The Ranalli Family: The Rest of November 2010

Wow, the holiday season is already upon us! I figure I needed to upload a lot more pictures before I can start posting about our holiday festivities! Today, we went to a Christmas tree farm to get our tree, those pictures will follow shortly!

Chris spent the first two weeks of November in Asia and so I was lucky to have my mom come out and spend time with me and the boys.

We took another trip to the zoo! Here are some favorite shots from our most recent visit...just can't get enough of the zoo. Every time we go we see something new, or an animal that was sleeping last time is awake this time.

No suprise that this visit, Nicholas' favorite attraction was the tractor!

And the boat!

And the masks in the gift shop! We actually had quite a bit of fun trying on almost every single animal mask there was!

Mimi's Birthday!

Out to dinner at the cheesecake factory for Mimi's birthday. So, so happy we spent her big day with her! And so, so lucky we have her in our life! Love you Mom! Thanks for spending your birthday helping me out with the kids, I know it's not the most relaxing way to spend your birthday!

Of course, we had several birthday celebrations! Another at the house with pumpkin pie... one of Nicholas' favorites (and mine)! "Can I blow yet Mimi?!?"

BLOW!

We also got to take a fun trip to Bainbridge Island while my mom was here! Mimi and the boys aboard the ferry!

Walking along the shores of Bainbridge Island!

We have been doing regular Friday hikes with Ruby, Tessa, and Alixx. Nicholas really looks forward to our Friday hikes and I really do too! Chritian spends most of the time asleep in my carrier on our hikes, it must be the fresh air!

Our Black Friday hike was a big group, as Chris, Scott, and Alixx's Dad all came with us! I'm so happy I got to spend my black Friday doing something like this, reflecting on everything I am grateful for rather than among the crazy shoppers, looking for bargains. By the way, we have NO pictures from Thanksgiving:( But we did go to Scott and Alixx's house for a yummy Thanksgiving meal! We put on Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer for the kids after dinner, and boy did the abominal snowman scare the heck out of all of them. It had been so many years since any of us watched this, I forgot....the elves even took out his teeth! Oh well, good thing in the end he turned out to be nice and helped decorate the tree!

We took another trip to the aquarium last month, this time we got to bring Dad!

Nicholas' favorite attraction of this particular visit, the BIG octopus! Did you know that some of the largest octopus in the world can be found right here in the Puget Sound?!

The boys and I also went to Seattle Children's Museum one week day. It is a really cool place and the great thing is there are three fantastic ones all with in our area! Pictures taken from my iphone, so not great quality.

Yay! Christian even got some play time in!

Nicholas "shopping" at the grocery store. He was really hawking the beef, which is kind of funny considering we don't eat it! Happy that at least he got a salmon in there!