Merry Christmas!

These are our Christmas cards for this year. We tried to send them to everybody that we had addresses for, I am sorry if we missed you. If you didn't get one, it just means we need your address. Scott put these and Easton's announcement together and I thought that they turned out good. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We miss you all. Christmas will be a little different away from loved ones. This is my first Christmas in my 30 years of life that I have not been with my family. It may be kind of sad but hey, it's still Christmas and we love it. Easton' s Announcement

Dance Recital

Last week the girls had their ballet recital. They both did so good. On our way home Brooklyn couldn't stop talking about how much fun it was. After about 10 minutes of non-stop talking she took a big sigh and said, "Can I do that again?" They have pretend recitals on a daily basis at home. They usually "sell" us a ticket that we have to give back to them in order to attend in our own living room, so it was fun to finally have a real recital. I loved watching them.

Here are some recent pictures of Easton. He is growing so fast.

Just look at these rolls and double chin. He's such a chub.

Easton is one month old!

I can't believe our little Easton is already a month old. He's growing up too fast. He has been such a good baby so far, he's spoiling us. We love him so much.

Easton is so lucky to have two extra "mommies". They can't seem to get enough of him.

Visitors

It has been a lot of fun having our families come and visit for the last couple of weeks. We feel bad that they have all gone home now and we are looking forward to them visiting again.

Grandma Celia

Grandpa Don

Grandpa Don & Madison

Aunt Tiffy

Grandma Diane

Grandpa Lynn

Family fun in Seattle

Tiffy, Madison, Kennady and Brooklyn on the ferry.

Brooklyn and Grandpa Don on the ferry.

Brooklyn feeding the seagulls. We'll put up a video of this as soon as we can figure out how to do it.

Sunset on top of the Space Needle.

The Snowball Express

Baby Easton!

Kennady and Brooklyn's first time meeting their new little brother

Brooklyn is still a little upset that we didn't name him Derek Jeter like she wanted, but she was happy when she saw him in his Yankees shirt.

We are so excited that our baby boy is finally here. It seems like Tara was pregnant forever (especially to her). He was born on Wednesday, Nov. 5th at 2:00 in the afternoon. He weighed 7 lbs, 6 oz and was 20 inches long. The whole labor process was not exactly what Tara had in mind. With Kennady and Brooklyn she had the epidural before any of the hard contractions started, and that was pretty much what she was expecting with Easton too. If it were up to Tara she would have the anesthesiologist waiting at the door with a needle in hand. Not quite so lucky. We went to the hospital Wednesday morning after she had been contracting most of the night, but got sent home because labor and delivery was crazy busy and she wasn't dilated far enough. Tara knew that she was close, so we didn't actually go home. We sat out in the parking lot for the next two hours, timing the contractions until they were about 3 minutes apart. We went back inside and this time they were nice enough to let us stay. By the time they checked her she was dilated to a 9, and they informed us that it was too late for an epidural. At this point Tara was more than a little upset, and had a look of death in her eyes that could have killed a small animal. I think the nurse who sent us home earlier that morning felt bad and was doing her best to make things better as they ran the bed down the hall to the delivery room. Knowing that Tara doesn't have much pain tolerance, I was worried that my normally mild-mannered and pleasant wife was going to turn into something you would see in a Freddy Krueger movie. I was surprised (and very impressed) when instead, she just took care of business. She took a few deep breaths and quietly said to herself "I can do this". 20 minutes later Easton was here and all was right with the world again. The last couple of days have been a complete whirlwind, but we are so very lucky and blessed to have three healthy kids. We can't wait for you all to meet him.

October Fun

Backyard Camping

OK, so we didn't really go camping, but the girls still wanted to put up the tent and pretned that we did.

Brooklyn's new "goshes"

When we went out to the Washington Coast a couple of weeks ago, Kennady and Brooklyn got some new galoshes and they were so excited to wear them, but we forgot to take them when we went to the beach. There is a little part of the Puget Sound that extends down behind our house so we decided to take them down and let them try them out. Brooklyn thought her pink polka-dot "goshes" were pretty cool.

