A Kansas Christmas

Well, we're not in Kansas anymore! We had quite an adventure traveling to Kansas to spend Christmas at Robin's grandparent's house with his family. Looong story short, we landed in Denver and with the help of United Airlines we missed our connecting flight to Kansas. After a few hours, lots of stress, many phone calls, a tired baby, and exhausted parents (okay and some tears from me), we made it on a standby flight to Kansas by a complete miracle. We finally drove into Winfield, Kansas, around 3 in the morning! WHEW! Oh, and of course, our luggage didn't exactly make the standby flight and was lost until Christmas morning - that provided no small adventure of it's own. But we made it, our luggage made it, and we had a great time in Kansas for Christmas! Tyson did end up getting a cold from all that travel time, but we were so incredibly blessed to have our first Christmas as a family of three :)

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Opening his first present!

Chewing on the monkey that Robin's cousin, Andrea, made for him!
"Chuck" the dump truck! Tyson's present from mom and dad. He absolutely freaks out over this toy and loves it every time we get it out. Chuck talks and rolls and makes great noises - definite boy toy. Ty can't get enough of the wheels :)

So very excited about the Noah's Ark from Grammy and Poppadaddy (Tyson's great-grandparents)

Robin's cousin, Royce, showing Ty how to turn on the crazy dancing reindeer.

Another one of Tyson's obsessions: sweatshirt strings. He will sit on your lap and chew them for a really long time (the only way we can get him to hold still).

Best. Faces. EVER. That's Ty's face when he's being funny - and knows it.

The little Seahawk out on the porch watching the dogs with Grandmommy.

We went to see "The Farm" where Robin's great-grandparent's lived, and his grandpa was born, and where his mom, Kathleen played growing up. It is still a working farm, though the house itself is boarded up until it is torn down or restored some day. Pretty awesome! Here is Grandmommy with Ty in front of the house...lots of generations in this picture.

Inside the chicken coop.

The farmhouse.

Robin has been so excited for me to finally see the farm, and was quite excited for our little family to be there together.

Me and my bub (he's getting cold at this point, if you can't tell).

Picture perfect Kansas. This is at the farm looking out on the fields. Awfully flat, but very beautiful.

White Christmas...for a few minutes at least.

Whoever first "dreamed up" Snowflake Lane in downtown Bellevue is an absolute genius. The retail and restaurants must make a killing off of the Snowflake Lane traffic! I felt like I needed to "splurge" and buy a caramel apple cider at Starbucks (since there is one on every corner), and after waiting in line for 15 minutes (while we waited for the "show" to start) I finally ordered and paid for my drink, and was told it would be 10 - 15 minutes before it was ready! Wow. Apparently there is that much of a "rush" every night before Snowflake Lane starts...

On Thursday evening we decided to take Ty on a little adventure to see how he would do amidst the hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers at Bellevue Square, and the extremely loud marching band and drummers participating in the Christmas caroling at the mall. Turns out he wasn't even phased! Well, at least he didn't cry which was what I was fully expecting. He barely made a sound or an expression the entire time we were there. He just sat contentedly with Robin, staring at all the people, the dressed up reindeer and snowmen walking around, and the drummer boys standing on their boxes. The music started playing, and for a few minutes we had a White Christmas as the artificial snow started to swirl down from the rooftops. All in all, it was a perfect little outing, Tyson did great, and best of all (these days) it was free!

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My cute boys hanging out in the crowd.

Okay so I know Ty looks terrified in this picture, but this is actually the one time he showed any excitement the whole night and he went nuts flapping his arms and squealing. He's not crying, I promise...

Riding on daddy's shoulders, one of his favorite things!

Well Christmas week is finally upon us! We leave on Wednesday to fly to Kansas for 5 days to spend Christmas with Robin's family at his grandparent's house. I think this could possibly be the worst age to fly since Tyson wants to be down crawling ALL the time, and can't quite walk yet. Crawling in an airport sounds so germy and disgusting...UGH. Hopefully Benedryl will be our best friend and he'll sleep the whole first flight! Stay tuned for the crazy trip details!

