Chihuly Gardens and Glass

Ben and I went out for an afternoon date on Saturday and had a lot of fun! We decided we needed to take advantage of our kid-free time and go somewhere that we wouldn't ever take the kids. We decided on Chihuly Gardens and Glass and it was amazing!! I couldn't stop taking pictures of all the beautiful glass art.

To make these ones, Chihuly stood on a ladder and blew them down to the floor:




This one was huge. I know it's kind of dark, but if you notice the person in the bottom left corner of the pic, you can get an idea of it's size.







There was a really cool room with tons of glass on the ceiling above us:

Weekly Recap: The beach and the Seahawks

We've been having some beautiful weather lately, so the kids and I went to the beach this week. They had lots of fun running around and throwing rocks.









Aria had a really hard time walking around on the rocks and she was NOT happy about having to just sit!













The other excitement from this week was the Seahawks game! They were down by 12 points with only four minutes left in the game, but they managed a comeback and won in overtime! There was a LOT of yelling and jumping around at our house on Sunday.



Ben might hate me for posting this picture of his bum, but I just love the look on Ellie's face. :)





Some other randomness from the week:





Ellie told me "Darth Vader is my dad and he's nice to me."


Also, this girl will NOT keep clothes on lately. I'm honestly surprised she was even wearing a shirt!

Weekly Recap resurrected

This week, we.....

 ....went swimming!

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....started our rocks and minerals unit in science.

.....went shopping at the toy store. Asher had a gift certificate burning a hole in his pocket.

.....took a field trip to the store to learn about budgeting. The boys had $80 (pretend) to spend and they had a list of things they had to "buy" and still stay under budget. They both did an awesome job!

....watched the Seahawks advance in the finals! Go hawks! 

Aria got really into it, clapping her hands and everything.

Happy birthday, Aria!

Our little Aria Joli turned one on December 10th. I can't believe it's been a whole year since I was snuggling this sweet new baby!



The time has just flown by.



Aria is such a sweet little girl. She has been the easiest, sweetest, snuggliest baby. She loves to give hugs and kisses, she loves music and dancing, she loves her brothers and sister, she loves pretty much any food, she loves baby dolls.

Aria says three words: "Ma" which means "more", "ah-ma" which means amen (at the end of a prayer), and "Da" is what she calls Ben.

She is a tiny little thing. At her one year checkup, she weighed in at only 16 lbs (3rd percentile) and was only 28 inches tall (17th percentile).

Here are a few pictures of presents and cake:









The balls were her favorite. She loves to carry them around and she is getting good at throwing them!























Aria is the only one of all the kids who just dug right in to their first birthday cake.
















Just chillin' and shovin' cake in my mouth...




Happy first birthday, baby girl!