Salish Lodge

On our wedding night Jonathan and I stayed at one of my favorite places in the world, Salish Lodge. It is a beautiful resort that sits on top of Snoqualmie Falls. We told each other that no matter what, we wanted to try to go back there once a year. Well, Having babies and a single income hasn't made that exactly possible. :)

The cool thing is that every year Costco has a crazy deal where they give you a night stay, 2 spa treatments and breakfast for 2 for about 40% of the price. Don't you just love Costco? Anyway.. I saved up my piano lesson money and surprised Jona with a night away. My family graciously offered to watch Penny over night (Julie mainly watched her) and off we went.

It was such a gigantic blessing for us to get away by ourselves. My husband seriously deserves a medal with everything he had to put up with this last year. He is my best friend and there is no one I would rather spend time with.

Here are some pictures of the Lodge (I didn't take these :))

Half of the experience of Salish is eating breakfast in their beautiful restaurant that looks over the falls. It is un-stinking-believable. We left our camera at home so all we had was our iphone camera, which is why the pictures are pretty awful. Sorry.

At breakfast. Check out that view!

Warning: Lip Locking :)

It was really cold, but SO beautiful

My favorite...

WA- Christmas Day

Christmas day was the best ever. It was so incredible to have Scott and Sharon with us. It was also the first Christmas with my beautiful sister-in-law and of course our little Penny! God has blessed our family abundantly. These people are my closest friends.

My mom always does such an incredible job decorating. It is so much work and it always takes her forever but there is just something about the way she does it that communicates so much love to us kids. I hope she knows we'll still make her do this even when she's 80! :)

As cute as this picture is, I feel like Julie's outfit deserves an explanation :)

Every year we have competitions in different things and whoever wins gets a prize.

Christmas morning's competition was best PJs.

Believe it or not, Julie didn't win.

(left to right, Mom, Julie, Sharon)

Here is Steph's contribution to the competition. She won :)

I love this picture of Uncle Scotty & my Mom

Mom gave the girls matching socks :)

Steph gave Pen the most adorable puffy jacket!

She loved it...

Alot...

Even if it made her really top heavy :)

Once again, Penny was spoiled rotten

Uncle Scott & Aunt Sharon gave her the coolest book

Probably her coolest gift of all was a mini bounce house!!

More to come!

WA-Christmas Eve (New Year's Eve)

After our several Christmas celebrations in California we headed up to beautiful Washington to celebrate Christmas and New Years with my family.

I can honestly say that it was one of the sweetest times with my family in the last few years. We were all together and we were even joined by our sweet friends Scott and Sharon Frankfurt who have always been a part of the fam.

2010 was the year of some major trials and hurts both individually and as a family. God was so gracious to allow us to be together and to just experience such precious times of fellowship and laughter (and food, ha ha).

We celebrated Christmas Eve on New Year's Eve (I know, we are really confused on our dates :)) at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Its kinda been a tradition for us these last several years and this year was no exception. We were all pretty tired, especially Pen. But she had a good friend (Malia) and a spoon to hang out with.

Malia is the adorable daughter of our good friends Mark & Laurie Anne Ruhlman. We have known them for a long time and they have always been such kind friends to all of us. Malia is the sweetest, most laid back, best behaved little baby. My dad always says she needs to witness to Pen & get her saved. Its probably true! :)

Please ignore Malia's bruise and Penny's booger :)

Penny quickly grew tired of being witnessed to and entertained herself with a spoon for a little while. She seriously looked so funny but she just wouldn't let go of this spoon. She probably dropped 4 or 5 spoons of the dirty floor so by the end of dinner no one had their spoon.

"What? You would play with a spoon too if you were this bored"

"Look Mom! No hands!"

Our little genius :)

Penny also loves drinking out of anyone's and everyone's glass.

She can't get enough of it which is why her little shirt is all wet.

It's not drool I promise.

Here's a little break from the Penster.

My hot husband and my gorgeous sister, Stephanie...

One more spoon pic to finish it off! Isn't she a cutie!?

We were so exhausted from flying in earlier that morning that Jona, Pen and I all went to sleep before the ball dropped. We are getting SO old! :)

Next...

Christmas Day (New Year's Day)

Christmas Part 2

As is usual for us, Jona wasn't actually off on Christmas day so we had to adjust our schedule a little bit. We celebrated our Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve's Eve and our Christmas on Christmas Eve. Did I lose you? :)

After spending the night out in the living room we woke up with very sore backs and with a very tired baby (and mommy) after the party Pen decided to throw herself all night. We still were so excited to have our first little Christmas as a family of three.

