Pink Muppet in the Snow

12 31 2007

We took a walk yesterday and stopped to let Elsie have some snow time in her Pink Patagonia snow suit …

pink muppet

hop

sideways

pink and mom



Loot

12 31 2007

Here are some shots of elsie enjoying her christmas loot …

Chewing (favored activity) on her christmas bear from the Jost’s

yum a bear

Playing with her Elmo Table from Riley, Heather, Finley and Robb!

elmo

New duds from Grammie

new duds

Elsie wondering why Cricket has taken over her chair …

uh, is her name elsie?

Her new green juicy suit from Auntie Sandy and Uncle Rod!

green juicy suit!



First Christmas Extravaganza!

12 31 2007

Elsie’s first Christmas was a blast – we were lucky enough to have both families here to celebrate. Michael and Alison in from England, Chloe in from San Fran, and my parents down from Montana. On Christmas morning we were greeted by a dusting of snow – which continued throughout the day – perfect white Christmas. The Sladden’s are notoriously late so Elsie and I headed down to Josh and Amy’s ahead of the crew leaving mark behind to lightly push them out the door (they arrive only 35 minutes late – not bad for a sladden arrival!).

christmas delivery

santa's elf

Josh and Amy cooked up a yummy brunch of crepes, frittata  and lots of breakfast meat – YUM! They had set a beautiful table and even made a space for the bean to have her own christmas brunch – puffed wagon wheels!

table setting

brunch

elsie eating

Saffie greeted us in her Baby’s first Christmas Bib:

saffie christmas

After a yummy brunch we moved to the presents. We tried to scale back this year – pleading with my parents (who didn’t listen) … but still we ended up with piles of gifts

presentland

Mostly for the new babies…

uh is this scaling back?

Underneath these piles were two adorable chair for the girls … elsie started her warm up exercises to get ready to open the gifts.

stretching for opening

cousins

It was very hard, but rewarding work – although chewing and ripping paper was the most fun.

rrriiipp

Elsie was pooped and borrowed saffie’s swing for a nap!
pooped

Eventually we finished the marathon opening and headed back home to eat some more. Chloe and Mark cooked up some Braised short ribs (from our local cow we purchased) on a bed of polenta with cranberry sauce. It was great to have the two sladden’s manning the kitchen and serving up a delicious dinner.

dinner

Success I say! :)



Elsie Elf Yourself…

12 27 2007

too cute : http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1841218603



Hot tamales!

12 27 2007

Christmas always brings tamales to thunder lake circle as the Baros hold their annual party. This year, they took things up a notch by inviting Santa to the party.

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Santa had a list of all the neighborhood children (most of whom had been nice) and after he led a sing-along with all the kids at his feet, he entertained requests from each one.

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Here’s Jenna Baro telling Santa what she wants:

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and Elsie was much more tolerant of Santa this time around (see an earlier post for her first encounter with the man in Red)!

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Of course all the parents couldn’t get enough of the kids and Santa – it seems these days the paparazzi is a staple of any young kid’s life.

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Elsie enjoyed hanging out with dad and showing off her pink ribbon: spoons are fun!

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More chuckles

12 27 2007

Who can resist her chuckles!



Elsie’s Photo Shoot

12 27 2007

Calling all models! We took a few shots of Elsie for our New Year’s cards (to be sent out shortly) and had her try on her new Uggs (thanks Niko).

She is even grown up enough to wear a ribbon in her hair (okay, so we had to stick it on with Caro Syrup!)

Elsie and ElephantElsie Tututhe thinkerelsie and red ribbonchucks jr.



Duck lounger…

12 10 2007

We tried out the ducky bath this weekend – it was a hit!

duck loungin



Meeting Santa!

12 10 2007

We were up in Montana with my folks this weekend and attended the annual Santa brunch at the Yellowstone Country Club. Elsie was all dressed up ready for her big meeting with Ho Ho! (Finley showed us how to put cute little bows in our hair)

red bow

We wanted Finley and Elsie to have their photo’s together so we placed a sleeping finley on santa’s lap and then it was on to elsie… here is a cute progression of how the meeting went:

first meeting

first look

not so sure

Santa is a bit scary to a little bean!  Elsie was still a little traumatized even in mom and dad’s arms.
family



Star Wars

12 10 2007

We had quite a thanksgiving this year in Colorado – we were lucky to have my aunt sandy, uncle rod, grandma ruby, Kev, tyler, dylan, lauren and of course my parents. We had a wonderful dinner! We usually spend turkey weekend in Seattle with the crew and then we often brave black friday in downtown to watch the lighting of the christmas tree – this black friday we decided to do things a little differently. We had a star wars themed birthday celebration for Dylan and Lauren.

We decided it might be fun to make each person attending the party a star wars character – so we tapped into our star wars mind trust (Amy and Josh, but mostly Amy!) to come up with a list of character and a tag line for each person. Everyone got a shirt to wear for the day of activities … bowling, dinner at bennihana and then off to Josh and Amy’s for game night!

here are some shots of the crew:

Jawawicket

Birthday Cheer

boys

girls

sisters

more sisters

Partners

Boys

Huntingnogs!

Star Wars Crew!

Dylan said it was the best birthday ever! Thanks mom for staying up late to iron shirts even in our turkey coma!