Fixing the Chimney

We have been having a problem with our closet smelling smokey when we have a fire in the fireplace or even sometimes when we'd get a lot of rain. We had someone come out to take a look at it and when they opened up the chimney that runs through our closet, they discovered...

...a bad joint in the liner of the chimney.

You can see the hole where the joint is. After looking at it from the roof, they thought they would have to take out the whole liner, replace it and part of the chimney.

After taking out part of the liner, they realized that the rest of it can be left in, and they will just put a metal liner inside of the original ceramic one.

They are replacing the chimney on the roof.

Christmas 2011 - Part 2

Saben got a camera for Christmas, so I took a picture of him taking a picture.

Annika playing with her "Leapster" game player.

Seth's 'Hot Wheels" garage.

Saben quickly put together his new "Lego" items.

Annika showing off being able to stand on her head (with help from the sofa).

Playing with new toys.

Saben and Todd playing his new "Star Wars" version of the"'Operation" game, with Seth looking on.

Seth and Saben playing with "Hot Wheel" cars and garage.

Annika and Papa drawing on her new white board.

Christmas 2011 - Part 1

This year we had our family Christmas on Dec. 26th. The kids are waiting to open the gifts in their stockings, before we have our lunch.

Seth is concentrating on opening one of his gifts.

Lunch simmering on the stove.

Trying to get the ribbon off this package, it's harder than it looks.

Annika is patiently waiting her turn to open another present.

Seth got a game with a shark to gobble up other fish, or sometimes toes...

...or noses of the unwary! Notice Annika laying on the top of the back of the sofa! I thought it was so funny that she did that!

Kyle decorated his hat with discarded ribbons and bows.

Christmas Time in Seattle

We spent Friday, Dec. 23rd, roaming downtown Seattle. We started at Pike Place Market, I love the decorated pigs pretending to be reindeer!

Lots of yummy crabs at the fish counter!

Other yummy seafood, notice the sign next to the live lobsters!

Dried flower bouquets instead of the fresh flower ones they sell in the summer.

Choosing the seafood for our annual Christmas dinner of ciopinno.

Ken even got to reach in and grab the mussels himself.

After stashing our seafood in the cooler we brought with us, we headed to the gingerbread house display. There was a huge line to get into the roped off area, but if you didn't want to wait in line, you could walk by the houses on the other side of the roped area, which worked for us. Instead of being right next to the displays we had to stand 5 feet away, which was worth it, to save standing in line for an hour! This was our favorite one, they were all train stations from around the world.

This was a train station modeled after the one in Quebec, Canada.

Next, we rode the monorail over to Seattle Center to see the tree of big lighted balls next to the Space Needle.

Close-up next to the tree.

The tree and the Space Needle.

There is also a tree on the top of the Space Needle.

MOPS Farkle Group Christmas Party

Last night my MOPS discussion group, called the Farkle group, had a Christmas party at our house. 7 out of 9 of the women in our group were able to come. We started out with dinner, which consisted of a taco bar and it was really yummy! Going counter clock-wise around the table starting with the far left hand person is :Jackie, Ashleen, Janelle, Justine, Debby, Jenni, and Tiffany .

After dinner we had an ornament exchange, where we chose numbers and got to open a gift or take an ornament that had already been opened. We played a couple of others games also, the first one was trying to tear a Christmas tree out of paper with your hands behind your back. The picture above shows the results of that game. Only one person was able to tear one that really looked like a tree and she did it by folding her paper in half first. We played another fun group game, everyone wrote down two different words or phrases on pieces of paper. There were 3 rounds, using the same words for each round, the first one was like password, just trying to get your team to say the word by giving clues. In the second round you could only give 2 words as your clue, and in the third round, you had to act out the word or phrase. It was a lot of fun and we discovered that mothers of boys are not familiar with the name "Fancy Nancy", which is a character in books that Annika likes. The person who had to try and get her team to say those 2 words had no clue who she was.

The whole group in front of our Christmas tree.

Elliott Family Christmas

Sisters reading their Christmas letters from another family member.

Ken entertains some of the great-nieces.

Two more babies are on their way!

How many stuffed animals can be piled on Melia's head? 4 so far, I think a few more were added before they all fell off.

Trying to pile the animals on Ken's head.

Jayden, the youngest great niece for a few more months.

Kiera is happy with her gift!

Jayden got a purse with lots of things in it, but she kept trying to carry it all without the purse.

One of Kiera's requests was for a beautiful snowflake nightgown. I helped my mom search for one when she was here for Thanksgiving, we had to go to a lot of stores to find this one, but it looks like it was a hit!

The adults gift exchange theme this year was photographs or thing associated with photographs. This was the first gift opened and it was a collage of old family pictures. It was a fun theme and there were lots of good gifts given relating to the theme.

Meera had her work Christmas party the same evening, so she changed into her party clothes before heading to the party. She looked gorgeous, so I had to get a picture of her all dressed up.

Christmas Ornaments

After waiting 2 weeks for their ornaments to be sent to them, Debbie and Meera called the art gallery where we went to blow our ornaments and found out that they hadn't bothered to send them, even after they said that they would. I am NOT impressed with their customer service at all! Ken ended up going by and picking the ornaments up since we were going to Wenatchee last weekend, and they'd get them with only a 3 week delay. Who knows how long it would have taken them to get around to mailing them, if we hadn't picked them up! So here's the picture of us with our ornaments.

Amy was feeling left out, so she grabbed an animal to hold, so she could get in the picture.