"Christmas Vacation"

Russel "Rusty" Griswold: "Dad, didn't they invent christmas tree lots so people wouldn't have to drive all the way out to nowhere and waste a whole saturday?"
Clark: "They invented them Russ because people forgot how to have a fun old fashioned family christmas, and are satisfied with scrawny, dead, overpriced trees that have no special meaning."
Audrey: "My toes are numb."
Clark: "You see kids, this is what our four fathers did."
Audrey: "I can't feel my leg."
Clark: "They walked out into the woods, they picked out that special tree and they cut it down with their bare hands."
Audrey: "Mom, I can't feel my hips!"
Ellen: "Clark."
Clark: "Yes honey?"
Ellen: "Audrey's frozen from the waste down."
Clark: "Ah, it's all part of the experience honey."


I will leave the rest of the famously funny quotes for the movie viewers, since most of them are not exactly print appropriate :) Merry Christmas Vacation! This weekend we had our second annual viewing of the Christmas classic movie, "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation." Robin has been watching this movie every year for as long as it has been around. I, on the other hand, had never had the viewing pleasure until I married Robin and saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. It is a classic, yet somewhat crass, and somewhere in there is some decent humor (okay, GREAT humor, but it's balanced out by the off-handed comments throughout the movie :). I am pretty sure my parent's would hate the movie, so by no means do I put my reputation on the line to recommend it, but for the right audience, it provides and hour and a half of laughter. So, for the second year in a row, we all joined in and enjoyed the entertainment. And of course no good party can be had without dinner, a scrumptious roast, and fondu buffet! We were stuffed.

My friend Shannon Coy always brings these AWESOME Christmas hats which her mom has collected over the years. Needless to say, they provided endless entertainment for our very mature group. Enjoy the lasting impressions of the night!

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Joshua King, the handsome Santa cowboy

Brian Biege, and wife Liz who is obviously thrilled with the Santa dreads and rolled up napkin joint that Brian is sporting (our husbands are so mature :)

The happier couple...

My two pregnant friends! Mary Frances and Shannon, being the responsible drinking and smoking pregnant wives that they are (juuuuust kidding - kind of scary how well they pull it off for the photo though!)

The other happy couple: Robin and Jeff Coy (or, "Jeffy-Jeff-Coy-Ya'll," "Rackers," "Josh,"or any of the countless other terms of endearment Robin has given Jeff).

My girls - bringin sexy back in Santa hats!!! I love this picture :) Shannon, Me, Mary Frances, and Liz

Our very cool, very mature, and very good-looking husbands. Jeff, Brian, Robin, and Josh

Attempting to get our act together for a group picture...we look very dysfunctional at this point.

Ahhhh much better. Here's the whole gang!

And of course, the littlest elf himself made an appearance...though he was a little nervous about whatever was on his head.

There's my smiler :)

Stay tuned for more holiday happenings!!!

Ready, set, SUGAR!!!

This weekend we survived our traditional Jacobson family candy house extravaganza - complete with massive amounts of sugar (followed by highs and lows) and more amazing home-cooking from my mom. Not to be mistaken as "gingerbread houses," ours are ALWAYS made out of wafers glued together with frosting. Some do the traditional four walls plus a roof plus candy, others so unique designs, and still others don't care what it looks like as long as you can pile candy on every open space so as to have more to eat when the time comes! The Jacobson family has been doing this for as long as I can remember, and it is a tradition unlike any other in our family! We also celebrated birthdays of my nephew and niece who turned 3 and 4! Great time had by all in Anacortes, as always. Here is the documentation of the day of creativity and craziness...

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Ready, set, GO! Bowls of candy are ready, cardboard is wrapped with foil, frosting ("glue") is bagged and ready, and the plans are put into action!

Tina and Grant (new boyfriend, was crazy enough to come hang out with our family that day!) set out to make the nativity scene for their "house" this year.

Niece Melanie (10 yrs) was very excited about having PINK wafers this year.

Robin laying the "foundation" for his candy creation...stay tuned for the revealing.

The Schweens mid-way through construction! The majority of the construction time fell conveniently during Tyson's afternoon nap, so we were free to concentrate for a couple of hours.

Robin working meticulously on his creation - it is now dark outside you'll notice, and Tyson is up from his nap and hanging out in the corner between us in his exersaucer and we complete the finishing touches on our projects.