Shilter Farm Pumpkin Patch

Kennady and Brooklyn were so excited to go pick out their pumpkins this year. There is a farm that is set up like a little fall carnival not too far away, so we took them down to let them play and find their pumpkins. They got to go on a hay ride behind a tractor, play on a big pyramid of hay bales, pet some farm animals, and walk through a hay maze. It was a lot of fun.

"Shredding" Pumpkins

Brooklyn had been asking for weeks when we were going to "shred" pumpkins. We weren't quite sure what she meant until she said, "You know, like the princess castle from last year".

The pumpkin on the left is Scott's, in case you couldn't tell. Kennady and Brooklyn were pretty excited about it too, though. By the way, if you ask Brooklyn what she wants to name her little brother, she always says, "Derek Jeter". Scott is so proud.

Halloween Costumes

This year Kennady is a Halloween Minnie Mouse, and Brooklyn is TinkerBell.

Brooklyn's pre-school Halloween Party

My Cute Wife

Tara is very mad at me for adding this picture, but fortunately for me I can move a lot faster than she can right now. Well, let's be honest, most anything can move faster than she can right now. This has not been an easy pregnancy by any means (I don't think Tara has slept for more than an hour or two at a time for the last five months) but I've got to give her credit, she never complains about it. We are so anxious for the baby to come, especially Kennady and Brooklyn. We were at the store a few days ago and Kennady was looking at all the baby toys and asking how much they were. She picked up one and asked how much it was, and we told her it was twelve dollars. She reached in her bag and started pulling out money. We didn't think anything of it until she started pulling out fives and tens, and asking if she had enough. We were were shocked that she had that much money with her, and asked where she got it. She told us that she got it out of her piggy bank, something that we have told her not to do. Not understanding, we started to get mad at her and tell her that she shouldn't have done that and she needed to put it back. She looked down, and with a little tear in her eye said, "but I just wanted to buy something nice for little brother". We felt so bad for getting mad, and ended up letting her buy it. She is so excited that she wants to spend her own money (that she is saving for our next Disneyland trip) to buy something for the baby. She is such a sweetheart, and is going to be such a good big sister.

Great Wolf Lodge

This past weekend I had a "golden" weekend where I actually had both Saturday and Sunday off. (It's kind of sad that a two-day weekend is considered "golden" but hey, I'm not complaining). Some friends had told us about this really cool hotel with a giant indoor water park attached to it. It is only about 30 minutes from our house, but it was still pretty fun to get away for a little while. I think Brooklyn was more excited to stay in a hotel than she was to swim at the water park. I think that girl would live at a hotel if she could. Inside the place looks like a giant log cabin with a big fireplace and log furniture and everything. Even the rooms had log furniture and bunk beds for the kids. At night they have a pajama story time in front of the fireplace before bedtime (read by a guy in a freaky-looking wolf outfit, interestingly enough). The girls had a blast and ask just about every day when we're going to go back to "that wolf place".

You would never guess that it was pouring rain outside

Just after story time

This is the guy who comes to scare your kids off to bed. Brooklyn wouldn't go near him.

Point Defiance Zoo

So we decided to take advantage of one of the last remaining days of good weather here and go to the Point Defiance Zoo. It's a really cool little zoo that is right on the coast of the Puget Sound. Being this close to the water they actually had a lot of sea life there. Kenna and Brooklyn thought the sharks were pretty cool, and Tara thought the Balooga whales had "cute" faces. After the zoo we went and had dinner at a little restaurant out on the pier. Tara and I have never been big seafood fans, but we're venturing out a little and have decided that clam chowder is pretty good. Who knows, maybe at the end of our three years here we will have tried something else.

Kenna & Brooklyn with the penguins

They thought the sharks were pretty cool

Brooklyn liked touching the starfish, but Kennady didn't want to have anything to do with them. (Tara is mad at me because this picture shows her pregnant belly, but I think it's cute)

This is about as normal of a pose as we can get Brooklyn to do. She is the main reason why I take as many pictures as I do. On average I have to take about 10 pictures to get just one where she has a normal smile. We love her anyway.