Happy New Years!

We celebrated New Year's Eve at home with the family instead of braving the crowds.  We had a great time with a special dinner (salmon en croute), then a fire pit, and several rounds of charades.  Some of us made it to midnight, others (Steve and my dad) didn't make it that far so we celebrated New Year's central time with them!  Cannon, London, Grammie and I watched the ball drop (delayed for us West Coasters) before turning in for the night.

Happy 2013!

More Christmas crackers!

Emmy and her goofy hats - we thought she looked like a shark.

 

Cannon doing charades

Getting ready to ring in the New Year (central time).

Dad was really into it, wasn't he?

I believe my mom is singing Auld Lang Syne and Emmy is ringing the elephant bell.

Yes, he really is getting that tall!

First family photo of 2013

Toasting the New Year.

Build a Bear

If you know anything about London and Emmy, it's that they love, seriously LOVE, stuffed animals so when I saw a Build a Bear store in the mall a couple of weeks ago I realized the best gift for the two of them.  When we left the States three years ago, Emmy was too young for Build a Bear and London wasn't into stuffed animals.  But now, well now it is perfect for them!  So my sister bought them a gift certificate for Christmas and today we went to the store.

It didn't take them long to make their selections: London chose an Amur leopard and Emmy chose a German Shepherd.

Waiting to stuff them.

Grammie shopping for accessories: boxers or briefs?

Emmy putting love into her dog

Inserting the heart

Giving them a bath.

Thanks Aunty Nicole and Uncle Brian for their first Build a Bears!

Art Projects

This summer when we were in Hilton Head, my dad worked on a painting with both London and Emmy.  They were very intent and patient about their respective paintings and came up with masterpieces.  They had so much fun working with him, they've both been planning their subject for his trip here this winter.  Both of them chose the same subject matter, Toothless from "How to Train Your Dragon" (do you notice the trend?)

Giving lessons to Emmy...

Emmy and her finished picture (actually, almost finished, I think she fixed the eye).

London and his finished painting.

King Tut

As part of Grammie and Grandpa's Christmas presents, we gave them tickets to see the King Tut exhibit in Seattle.  This is the last city in its US city tour before it heads out to other lands.  Unfortunately, Thursday, the day I had made reservations, Grammie became ill so the kids, Steve and I took my dad. 

It was an amazing exhibit of real artifacts from Tutankhamen's time.  Unbelievable that the articles were about 3500 years old!!!  And some of the craftsmanship on them was just beautiful.  Did you know that the Egyptians removed the liver, intestines, lungs and stomach from the body and put them in canopic jars for preservation?  Despite their advanced knowledge of the human body, they gave no credit to the brain and threw that away!  The canopic jars were insanely detailed and beautiful.  Unfortunately, I have no photos because you weren't allowed cameras in the exhibit.

After touring the exhibit.

The Space Needle at dusk.

Christmas

Welcome Christmas Day!

We must have all been very good this year, because we had a lot of wonderful presents!

Cannon opening his erector set

Emmy and London with their much anticipated Toothless stuffed animals!

Mick getting in on the action.

Grammie and Grandpa

Grandpa and his new best friend.

Mick figured out this present thing pretty fast.  He's helping Emmy unwrap his present.

A new collar!

Stevie's gift...a replacement dancing water bowl!

 And what do you know?  Right when we started opening presents, the snow started falling.  Of course it stopped soon after we were done with presents but it was enough for a temporary white Christmas!

The boys playing their new air hockey table!  Thanks Grammie and Grandpa!

After presents were open we spent most of the day hanging out, playing, walking the dog, eating and preparing the evening meal.

Emmy all dressed up for Christmas dinner!

My beautiful girl

Sitting down to dinner

An English tradition - pulling Christmas "crackers".  A mini firecracker with a little present and a goofy paper hat inside!

See how nice we all look in our goofy paper hats?

Christmas Eve

Just in the nick of time, Grammie and Grandpa arrived last night to be with us for Christmas.  The airport was a mess with traffic - I guess everyone was picking up their last minute visitors - but alas Cannon and I found them.  Cannon has grown so much since my dad last saw him during the summer that he walked right past Cannon!

So Grammie and Grandpa's first day here was also Christmas Eve.  We spent the day letting them rest, doing last minute shopping, and having a nice walk in the park.  That evening we made cookies for Santa and enjoyed a yummy clam chowder created by Stevie.

Baking cookies

We made Cannon and London give us a Christmas concert.  London played "Jingle Bells" and Cannon played "Carol the Bells" and "Joybells".

Decorating Santa's cookies.

 Not to forget the reindeer, London and Emmy spread some reindeer feed.

After the reindeer were fed, we all settled into the Clayton, now Coats, family tradition - a reading of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  My dad has always read these stories since I was a little girl.  This year he had some help from Emmy who surprised us all and read almost the whole "Twas the Night" with very little help.

Cannon and Grammie all tucked in and ready for the stories.

Playing with my new camera's settings!

 After the stories, and an opening of the first present (PJ's for the little ones), we set out Santa's cookies and then tucked everyone in bed so Santa could do his thing...

Modeling the new PJs (bottoms only!)

Carefully selecting Santa's cookies.