Walking with Tia

Tia (my sister Anna) bought here new puppy, Gaby, with her over Christmas.  Neal loved playing with the little Gaby and Yawkey had a pretty fun time with here too.  There were the usual puppy issues with a brand new dog but overall she is a great little dog and of course adorable.

Tia and Neal had a great time going out together on a dog walk with both dogs.  Neal always says "Look mommy I'm bigger and bigger" when he gets to walk the dog all by himself.   So, a walk with Tia was at the top of his list of things to do.

Tia, Yawkey, a puppy and a walk (in his PJ's none the less) was a perfect afternoon activity.  It is so different living here where it is warm enough outside in December to walk around.

Cookies for Santa

This Christmas has been so much fun with Neal.  My (Laura's) family came to town for Christmas this year and once they arrived the festivities started.  One of the first night after they arrived we started what will be an annual Christmas tradition...Decorating cookies for Santa.

I actually bought pre-made cookies and a tub of icing.  I'm all about simplicity here at our house.  I died the icing different colors and then had a few sprinkles and M&M's for decorating.  It was a very simple cooking making process which everyone joined in on.

Neal liked sampling all the icing, candies and cookies more then actually decorating.  I think almost every cookie had a bite taken out of it before it made it to the plate.

Pre-sampled cookies or not I guess Santa didn't mind 'cause he ate all the cookies Neal left out for him. :) And Santa must of really enjoyed them since Neal woke up to find quite a spread of gifts under the tree.

 There is lots more to share about our first Christmas here...It has been full of good memories with Family

December?!? Are you sure?

This has been a very different winter for us.  Last week it was in the 70's here!  I'm not complaining but it is hard to remember that it is December when you walk outside in short sleeves and sandals.  

I have enjoyed the nice, unusually warm, December sun and we have taken advantage of the opportunity to be outside.

A few weeks ago we finally brought Yawkey back home with us from Seattle.   It has been so fun having the dog back. Neal plays with him all the time, which I am sure the dog does not always like.  But, our favorite thing to do is go walking through the neighborhood.

Neal loves it when I lever the stroller at home and he gets to walk the dog all by himself.  He does well most of the time, however last time when we were almost home Neal said he was so tired he could not walk any more.  So, he sat down on the grass and told me "I can't walk mommy, I need to rest right here".   So we sat on the grass for a few minutes and gained just enough energy to make it back home.

A Boy and his dog...they are going to have lots of fun together.  Nothing better then a "best friend"

Christmas Downtown

We got to go see the fun little Christmas Parade that took place in downtown Fuquay-Varina a few weekends ago.  Our church met early and lined the parad streets and led some Christmas Caroling which was a lot of fun.  It was great to start hearing people singing and to hear more and more voices join in as people began to sing with us.  Tyler was filming some of this event for the church so he was walking around with his big camera.  

After singing it was time for the parade to start.  We got a nice front row seat (though really it's a small town so everyone pretty much got a front row seat).  To say that Neal loved the parade would not even begin to describe how enamored he was with the whole thing.   His favorite things were the motorcycles, dance teams and marching bands.

He loved watching the marching bands come by with their instruments and was even more excited when he realized that they were playing "Jingle Bells"

It was 70 degrees outside that day so it didn't really feel like Christmas time but the floats, music and decorations all around us looked and sounded like Christmas.   It is strange whoever living here and being able to go outside in December in short sleeves and sandals and watching a parade in 70 degree weather is a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. 

Tree Trek 2012

We now live in the Christmas Tree capital of the world, and yet we had to buy our tree.   It was a bit sad this year not to be able to go out with the whole Gates family, tromping through the snow and cutting down a tree.  Here there is no place that you can go to  cut a tree down from the woods.  You either have to go to a Christmas Tree farm and buy one from there (which you at least can cut down yourself) or any supermarket or store around here sells them.   So this year we had a new "Gates Family Tree Trek" experience and went to Home Depot for our tree.

I do have to say that the tree is way nicer looking then the ones from the AK woods.  There are a few things I really do appreciate about the real trees here, even if you have to buy them.  I love that it actually fits in the tree stand without having to add lots of wood pieces just to hold it up (AK trees have very skinny trunks) and I also love that we can hang as many lights and ornaments as we want without it falling over.

We did have a fun time as a family getting it set it up and decorated it.  Neal loved unwrapping the ornaments and hanging them all up (he liked hanging them all together on about 5 different branches). When we were done I asked Neal "How do you like the Christmas Tree" and he responded "Where is the star mommy?"  We then showed him that our tree has a bitty angle for the top (Gates' Family tradition) and Neal loved watching daddy reach all the way up to place the bitty angle on the very top.

Since we didn't get a fun trek through the woods and snow we decided to have a special "Tree Trek" christmas doughnut on the way home from our tree purchasing day.

I don't think we will be getting our tree from Hope Depot each year, 'cause part of the fun is getting to cut it down yourself, but getting a holiday doughnut after the "Tree Trek" is a tradition I am sure we will keep :)

Rain doesn't stop us...

I guess maybe being a Washingtonian for most of my life means that rain doesn't stop me from venturing out. This was so true last week.  While in Seattle we decided to go to the downtown zoo the day before Thanksgiving.  It had been pouring outside the few days before and even that morning, but I was sure that the rain would clear up for us...I was wrong.

It was pouring outside and we had 12 of us all huddled under 3 umbrellas trying to stay dry as we walked around the zoo.   Needless to say we only made it to the first exhibit, the penguins (which the kids got to feed), before we had to regroup and make new plans.

We headed into the one indoor play area that the zoo had and while the kids played we came up with a plan B.

We packed up and headed to the Seattle Science Center, an all indoor, interactive kids paradise.   First we stopped for lunch and the kids got food at the coolest food court ever.  Neal and his cousins all got sandwiches made in cool animal shapes.  I think Amie and I were more excited about their sandwiches, but it gave me some good ideas for fun lunches at home.

Then the rest of the day was spend at the science center looking at dinosaurs  butterflies, and all sorts of other exhibits.

So maybe my Washingtonian blood is going away since the rain did eventually force me inside.  But no matter what we did we had a fun day with my family and we have lots of fun memories and laughs about the whole day, besides eventually the rain did go away and the afternoon cleared up a little.

Thanksgiving

It has been about 10 years since I last spend Thanksgiving with my family, so this year was really special to be back home.  Tyler, Neal and I all got to stay in Seattle after Anna's wedding and had a wonderful time relaxing and celebrating Thanksgiving together.

The festivities began early on Thursday with the making of gingerbread houses (or in this case Graham Cracker houses).  The kids loved decorating them, Neal like eating the candy mostly.  Thankfully Grandma was right at the table with everyone otherwise I'm not sure any candy would have made it on the houses.

For every piece of candy that actually made it onto Neal's house there were at least 3 that made it into his mouth.  This resulted in a busy/hyper rest of the morning, but what would gingerbread house making be without a little candy tasting.

I didn't get any pictures of the amazing meal we had, but as you can guess it had all the wonderful traditional foods like: turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, and pie...lots of pie.  We tried a new pumpkin pie recipe this year and it is a keeper (it makes a creamy pumpkin pie, almost cheesecake like).

We felt so fortunate to be able to spend the week with family.  It is always nice to go back home.