Holiday Recap

We are back in Seattle after a fun filled holiday in St. Louis. It's been a while since I posted, and as most people, it's been a very busy holiday season.

For my birthday, Dan took me to Elliott's Oyster House on the Sound. The food was spectacular, as usual. Afterwards we went on a fabulous cruise around the sound onboard Argosy's Spirit of Seattle - the lead ship in the Christmas ship parade. We loved it! I hope we can take Kendra when she is a bit older. It really was an amazing cruise.

We headed for St. Louis on 12/21 to spend the holidays with friends and family. Because we booked our flight so late, we ended up on a 12 hour adventure through 3 different airports before we landed. It was a very long day, but Kendra was good as gold. She slept through a big chunk of the trip, so we really only had to work at keeping her entertained on the last flight and during the layovers.

As is par for the course, I immediately came down with a miserable cold. Dan went visiting to friends while me, and sometimes Kendra, stayed at dad's and napped.

Christmas Day dawned with a light dusting of snow, and icey roads. We gingerly made our way to my grandma's house, where we spent the day eating, opening gifts and laughing at Kendra's antics. The child is a ham and loved being the center of attention of a room full of adults.

The last few days of our trip were spent visiting friends, and meeting a new one. Noah Benjamin was born on 12/26 to some very proud parents. He looks beautifully healthy, and looks exactly like his daddy. Congrats to the new family!

We flew back to Seattle on 12/28 - making our flight by the skin of our teeth. Who knew the STL airport would be crowded beyond capacity at 5:30am? Actually, we would have missed it entirely if a very nice Skycap and TSA agent hadn't helped us out. Thanks guys, wherever you are.

Home again, and I'm recovering from round 2 of my cold. Kendra is happy as a clam to be back with her doggies. The laundry is done, the floors have been mopped and the house is a toyland disaster zone. Another few days and we'll clean it up. For now, it's fun!

Concession

Despite my hopes and fervent wishes, I can no longer deny the truth. Kendra's eyes are not blue. I thought I was safe when they were still blue at one year, but it was not to be.

I am destined to have a brown haired, brown eyed girl.

Not that there's anything wrong with brown eyes, but geeze - Dan got everything! I was hoping she'd at least get my blue eyes. Good thing I gave birth to her because she doesn't look much like me!

She is doing much better after her bout with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. In fact, she's been downright fun. Dan took her to the art walk in Pioneer Square last night, and I went to the gym. I had a whole hour of uninterrupted me time! I listened to a book on my iPod and enjoyed every moment.

First Official Childhood Disease

Kendra has been under the weather the past few days, nothing major, just a bit out of sorts. She's had a rash since Sunday, though, so today I took her to the doctor to have it looked at. The doc had no real idea about the rash, but while there I noticed several blisters on Kendra's feet. Dan had seen one on her hand last night, so I asked about them. Congratulations, we have Hand, Foot and Mouth disease.

It's a relatively harmless viral infection that is highly contagious in the under 10 set. One of Dan's co-worker's kids had it, so it's possible that's where she got it from. Since she is no longer running a fever she is no longer contagious so we can resume our normal activities. She will be uncomfortable while she has the blisters - especially the ones in her mouth. Lots of cuddles and Tylenol are the medicine of the day.

First Toddler Christmas

Here is our first toddler proof Christmas tree. It's outside on our deck so Kendra can't (easily) get to it. I miss having a tree in the house, but I don't think I'll miss yelling at Kendra every 45 seconds to stay away from the tree. She already managed to pull several ornaments off this one when our backs were turned.

Baby Girl is Slowly Becoming Not A Baby

I realized it's been a while since I posted a picture of our little one. As you can see, she is not nearly as little. She keeps growing and learning at an amazing pace.

The past few weeks she has suddenly discovered books. She loves to sit on our lap and have a book read to her. She has her favorites, one of which is "Are You My Mother?". She enjoys any book that has cats and dogs in it, actually. When she sees a picture of a cat, we hear "AT!" and she points to whichever of our cats is nearby. When we get to the the dog, it's "OOF OOF." (beginning consonate sounds are still proving to be a challenge :)

The kid absolutely adores dogs. She has a stuffed dog that she carries all over the place, and yesterday we got a floppy stuffed dog that I think is the new favorite. She carried it all over our friends house - even going into the bedroom to get it off the bed after I had put it up.

The Christmas Ship

Tonight we went to watch the first sailing of the season of the Argosy Christmas Ship. It's a 60 year tradition here in Seattle. There are two large ships that offer a dinner cruise around the Seattle area waterways. Every night they sail to a different location, with an entire parade of privately owned boats that are decked out in Christmas lights.

There is a published schedule of where the ship will stop, and people gather on the shore to watch them go by. The lead ship stops, and there is a featured group of carolers on board. Their singing is broadcast through loudspeakers to the shore. Tonight it was the Seattle Girl's Choir. They were very good and we enjoyed it tremendously.

Holiday Prep

We are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year. We're making turkey (one traditional, one smoked), stuffing, homemade rolls, pumpkin pie and fresh cranberries. Our guests (we're expecting 10-12) are each bringing the dish that makes Thanksgiving special to them.

We spent the weekend starting to prep the house - cleaning, decorating, finishing projects. There's nothing like the threat (promise?) of a house full of people to make you get off your duff and put away that pile of stuff you've been meaning to for months. Or finally get around to cleaning the ceiling fans and sprucing up the house with holiday decorations. Dan has been amazing - when I got home from church yesterday he and Kendra had made a huge dent in the cleaning portion, and between us we got almost everything done.

I've finished grocery shopping, except for the turkey. I'll take care of that tonight or tomorrow. We had a trial run last night - Dan made pizza and we had 4 people for dinner. It was very enjoyable.