Grant and Tina with their finished nativity scene - complete with baby Jesus in the manger, and a kneeling camel. Impressive...

Tyler and Tyson playing on the floor.

Hubby and wife with their finished products! WHEW! Robin made Qwest field (an obvious choice), and I made my first ever two-story-plus-garage house (as opposed to the little square house I've made every other year).

My house! The basketball hoop above the garage is my favorite part, I must say :)

Qwest Field!

A few of the other creative endeavors done by various family members (all ages included :)

Riley turns 3 and Anna Marie turns 4 in December, so we celebrated their birthdays too!

Fabulous time had by all, much sugar consumed, and yet another successful year of candy-house making came to an end! This year we didn't have my brother Leif, or my brother-in-law Bobby's houses to compete with. They were otherwise engaged taking care of teething babies, etc, so Robin will have more competition for creativity next time :)

We have a busy couple of weeks coming up with two Christmas parties next weekend, and a wedding, party, and birthday party the next before we leave for Kansas on the 23rd! We will be there for 5 days with Robin's family staying at his grand parent's house. Stay tuned for more Christmastime adventures with Tyson...

Boys will be Boys

Happy Friday everyone! We are heading up to Anacortes tonight to participate in a long-standing family tradition: candy houses. Not to be confused with gingerbread houses, mind you. We will blog the drama when we get home (including photos, of course). Should be a great day of creativity, candy, sugar highs, sugar lows, and the inevitable melt-downs when the kids (ok, and adults too) are finally sugared out. Until then...here is a video to kick off your weekend. Tyson loves to make lots of "boy sounds" in various creative ways, and his latest discovery is the noise he can make using our leather couches.

Boys will be boys. 'Nuf said.

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We Give Thanks

Somehow Thanksgiving is already over, and tomorrow is the 1st of December! The month of November seemed to fly by, but luckily we have some fun photos to remember it by. Tyson and I drove to Anacortes on Tuesday night, Robin came on Wednesday, and we didn't head home until Friday. Needless to say (especially for those of you who have experienced my parent's house) it was a weekend of relaxing, lots of amazing food, my mom busy busy busy in the kitchen, and tons of people coming and going...even though it was just our immediate family. This year we had 19 people in our family gathered together to celebrate Thanksgiving! In a few weeks when Erika has baby Spencer, we will have 20! Quite amazing to think all of those people started with just my two parents.

We have had an interesting year with a new baby, thoughts of the future, and trying to figure out how to best handle the economic difficulties that our country is in, which has greatly affected Robin's career the last couple of years. But no matter how looming things sometimes seem, it was refreshing to sit back and really think about how incredibly blessed we are! We have a beautiful, healthy baby boy, and our entire family is in very good health. Those are things we so often (and never should) take for granted. It seems as though we have been on this adventure for quite some time now, wondering what's "next" and how God will reveal the next steps to take. Honestly, we are a bit weary of being in this wondering/changing/believing in God's faithfulness stage. But at the end of the day, even though we don't feel life has settled into what we anticipated, our marriage and our prayer life and our faith is growing and being strengthened because we are in such a place. God is so good, and we are very thankful this Thanksgiving, and we look forward to Him continuing to walk with us through this journey.

Here are some snapshots of our restful weekend - soaking up family...and quite a bit of food at the same time.

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Bath time at Nana and Papa's!

I absolutely love this face. Doesn't get any better than that.

Football with daddy...and really ready for a nap (hence the droopy eyes).

Turkey carving!

Family dinner, angle 1 (can't fit everyone in one shot anymore ;-)

Family dinner, angle 2!

Tyson and cousin Tyler (they're one week apart) sharing their toys so nicely.

Ty discovering the lego tower that his cousins worked on all afternoon.

The three T's! Tyler, Tyson, and Tevin. Looking like grumpier old men in this picture...so funny.

The absolute picture of the perfect Thanksgiving: dads, their sons, and football. My brother Leif, and son Tevin on the left, Robin and Ty in the middle, and my brother-in-law Bobby with son Tyler. Oh, and my dad, who technically is the reasons all those boys are around!

Yay for family time!