We quickly realized we had made a new parent rookie mistake. We had bought Pen the coolest little kitchen and we were so excited to have her walk in to the living room to find it in front of the tree. I had Jona take her in the other room while I opened the box and realized we were supposed to ASSEMBLE it. Who would have thought?! Anyway we went on without it and Jona put it together really late that night. It took the poor guy 4 hours! But Christmas (real Christmas) morning was totally worth it to see how much she loved her little kitchen!

Going back little bit, after we opened our gifts that morning we went over to Jona's parent's house for the Johnson family Christmas. Every major holiday Phil (my father-in-law) makes his famous, homemade, Chicago style pizza. We had so much fun together and we were all spoiled like crazy. Penny got so many fun toys and adorable outfits. It was a blast.

Here are some pictures from the afternoon...

Ray (my adorable nephew) got an awesome little dump truck which

provided endless amounts of entertainment for the rest of the day :)

See, told you :)

Tired little Penny cuddling with "Hoss" (Grandpa)

We had so much fun!!

(Thanks to my sil Anne for these pictures!)

Christmas!

I am several posts behind and I'm just now posting this Christmas. We actually just came home yesterday from our last Christmas (we had 5 this year!) in Washington. I will post about our trip in another post but for now and here are a few pictures!

This is at our house. This years for the gifts I decided to steal an idea from one of my favorite movies, Sound of Music, and do brown paper packages tied up with strings...

The polka dotted darling on the couch isn't a Christmas decoration per say, but she is the cutest thing in the house, so I thought I would include her :)

This is such a typical California thing, warm clothes, fleece jacket, yet completely barefoot.

I blame her mom.

This is from our Christmas Eve. Our tradition is to sleep out "under the tree" but I have yet to sleep on any of these nights. Our first year I couldn't sleep because right before we were about call it a night I saw a spider on my pillow. Last year I was 9 months pregnant and wasn't sleeping regardless of where I was. This year I had a 10 month old who spent the majority of the night climbing on my head. I think she was excited ;)

We also had a Christmas night with David and Julie (my brother and sister in law) since we didn't want to have to pack each other's gifts up to Washington. I cooked a ham and we had a great time together. Penny absolutely loved the fun gifts they gave her. We love them!

Pen and her new puzzle from Uncle David and Aunt Julie

To Be Continued...

10/11 Months Old!

Our little girl is almost a year old! I haven't blogged in a while and I have some catching up to do. Our lives have completely changed in this last month and Penny has had a big part to play in that. She is walking! She started walking at about 9 1/2 months and now is full speed ahead. I love this stage, it is so much fun to watch her discover new things!

Penny was really sick for quite a while and is finally healthy. It is amazing how different she is when she is feeling well. She is a blast! She has such a funny personality and it seems like her number one goal is to make us laugh. Which we do, all the time!

She absolutely loves her Dada and we hide from him every night when he comes home until he finds us. When he picks her up and starts to tell me about his day she will physically turn his face toward her to make sure he's looking at her. Its pretty stinkin cute.

We have entered into a whole new realm of discipline with this little stinker. We went to a Christmas party where there was a little boy who had the most ear shattering scream when he tried to get his parents attention. Penny thought that was a great idea and that she should start using it on us. Not quite our favorite form of communication. She also learned the graceful art of arching her back when she doesn't get her way. Its been a bit more challenging to direct her little heart to obedience but God has been gracious to forgive us for our many shortcomings as new parents.

She finally has two little teeth and her hair is JUST beginning to come in. She's working on a really great little mullet:) She loves dancing and playing on her toy drum. Her two absolute favorite things are talking to her Oma (my mom) on the phone every morning and going over to her Hoss and Gramma's (Jona's mom & dad) house. She has been so blessed with some pretty awesome grandparents and aunts & uncles!

Here are some pictures of the last couple of months...

Those big brown eyes will be the death of us :)

Cuddling with Dada

Playing at Gramma's. It is apparently easier to

go over rather than around :)

Trying on the snowsuit

Dancing!

Penny in her robe :)

Life is so hard :)

Playing with Uncle Jed!

Probably my favorite picture of the month :)

Here is a short video of Penny and her cousin Ray...