Snow Day!

So it has been snowing at our house since around 5:30 AM, its now 5:00 PM!! We have about 6 inches of snow and it is the neatest thing! We took Payton out in the stroller and let Bodi run around in the snow this morning for a while! It is so beautiful and I hope it doesn’t melt away too quickly. We are home bound but it is kind of nice not feeling like we have to run out and be somewhere. Hope everyone enjoys the snow and stays safe! Trav just started a fire so we are getting ready to settle in for the night! Happy Snow Day to everyone, even if you don’t have any at your house!

Family Christmas Party

Every year, since I can remember, my family gets together for a “Big Family Christmas Party”. This includes about 75 relatives from my Mom’s side of the family; so my grandma, her two sisters, all of their kids, and all of their kids, and now all of our kids! So four generations of Bianchi’s (Bullington’s, Bull’s, Hampson’s and so on). Payton was greeted by a swarm of family that has not met him yet and he was a hit! This year there was a band there, which made it quite festive, along with a beautiful tree and as always, Santa made an appearance. This was the first time that Payton got to sit on Santa’s lap; it was so cute! This party is so much fun every year! Great seeing everyone! Merry Christmas!

Friends Christmas!!

Jeff and Kelly hosted Friends Christmas this year in their newly remodeled home!! Great work Jeff! Kel is due with Baby Girl (Flocka) Gies on December 30th!! We can’t wait for her to arrive!! This year everyone brought their favorite medium pizza to share, which limited clean up for the hosts and made it easy for everyone to bring something! We did our annual Christmas Exchange Game which Joe and Lynne introduced to us last year and there were some great gifts given. Travis ended up with a T-Shirt of Joe’s face on it and I ended up with movie the Dark Night (Batman). There were a few other crowd favorites including the Hanna Montana Alarm clock, WSU Beer Mug & Dish, and of course the Rocky Shot glasses! Good work Friends another successful Friends Christmas, which I hope turns into a regular tradition for as long as we can stand each other!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Kal!

Kal’s birthday was December 9^th. Kal said he wanted to spend the day with Payton for his birthday, so since it was in the middle of the week, Travis, Payton, Leah, and I went down to Gig Harbor the Sunday before to spend the day with Grandpa Kal! It was such a fun, relaxing day! Happy Birthday Kal! :)

Lynne's Birthday

Lynne's Birthday was on December 4th (late blogger, I know). We had a girls dinner for her at Kristi's the night before her birthday and then Trav and I joined Lynne and Joe for a night out on Friday after her birthday. We went to the Crab Pot for dinner and then to Jazz Alley to see 'Guitars and Saxes Christmas with Richard Elliot, Paul Brown and Jessie J; "funk-oriented greats converge for X-mas Bash." We had a really great time! It was fun to celebrate Lynne's bday and have a night out! :) Happy Birthday Lynne!

Two Month Appointment

On Wednesday, Payton had his two month appointment. He got his first round of shots which was heartbreaking to watch but he took them like a champ! Our little Payton boy now weighs 14lbs 2oz and is 23.5 inches long. The doctor says that he is healthy and looks great!

2 months...1 month...A couple of days old...

Christmas Tree

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we drove out to Riverview Farm (Marge's uncle's tree farm) to cut down the Kalamakis Family Christmas Tree. This was our fourth year going to the same tree farm and we were successful once again in finding the perfect tree. Jeanie, Kal, Leah, Andrew, Carlie, Bodi, Payton and I all watched as Trav cut down our tree; such a lumberjack! After we found the best trees for three different households, we headed into Carnation, where Payton was introduced to his first bar. It is the same bar that we have had lunch at the past four years so we had to go back with the baby (yes we had a baby...in a bar)! It was a lot of fun! The annual tree hunt is a great tradition that I know Payton is going to love!

Kelly's (Shower) Dinner

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had a baby shower for Kelly (mother goose)! She is due January 5th with a little baby girl Gies! We had a girls dinner at Maggianos in Bellevue and Kel got lots of great stuff! Here are a few picts from the evening! Four more weeks! So excited for the Gies Family!!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

This year we headed to Jeanie and Kal's new home on the water in Gig Harbor for Thanksgiving. Their home is so beautiful, which Kal built! We deocrated gingerbread houses and then ate a delicous Thanksgivng feast. They hosted 24 people and it was so great catching up with Trav's family that we haven't seen since this past summer. This was Payton's first Thanksgiving and boy was he cute! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! gobble, gobble! :)

Apple Cup & Friends Thanksgiving

After two exciting overtime periods, the Cougs pulled off a win over the Huskies in the 2008 Apple Cup Game, ending their season with a horrible 2-10 record but at least they went out with a sweet victory over the Dawgs! This was Payton's first Apple Cup and he was the cutest Coug Fan!

We headed over the Katie and Derek's house at halftime to watch the end of the game with some good-old routy Coug Friends! It was so fun to celebrate the win with fellow Cougs (sorry to Kristi who was the only Dawg fan in the house)! After the game, everyone joined in on our Second Annual Friends Thanksgiving Dinner. Last year Trav and I hosted the night before Thanksgiving (way too much food in two days) and this year Katie and Derek opened their house to everyone the Saturday before the offical Turkey Day (much more time to digest). Everyone brought a dish so there was plenty of food including a turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, desserts and SO much more!! The food was a step up from the first year and I am sure each year we will get better and better. This is such a fun tradition that I hope continues for many more years to come. Thanks to Katie and Derek for hosting and to all the Friends that were able to attend. We missed the friends out of reach but we were thinking about you all!

Enjoy the pictures and here's to a Happy Thanksgiving for everyone! GO COUGS!! :)


Check out more pictures by loging in to Kodak.com via this link:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=1rhzdkq1.1sr3wpxl&x=1&y=-bq1kxc&localeid=en_US

Look Back at One Month...

Here are some pictures of Payton during his first month! Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!