sledding & leavensworth

The day before Christmas Eve, we were fortunate enough to be invited out for a wonderful day of sledding, and an evening full of fun at Leavensworth. We hadn't done either in Washington, so it was a wonderful experience.

The sledding was beautiful! But, I had decided to leave my camera in the "safe" car while we went, so I didn't get any pictures {mistake!}. Ashlyn loved going down the little hill with Katelyn.. it was so cute!

But, I did pull my camera out for the evening in Leavensworth. But was trying so hard to figure out settings, that I hardly got any good pictures... even though I do like the {above} picture of Jake. Just reminds me how stubborn he is - He wouldn't turn into the light so I could get a better picture.. he just stood there and waited for me to be done.

We had a delicious dinner, and then walked a couple blocks to a live outdoor nativiy. It was a bit chilly by the end, but it was a good experience.. one we hope to do again next year!

Ah.. to be Hansel and Gretel...

...and have a house made of candy.

Since we all can not live that dream (sans a wicked witch, of course) we decided to do the next best thing - throw a gingerbread house party!

Little miss schmutz and I had a lot of fun deciding on the little details of our first time ever hosting a holiday party. Ashlyn picked out the candy, while I decided on guest list, seating arrangements, and bakery items.

It ended up being just perfect! The kids had a equal amount of town decorating their little houses and eating the candy.

We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends up here. Ashlyn enjoys playing with her little friends so much!

snowflake lane..

It seemed like we were able to do the perfect amount of fun during this Christmas break! Not too much to stress us out, but enough so we didn't get bored. One of the activities we enjoyed was going downtown to bellevue to snowflake lane.

Snowflake lane is basically a crowd, gathered together on a street to listen to music, watch drummers on stilts dance, watch fake snow fall, and receive candy from various Christmas characters.



All in all it was a lot of fun, even if Ashlyn wasn't quite as thrilled with it as we were. Ah, well.. there is always next year!

twelve days of fun!

This year for Christmas we got a special treat! My sister Laura and her sweet family sent us the "twelve days of Christmas" package! Ashlyn had so much fun opening a gift every morning. But she never wanted to stop at opening just one gift. It was so fun for her to see what her cousins had gotten for her. I think the princess coloring book was the favorite.. can't go wrong with princess + crafting with this little girl.

Thanks so much Rollins family! It made our holiday really special!

we're all glad when daddy comes home...

Glad as we can be! Especially when he gets to just stay home for weeks on end. We are finally getting back on rhythm from the holidays, so I will (hopefully) catch the blog up soon.






But, if you couldn't tell from the pictures, feeding ducks is one of our favorite past times around here. One that dear dad could not be excluded from during his winter break.



It was such a nice, warm morning. The ducks are pretty pushy and will get really close to get the bread, which, at points, made Ashlyn worry. So we find it best to just go throw the bread into the little lake to keep a comfortable distance between us and those funny ducks.