and hot cocoa under the Christmas tree. Aside from the fact that getting up from the floor to use the restroom all night long (#preggoproblems), it was kind of the best ever.

Lincoln LOVED it and he was not ready to put his mattress back on Saturday. But all good things come to an end, and if we had left out our bed, I have a feeling the fur baby in our family would have quickly taken up residence on the mattress and Lincoln's sheets and I was not ready for that extra load of laundry.

Below are a few pictures from our festive night. It was gosh darn cozy if I do say so myself.

Next up on the blog...SLEDDING!!!!

Gingerbread Buildoff 2017!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hope the weekend was a good one.

We packed the weekend full of a combination of adult fun, a decent amount of downtime and some more holiday festivities!

Friday started out with my holiday work party out in Coeur d' Alene. We sent Lincoln to stay with nana and papa while we went out on the town. It felt good to have a night out sans the kiddo since we don't get too many date nights. We spent the evening in CDA and came back Saturday morning to pick up Lincoln and have a lazy day at home.

Sunday we headed down to the Gingerbread Buildoff at the Davenport Grand to benefit Christ's Kitchen. This is our 3rd year viewing the Gingerbread houses and each year Lincoln has a blast decorating (and eating) his own little gingerbread house.

This year was the 10th annual gingerbread house build-off competition. It features local culinary teams competing to build the most elaborate gingerbread house. The public gets to vote on each house as part of the competition. In addition to viewing and voting on the houses, you also get your photo taken with a Gingerbread man and his wife and can build your own gingerbread house for $7. 

Here is a link to the Gingerbread Buildoff from year's past! 

Holiday Weekend Recap

Happy Hump Day! How about a little holiday weekend recap, mid-way through the week? This weekend, like so many other weekends in December, was full of holiday cheer!

Friday brought the arrival of our Elf, Jingle Bells. I had been hoping to hold out one more year before we got sucked into the world of Elf on the Shelf, but Lincoln's classroom has one, so he got an early introduction to him. While I'm not the biggest fan of Jingle Bells, I must say it is really fun to see how excited Lincoln gets looking for him each morning and seeing him show up in random spots as he returns from the North Pole each night.

Saturday started like all Saturday's do with gymnastics! Afterwards, we quickly changed Lincoln into some more holiday friendly clothes and headed down to meet Santa. We met up with my sister and brother-in-law and Lincoln's favorite current baby-in-residence, cousin Hudson, so the boys could tell Santa all about what they wanted for Christmas.

After meeting with the big guy, we grabbed some lunch and then walked over to the Davenport for Christmas Tree Elegance. It's become an annual tradition for us to go down, view all the trees, and throw a few raffle tickets into the mix in the hopes of winning one of the awesome trees and accompanying gifts! We haven't won one yet, but I still get my hopes up year after year ;0).

Sunday was cookie day! Lincoln has been asking to make cookies for Santa since we put our tree up right after Thanksgiving. I told him we could make our first batch this weekend, but that we'd have to save them in the freezer for Santa since Christmas is still a few weeks away. He woke up Sunday morning to Jingle Bells (the elf) asking to help make cookies with us! It was a fun filled morning full of Holiday cheer! We ended Sunday evening, like most weekends, snuggled up with a movie and hot cocoa.