The Polar Express

The Polar Express is one of my absolute favorite Christmas stories.

When we were kids, my mom read it to us over and over again during the month of December, and I was absolutely thrilled when the movie came out in 2004 and completely exceeded my expectations.

Needless to say, I was super excited when I learned that the Mt. Rainier Railroad now brings the magic of The Polar Express to life! I immediately contacted my sister to see if she was interested in taking the kids. We booked tickets for the weekend after Christmas, and I promptly pulled out my copy of Chris Van Allsburg's classic tale to start reading to Ryder. 

By the last page, I was literally in tears.
Thanks, pregnancy hormones... 

"At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe." 

All month long we looked forward to heading down to Elbe, Washington to meet up with my parents and my sister's family for what we hoped would be a truly magical Christmas journey to the North Pole.

You guys... It was amazing!

First of all, the Mt. Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum is super cute. Ryder absolutely LOVES trains, so he was in heaven running around the platform and checking out the vintage steam engine and all the train cars while we waited for our turn to climb on board. 

Once the journey began, we were entertained by cheerful chefs who walked around reading a large-scale copy of the book to the kiddos, followed by dancing, singing, and of course serving us delicious hot chocolate and cookies, just like in the story. After a beautiful ride through the snowy wonderland of Mt. Rainier, we arrived at the North Pole, where Santa boarded the train to give each child the first gift of Christmas (a silver bell). 

Then, on the journey back, the servers led a Christmas caroling sing-along that included the kids dancing up and down the aisles of the train.

Sophia, Aubrey, and Ryder were absolutely enchanted by the entire experience. Ryder's delight as he looked out the window of the train and exclaimed at everything he saw was pretty much the best Christmas present ever. And frankly, I was pretty impressed, myself. I thought the entire production was extremely well-done, and definitely worth the extra money we paid for our first class tickets (which also included beautiful souvenir Christmas mugs for each of us). 

I think we may need to make The Polar Express an annual tradition for the whole family!

Afterward, we headed back to my parents' house to exchange gifts (yes, at this point we were on at least our third Christmas celebration!)

Ryder's like, "Seriously Mom, MORE pictures?!"

My favorite part of the whole experience was seeing Ryder play and interact with his cousins. He was so thrilled to have other kiddos to spend time with; it was just adorable. 

Perhaps he needs a sibling?

As the year and the holiday season draws to a close, I sure hope that your experiences were as magical and memorable as ours.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating with all your nearest and dearest.

Merry Christmas from the Getchman Family!
Sometimes it's just impossible to get a 2-year-old to cooperate for the annual family Christmas photo. This is the best we got...

We typically celebrate Christmas in my home town at my parents' house, and this year we arrived a couple days early for some extra quality time and relaxation. 

Almost as soon as we arrived, my brother and his beautiful wife revealed some super exciting news!

YAY! Ryder is getting another cousin this August!

After a day of lounging around doing nothing except eating, napping, and watching Christmas movies, Stew and I left Ryder with my parents for the day while we headed up to Seattle for the Christmas Eve Seahawks game versus the Cardinals.

Bundled up and the icy cold tailgate. I forgot how much colder tailgating is when you're sober...

It was an awesome day out with Stew and our friends, but unfortunately the Christmas miracle we prayed for at the end of the game just didn't end up panning out... 

However, Ryder had a fantastic Christmas Eve at home, baking cookies with Uncle AJ and Aunt Morgan, and making a gingerbread house with Nana. 

After the game, we went home to enjoy our traditional Christmas Eve meal of Chinese take out before we all settled down for our long winter's nap. Of course that was after Stewart stayed up until almost midnight putting together Ryder's Christmas present. 

Christmas morning was quite a blur, at least for the littlest Alway.

Ryder got a three story wooden fire station, complete with all the accessories. He was thrilled and literally hasn't stopped playing with it since.

Sometimes you just really gotta get in there...

And not to worry... Santa brought him his blue dump truck.

Later that morning, we had our traditional Christmas brunch with my dad's side of the family.

