Day 344

Today I was very fortunate to have not one date, but I got two dates with two of my favorite guys. My first date was with Andy to see the Nutcracker. The Pacific Northwest Ballet does a couple of shows of the Nutcracker for schools at discounted prices and Andy's preschool is one of those schools that is able to participate. We had a good time just the two of us.
This evening's date, my husband and I along with his brother and wife went out for a double date to see the Seattle Symphony. We went to see Holiday Pops with Cirque de la Symphonie where the symphony is accompanied by aerial artists, jugglers and dancers. It was such a fun evening and I'm a huge fan of Cirque du Soleil so it was a nice combination of the symphony with a little bit of cirque thrown in.

Day 343

Best chocolate caramels ever! Too bad they are only a seasonal item at Trader Joe's. I'm thinking I'm gonna need to purchase a few extra.

Day 342

I wonder how many pictures my little budding artist will be taking of the Christmas tree this year. This one was taken with my iPhone and I thought it was kinda cool.

Day 341

Brrrrr!!!!!!!!! This is the temperature outside at noon when I dropped Andy off at preschool. The sun is out, so the temperature is a bit chilly, but yeah for natural Vitamin D!

Day 340

The tree has been unwrapped, lit up and decorated with the help of a couple of excited little boys. I'm wondering how long it will take for a certain two year old to undecorate the tree.

Day 339

This year we are having an actual live tree for Christmas because we aren't traveling during the holiday season. Mike found out through a coworker that Costco was selling trees this weekend for a really good price.
You gotta love how Costco sells just about anything. We went inside to pick up a few items and purchased our tree. Right across the street from the warehouse at the corporate office are two large truck trailers filled with trees wrapped up ready to be picked up and taken home. I had quite the time people watching while Mike took our ticket and receipt to pick up our tree and attach it to the top of our SUV. It must be a requirement of those who drive minivans to shove the tree inside the vehicle between the rows of seats all the way to the front. It was just funny watching several minivans of families doing this.

Day 338

My funny two year old has been broadening his vocabulary of late and his new favorite word is hand. He will put his hands in front of his face and say, "hand, hand, hand." I happen to have my camera in my hands snapping pictures of the boys playing when Mr. Hands came out.

Day 337

Every year, Crossroads Bible Church hosts a Ladies Christmas Dinner for an opportunity to bring friends and family who may not know the true reason we celebrate Christmas. My mother-in-law and I have hosted a table for a few years and this year had a little hitch. We still hosted a table, but my mother-in-law ended up doing the bulk of the work due to my ill behaved children.

Our church is very blessed to have kitchen facilities and a wonderful lady who has a fantastic team that made our very delicious dinner. Our theme was blue, white, silver with snowflakes and the evenings gift was a ceramic loaf pan filled with chocolate topped shortbread cookies. After our meal, we were entertained by The Three Wisemen and one of the wisemen is our very own worship leader, Timothy James Meaney.
It was a wonderful evening of seeing various tables decorated, seeing friends I hadn't seen in awhile and meeting new people as well. The evening is usually one of the first parties of the season and I'm glad I get to be a part of it.

Day 336

After the wettest November in several years, the clouds have parted and the sun has come to brighten out lives again. It's chilly, but it's nice to have a bit of natural Vitamin D instead of the pill form.

Day 335

How cool are these beads? They are mood beads that change with the temperature of your body. The bin above my hand is what they look like room temperature and the ones in my hand have been altered by my internal heater I have growing. I was out doing a little jewelry shopping at a local craft store and the sales gal showed me these beads otherwise I would have just breezed over them.