January Catch Up

  This month we mostly stayed close to home, here are some of our moments:

Night walks around the neighborhood:

Basketball fever:

 Benny being Benny:

And a few other moments:

You have to click to enlarge this and read it.  Too funny! At least Nate is giving to charity! Time for us to up our retirement account contributions. ;)

Riley's first time on the chairlift!

In the last few years, January has become a time of slowing down, focusing on family, and being thankful. The other night I was tucking Ben in and as we were saying our prayers, he stopped and waved to the ceiling.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm waving to those guys" and giggled. I said "What guys Ben?" and he answered "Jesus, God, and Badappa up in heaven". That's our sweet Benjamin Subramaniam, who shares his grandfather's middle name.  We love you Badappa and we remember you always, and especially today on your birthday. 

Tubing!

We cheered on our Seahawks (exciting game, bummer ending) and then drove to the mountain to go tubing.  I love that we can get to snow in just 40 minutes. Ben only went down with me a couple times, giggling the whole way, but then decided it was too scary so we made snow angels and threw snowballs instead. :)

Seahawks donuts at church.

Sleepy on the way to the mountain.

Happy New Year!

We met some friends for jumping during the day on New Year's Eve and then headed down to Gig Harbor to spend the night celebrating with the Ludlows, a fun tradition.  Happy New Year everyone!

Ri and Olivia...boys somewhere in the background bouncing!

Ben and Cameron

Matt, Clint and Nate

Grace and Riley

Family Visit & Merry Christmas

Our annual winter visit from Badamma, Auntie Raji, and Uncle Josh delivered big on fun and family time! We love you guys!

Making cookies for Santa

Note Mommy and Daddy on the tree too - represented with the angel and Belf our elf :)

Iyer five ready for Christmas Eve Mass

What a blessing to have our family here.

Our new pajamas on Christmas Eve tradition.  Riley picked out all the pj's for the adults and said the animal print was the most perfect pair ever for Badamma! :)
Ken, Meg, Mesh, Riley, Radha
Ben, Nate, Josh, Raji

3 Iyer beauties

Belf's note on Christmas Eve morning, he headed back home to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve night.

Nate following along to the songs at church 

Skating on Christmas day.

Salish Lodge brunch on the 26th...yeah you see me wrangling Ben, he didn't really care to sit at the fancy brunch.

We are leaving diapers behind in 2012!!  Woot woot! We dedicated the break from school to potty training Ben.  He's had a few days without accidents and there is no turning back now! Our kids are so close in age that we've been changing diapers for 6 1/2 years straight so this is truly the end of an era, but a happy transition to life with three big kids! I really thought I might cry like I did when we took the crib down, but I'm good with this. :)

School Break!

The kids and I have been out of school/work since Tuesday and we are enjoying our time off, mostly staying home and relaxing but also getting out and about for some fun.  Badamma, Auntie Raji, and Uncle Josh will be joining us tomorrow...we can't wait!

On Monday I was scheduled to volunteer in Riley's class but her school was closed due to a power outage so we had a fun girls day - mani/pedis at 9AM, relaxing at a bookstore, Christmas shopping, and meeting up with our friends Isabella and her mom for lunch!

Lots of fort building!

 We celebrated Christmas with our dear Peps friends, the mom's group that has been meeting since Nate was just 4 months old.  There are too many kids to meet at a house so we now celebrate at the bounce house, though we did end up inviting over all that could make it for pizza afterwards to keep the party going!

Christmas ships on the Kirkland waterfront...I am one lucky mama.