2 reindeer and 1 curly-haired camel

Mom and I took Levi on an adventure to Swansons Nursery in Ballard to see their camel named Curley, accompanied by Blitzen and Dasher, the two reindeer!

Curly lives in Eastern Washington and visits the nursery for the holidays. He's 3 years old and incredibly friendly!

Despite the sighting of your not-so-everyday animals, Levi's highlight was definitely the big train!

He even managed to find a cozy chair near the train, allowing him a birds-eye, 'comfortable' view of the choo-choo!

Nature vs. Nurture

It seems that John and I are always having a 'nature vs nurture' conversation as we watch our little Levi grow up. The other day at the park, I witnessed what absolutely must be nature. Levi had spotted a handful of cars piled up in the sand pit and immediately scouted a clean area to relocate them to.

He started moving the cars and trucks 1-by-1 to their new home

Once he got them all lined up (perfectly in a row), he decided that their new home wouldn't do; something just wasn't right. He began relocation #2...

However, he wasn't quite satisfied, as he wanted them slightly higher on the incline

Finally by move #3, Levi was happy with their new home

Once the cars were in place, he grabbed the towel we had brought with us and gave the slides a solid pat down as to avoid a wet tooshie, since it had rained the night before. Before sliding down, he brought me the towel as to ensure it didn't end up in the dirt. Just like his Dada, everything has its place and everything must be tidy. In this case, nature definitely prevailed!

Hanky's human

I was taking a bit longer then normal to get ready for bed, and when I finally was ready to climb into my side, this is what I found....

I must admit, Hanky does seem quite human as if he's just choosing to wear a labradoodle suit each day....

Cooking decorating w/ the cuzzies!

MK, Hazel and Sadie came over tonight for pizza, bath and Christmas cooking decorating! What began w/ only a Ginger bread man and an Xmas tree cookie cutters...

Turned into a free for all....candy canes, blobs, and even a hot dog!

The girls and Levi LOVED it. Lesson learned...bath after decorating and not before!

Countdown to Christmas

We started the weekend by exchanging gifts w/ Gina our lovely nanny and she made Levi's day...year!

Levi w/ his very 1st train set...Choo Choo!

We met the cousins for a visit w/ Santa, which actually went much better then anticipated

Despite a few butterflies from Levi and Sadie, we managed to get a cuzzie shot (Levi refused a solo pic)

We headed for fro-yo afterwords and celebrated what was a relatively painless Santa visit!

We also had a quick visit from Dani and Chris and it didn't take long for little Levi to warm up

Chris and Levi enjoying a little 'scratch and sniff' holiday book

A special visit to Merced

The boys and I loaded up the car and headed to Auntie Nancy's in Merced. We spent all weekend relaxing at her house, decking it out w/ Christmas decor and playing in her HUGE garden. Lucky for us, GGMA and Mumsey were also in town!


Levi's finally at the age where he's remembering his affection for people, and it's now only taking a matter of minutes before he's glued to his favorite loved ones (Mumsey being one of them)

LHG was curious all weekend about the neighbors... so we did a lot of 'peekaboo'

He's also finally tall enough to ride his bike and is getting the hang of it

Auntie Nancy has a pool, so little Levi was in awe despite it being to cold to swim. He did do some lounging pool side in his Uggs!

Merced is a small town, and one of the many perks of small towns is forced down time, which I LOVE....

Mumsey 'the expert tree decorator' put in a few solid hours sprucing up Auntie's tree

We loved every minute of our visit w/ Auntie Nancy and feel so blessed to have her in our lives!

O Christmas Tree!

After returning from Mammoth Thanksgiving weekend, I got a bee in my bonnet to get our Xmas tree. It wasn't the usual U-CUT farm, but it was close to home, and we found our perfect tree!

I had quite the crew w/ me to help pick it out. Surprisingly it was down to the low 60's, so it almost felt like Winter time!

Levi approved of our 7-footer

But he took his time picking out his 3-footer for the play room

All in all, we were in and out in 30 min. It was the smoothest Christmas tree adventure I think I've ever participated in

The boys got the lights up immediately and by 7pm we had our trees shining brightly! Christmas at the 'Yellow Submarine' has arrived (final picture of trees to follow shortly).