Friday night, Dec. 5th, we met some friends at the Redmond Town Center for their tree lighting celebrations. Well after being confused by the website, we realized we had missed the tree lighting, and decided to still head down to ride the train. There were a bunch a booths set up for promotional purposes and kids activities. We got to see the firetruck up close.

The tree in the center was huge and beautiful. We were able to get a family picture, taken by someone other than us.

I’m getting sad, because my warmest coat is not going to fit too much longer. Luckily, it has loops and hooks, so I just hook the top few hooks and let my belly poke out the bottom. This just creates a problem of a cold belly.

After freezing our butts off, and realizing the line for the train was way longer than we wanted to wait for, we headed into one of the Microsoft buildings for some hot chocolate. The kids ran and played, burning off their sugar, while the dad’s got a game of fooseball in. That’s right. This was one of the gaming buildings, and I think there were more games set up (full on screens, projectors, gaming race car seats, etc.) and available than cubicles.

I have to say, though, our child is pretty dang cute. Even bundled up.

Last week, Dec. 3, we attended the KidsQuest Children’s Museum. We were able to go celebrate a birthday for a friend. Jameson loved it. There was a large train table set up for hours of fun in the corner. He has recently become enthralled with trains.

The water works area was pretty sweet. If you pushed the buttons, the water would spray and hit the metal pipes to play music. The kids could also take the balls to the top of the waterfall to watch them float to the bottom. Jameson opted to just chuck them to the top rather than walk back and forth. Jameson ended up wet to his elbow, but he had a good time.

He was also able to find “the drums.” This was not so fun for me to listen to, but as you can tell, he was so excited.

We also passed Santa Clause on the way in. He was sitting in his chair with no one around. This is the first year I’ve brought up the idea of Santa to Jameson. Let’s face it, his first year I was not standing in line for a 3 week old. Last year he still could have cared less. So were going with it this year. Well Santa did not even have the people there to take pictures. I felt kind of bad for him. He looked lonely. I told Jameson about him and asked if he wanted to go see him. With a firm, “No!” we stayed behind the fence. We walked past him multiple times, and each time I tried to warm him up to the idea of sitting on Santa’s lap. By the time we were ready to go, the only way I was going to get him close was by telling him Santa had suckers. With this bit of information, I got Jameson to stand by Santa, and tell him he wants a bike. There was no lap sitting or pictures, though. I didn’t feel bad taking lots of time, because there was no one around waiting. Maybe before Santa comes we will actually make it on his lap with a picture.

Monday we were at the park, enjoying the sun. That’s right, the sun! I’ve actually had a shadow most of the week. You forget that you really do enjoy seeing your shadow once in a while. So we headed to the park in the nice weather. Our lap at the park goes something like this…

Run down to the water and splash in all the puddles on the way, find and feed the ducks, cross the bridge and check out the water, take a walk out to the end of the dock, head up to the playground and check out the slides. Once we completed our lap, we were playing on the slides. I put snowpants on Jameson this time, because the slides are usually wet and then he gets soaked. We always end up leaving the park, because Jameson is soaked. Well the slides were mostly dry, so the pants and boots were probably a little overboard this time, but oh well. He flew down the slides and loved every minute of it. He even showed up a 4 year old who was scared to go down by himself. While we were playing, a cop showed up on his motorcyle. Pretty sure you’re not suppose to drive on those paths, but oh well. I guess he has authority.

Then a little bit later, more motorcylce cops, unmarked cars, and marked police cars showed up. Jameson was pointing and making police siren noises. After they all parked, one cop walked over to us. Kind of jokingly (or maybe not) I said maybe it was time for us to go. The cop got out a sticker for Jameson, and told him he left the motorcycle on so Jameson could see the lights. He explained they were all there for a photo shoot. It was all very exciting.

 

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take pictures of them. I mean they were taking pictures of themselves, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to, also. So I snuck a few.  Go figure it was the one time I don’t take my camera with me, and I needed it. All I got was phone pictures.

After getting pajamas on the other night, Kevin came down with Jameson telling him to show me something. They had spent a long time getting pajamas on, so I was trying to figure out what was up. He wasn’t doing it as well in the video, but you can still see his funny faces.

I just love that he cracks himself up, too!

Sunday morning Jameson woke up earlier than normal. I got up with him, got him his cereal, turned on some shows, and fell asleep on the couch. I can only get about 4 hours a night before I wake up tossing and turning. I’m sure Kevin loves it. Well, when Kevin came down this is what he found.

 

Let me describe these pictures for you. That is “The Jungle Book” on the t.v., a mess all over the floor, pizza in his hand, and a pizza box on his table.

Yes, my child got the pizza from the previous night out of the fridge, and chowed down all morning. He got all his toys out, and stood as close as he could to the monkeys on tv. Yes, Mother of the Year right here. But hey, Father of the Year was upstairs catching up on well deserved sleep after a busy week. So what do you do? The pizza did have pineapple on it, so I guess he did get some fruit for breakfast. Right? I love this child.

We spent Thanksgiving dinner with some members of our ward. They invited us over along with another family. None of us had family close, so we all got together. Surprisingly, my rolls raised quite well, even though it was raining. I think it helped I was making cookies at the same time and put the bowl of dough near the oven. Jameson discovered Geotracks at their house, and is now hooked on trains. Luckily, I had bought him a small set for his birthday, but we had some other gifts, so I decided to save it for Christmas. Maybe I’ll pick up some more pieces since it’s being saved for Christmas.

Friday night, we headed to down to Snowflake Lane. We were able to find a parking spot just in time. As we were looking for that nice parking spot, we spotted another car being driven by an idiot. The parking spaces are rather narrow, and two SUVs were parked on each of their lines, leaving space between the cars, but not enough for a car to park. Well this person thought they could park there. They got their car in the spot, but that left no room to open the doors to get out. We laughed as they tried to manuever their car, and then held up traffic trying to get out of his tight spot. Just dumb! Anyway, we made it out to the street in front of the mall in time to see the small parade line up.

There were guys on stilts, an old firetruck, a snow princess, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus!

         

Jameson was so excited. He was shaking, I think from excitement, not because it was freezeing. He even withstood the loud noise, because he wanted to see. He kept asking to touch the horses that were pulling Santa’s sleigh. There was a light show on the buildings, and Christmas music playing. There was even snow falling, and by snow I mean paper shreds being blown off the roofs of the buildings.

   

Once Santa passed, we headed to the area in front of Macy’s. There were “Toy Drummer’s” playing along with the music. Jameson loved watching “The Drums!”

   

We ended up being on the sidelines of where Santa was to make his grand entrance into the mall.This is the first year I have tried to tell Jameson about Santa. We’re starting to watch Christmas movies, and I’ve pointed out Santa and reindeer. He was so excited to see Santa and all the other characters (even though he has no idea what Santa really means).

     

   

We went in the mall to do some window shopping until we realized it was still Black Friday. We stayed long enough to get warm and then headed home. Luckily, the little drummer boys and snowfall every night so we’ll have to check it out again. I’m still working on getting Jameson familiar enough with Santa that he will sit on his lap.