'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

We have wrapped up our second Christmas in the Pacific Northwest and it sure was a good one.  It was also the last Christmas as Robinson, party of 3 before sweet Cecily arrives and a special time for us to spend with our only child while she still holds that title.  Don't get me wrong, Olivia is very much looking forward (or so she says) to having a baby sister but things will be different and I'm thankful that we had one last big holiday to give Olivia before baby arrives.  Neither Mike nor I had to work on Christmas Eve and we had quite a fun-filled day.

Pancakes for breakfast while Olivia does the Advent calendar that Aunt Stella sent

 

We gave Olivia a Christmas Eve gift with jammies, a DVD of her favorite movie - Descendants (Disney version not George Clooney version), popcorn, and pink hot chocolate.  Note: We have now tried fancy white hot chocolate and pink Hello Kitty hot chocolate and neither were a big hit.  Classic brown hot chocolate from now on.

 

Time to make cookies for Santa!

 

Olivia wanted to make cookie sandwiches for Santa this year, which involved lots of frosting.

 

Ta-da!  Cookie sandwiches for Santa with an awesome note.  Milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer went out when we got home from our Christmas Eve party that night. 

 

Not sure when Olivia went all cheerleader on Santa but her note this year was priceless!

 

We spent Christmas Eve evening with our lovely friends who have become more like family in the 9 months that we've lived in Snoqualmie.  We are so very blessed to have them in our lives.  The first picture below is of Olivia and her friend, Tiger.  Such cuties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas day brought a cookie sandwich that Santa thoughtfully left for Olivia for breakfast, lots of presents, brunch with friends and a quiet afternoon on the couch watching Descendants (again) with Leah, Olivia's new American Girl doll. 

 

 

 

After dinner with the gang, we put a very tired little girl to bed.

Merry Christmas ya'll!

 

 

Olivia's first day of Kindergarten!

It just occurred to me that I should probably start specifying which child I'm blogging about considering in four months there will be TWO of them!  I think that time is going to fly by.  Anyway . . . Olivia started Kindergarten this week and I think she has gotten more and more excited to go every day.

 

When we went in last week to meet Olivia's teacher, Mrs. Kinghorn, she gave us some before-school homework!  Olivia got to decorate a frame with dry pasta that will be used in her classroom to highlight her work.

Here she is writing her "First day of school" message on the chalkboard.

My little pumpkin's first day!

Olivia chose this backpack all by herself.  No surprise that it was Frozen :-)

Mike worked Tuesday morning but came home so we could all go to Olivia's first day together.

Our house is two blocks from Olivia's school so we strolled across the street.

Officially a Cascade View Elementary Cub!

In the MPR waiting for her teacher to arrive.

 

Silly girl.

All lined up ready to head to class.

 

Enjoy your journey, sweet girl.  We love you!

Thanksgiving 2014

We had a wonderfully full house for Thanksgiving this year!  Pat and Bill were in from South Carolina, Karen and Matt flew in from Tennessee, and Cooper came in from Virginia.  It was so awesome to have everyone together for the holiday!

This might be out of sequence but I thought it would be the best picture to start off with!

 

Olivia and Pat did some gardening.

We went to the Country Village in Bothell to see two of Santa's reindeer who were hanging out there before they started working.

Olivia and Papa did a little coloring

Olivia wanted to dress just like my brother the first day that Cooper was there

Baking pumpkin pie with Nana

Playing Frozen with Tia

Making sweet potato pie with Uncle Matt

Lunch time in Seattle.  Yummy Ramen

The Chihuly glass museum was amazing

View of the Space Needle from inside the Chihuly glass museum

The Saturday after Thanksgiving it SNOWED!!!!

Karen and Eddie the octopus at the aquarium

Olivia the jellyfish

A picture of Matt and Karen that Olivia took

The gum wall - gross!!

Olivia had a chat with Santa at the Space Needle

Outside on the Space Needle observation deck.  It was SO.COLD.

Olivia inside a dinosaur footprint in the Pacific Science Museum

Butterflies at the PSM

Granny visits - December 2014

Granny came to visit us in the middle of December to see Olivia's dance recital and hang out for a few days.

We waited until Mom got here to put up the Christmas tree.  Granny brought an extra special Christmas sweater to celebrate the occasion!

Ta-da!

I was in charge of planning my team's holiday party and on the Saturday that Mom was here, we went to 2 Costco's, 1 Whole Foods, and QFC twice.  This isn't even 1/3 of the stuff we got!

I took the Monday off work and Mom and I went to Pike Place market.  This was the view from lunch.

We took Olivia to see Snowflake Lane in Bellevue where it "snows" every night after a short parade.  We scarfed down some dinner first before heading out to find a good spot.

Mom and I at dinner.

Olivia and one of the Snow Princesses

Look at that little face.  She was grinning from ear to ear the entire time!

Mike and Mom picked up Olivia from school early so Olivia and Mom could decorate gingerbread men!

 

Thanks for coming, Mom!  We had such a great time.