Advent Calendar

Yay for Christmas! We FINALLY finished the amazing advent calendar. I took six weeks and lots of work, but it's beautiful and finished. This year it will be for Brad and I and we will fill it with chocolate and maybe we'll have little toys for Charlotte next year.   

We walked around Snohomish this afternoon to get the Christmas spirit. I love walking around downtown and seeing the shops.

Happy Birthday Brad!

Today Brad is a quarter of a century old! We celebrated with pizza, presents, cake and lot's Christmas decorating. Brad reminded us that his birthday was conveniently on Black Friday so that we could go out early and get him lots of presents.
 
 I went all out for the birthday cake with some great pinterest ideas (here and here). The cake takes forever, but tastes amazing and trees were a great Northwest touch:) We will all be in chocolate comas tonight.

Dress up

Charlotte had a great time today with her new BFF Aliah. She played dress-up and looked like a rockstar. Here is the video of her strutting around like a big girl.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Gerhardts! We're enjoying good food and family and hope you are too! 

Rain

Rain, rain go away. It has been raining like crazy for the past couple of days. Not like little Seattle drizzle, but downpour. There is a huge puddle next to the playground. We have been missing going for walks on the trail, but we now officially have all our Christmas decorations up and it feels nice and cozy.

Uncle Andrew comes to town

Uncle Andrew came to visit this weekend for an early Thanksgiving trip. It was great to have him here as our first official house guest. We drove around the city and ate at some of the best local fast food places. We tried to go to the coast so that he could compare it to Hawaii, but it was super rainy and cold and the hike to the beach was much longer than we thought, so Charlotte, the voice of reason (ok, she screamed) decided that we should turn back. It was pretty even though it was wet and freezing. 

Eggnog Party

We had our annual eggnog party this weekend. We had a bit of a low turnout, but it was fun. We made eggnog cheesecake and had vanilla cinnamon eggnog, which was delicious.

Charlotte had a great time at the party and learned a new trick. Check it out here. She loves an audience.

Locky Locks

 We went on a late afternoon trip to the Ballard locks on Monday. We learned that we can't try to make plans without considering baby girl's nap times, so our trip to the Seattle library and downtown didn't happen. I'm glad we went to the locks, although the lighting was pretty bad for pictures. The sun goes down at 4 here now, so we were really cutting it close. It was amazing how much water those dams hold back. The first section was empty, so we could see all the way down to the bottom as we walked across the first narrow bridge. The ones with water weren't so bad, but it took me a little while to get across the first bridge. Charlotte loved it and made friends with a bunch Asian girls who LOVED her. She makes friends anywhere she goes.

Charlotte and Brad are looking for fish in the fish ladder (forthe fish to pass the dams). It looked like a sort of aquarium. There was a glass wall underground to see into the water, but we were definitely not there in the right season. No fish. 

Crafty

We have been working on more Christmas crafts this weekend and finished up this ginkgo leaf Christmas quilt today. We are SO excited for Christmas and can hardly keep from putting the decorations up. We've decided to wait until after Thanksgiving though, so we have a few more weeks. We'll just have to spend all our time until then making more decorations to fill the house. It's going to be a Christmas wonderland.

Russian

Charlotte has just been doing a little light reading this afternoon. 

A new playground

 We went a little further on our usual walk along the Burke-Gilman trail today and found an exciting new park. It had a maze fortress with windows that Charlotte loved walking around. We saw a sundial, mushrooms, a swing, and the shining sun. Charlotte didn't want to risk losing me behind the stroller, so she kept her eyes on me most of the time. Also, she has figured out how to climb onto our trunk which was put there to prevent her from getting to the flower pots. Our plans have been foiled by a ten month old! We're certainly in for a treat over the next little while...she's just too good. 

Diets are hard

I saw this on pinterest and I totally sympathized:) Brad and I decided that it's time to lose weight after our summer of comfort and leisure. We're just too fat and happy. Anyone who has seen Brad should realize that fat is a completely relative term. To each his own. Anyway, we decided that since I majored in dietetics we should be healthier. We need to eat more fruits and vegetables and cut out SOME junk food. Maybe just not bake something delicious and filled with calories every night of our lives. I filled our Halloween candy bowl with the fruits and vegetables we just bought to really  get us motivated:) I'll let you know how it goes...

Christmas is coming. The geese are getting fat.

Halloween is over so now it's time to get started on some Christmas crafts. We didn't have stockings yet, so I made these on Saturday using my great Joann's coupon. I'm so excited for Christmas! (Thanksgiving too:)

This is the picture of Charlotte trying to pull all the stockings onto the ground. So cute. So naughty.