Heck yeah, we rock those Christmas jammies ALL. DAY. LONG.

My lovely, adorable grandparents.

Cousins!

Christmas Night family snuggles. Check out that amazing Paw Patrol quilt that Aunt Morgan made for Ryder!

On the day after Christmas, we always go over to Grandma Sally's house. 

My mom has 14 brothers and sisters, and I have almost 30 first cousins, so we typically like to avoid the chaos that ensues over there on Christmas Day. Instead, we head over on the day after for a nice, quiet visit with Grandma. 

Ryder gets an epic fail for his cooperation in family photos this year. This is the best I could get...

Once again I was blown away by the generosity and thoughtfulness of our friends and family this year. 

And a HUGE shout out has to go out to everyone for all their lovely holiday cards! We almost ran out of room on the fridge!

From our family to yours, we hope that you had yourself a merry little Christmas and that from now on your troubles will be miles away.

Happy Holidays 2016

From our (growing) family to yours... 

Merry Christmas, and best wishes for a happy New Year!

An Alway Family Christmas

When celebrating holidays with multiple family loyalties, the key is to be flexible about dates. 

The holiday season technically lasts for a couple of months, so as long as everyone is fairly easy-going about the whole situation, it's pretty simple to make time to celebrate with everyone you love. 

This year we had Christmas with the Alway Family the weekend before the "official" holiday, and it was so much fun... like a bonus preview Christmas!

Photography by Mark Alway.

Patty and I spent the morning baking dozens of Christmas cookies, and thanks to her master chef talents, I think they turned out really well! 

Not that I need to be eating any, although Baby Sister probably would have appreciated the holiday sugar rush. 31 weeks and counting...

Finally it was time to open presents!

It was such a generous and thoughtful display of gift-giving this year! Ryder was especially thrilled with his Thomas the Train and Paw Patrol gear.

Although I like presents as much as the next girl, my favorite part of Christmas is just sitting around with family... hanging out, chatting, watching movies, cooking, etc. 

I'm so thankful for the Alway Family and their willingness to be flexible about our holiday traditions. We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with them, and I look forward to making many more memories in the years to come.

Have a holly, jolly Christmas, everyone!

Dear Santa: I Want A Blue Dump Truck

Last night we took Ryder into town to see Santa. 

Unlike last time, this year he really understands the whole Santa Claus concept, and we've been talking a lot about how Santa brings good little boys presents on Christmas. So he seemed fairly excited to go visit and tell Santa all about his wish list.

Ryder hardly seemed apprehensive at all when I picked him up to put him on Santa's lap – we were so proud! He cooperated for the photo, and then seemed content to sit with Santa for a few more minutes looking at a Christmas story.

And what did Ryder ask Santa for this year? 

A blue dump truck. 

Not just a regular dump truck. A BLUE one.
(He was very specific about that).

Ryder's favorite color is blue, and he is always quick to snatch the blue crayon, the blue candy, or the blue toy. So although it's really no surprise, where the heck is Mommy Santa going to find a blue dump truck on such short notice?! 

Thank goodness for Amazon Prime... 

Happy Birthday To Me

Thanks for stopping by to help celebrate my 25th (ish) birthday! 

Plus or minus a decade doesn't really make much of a difference, right? 

Seriously though, how did this happen?!? I am halfway to 70, for the love of freaking pete.

Just for fun, I thought I would go back to my old blog and dig up my 25th birthday post. 

Wow... just wow. 

At that time, my biggest concern was disqualification from applying to star as a cast member on MTV's The Real World. Ten years later, my apprehensions revolve around the fact that this particular birthday has pushed me over into the unpleasant, slightly scary category of "high risk pregnancy." 

Times do, indeed, change.

A decade ago, it seems I was able to cram about ten different events into a single birthday weekend. These days, the very thought of an itinerary like that makes me want to crawl into bed and take a nap. However, I did have a lovely weekend celebrating with my nearest and dearest.

Stewart and Ryder surprised me with an absolutely gorgeous bouquet of a dozen long-stemmed red roses (seriously the most beautiful flowers I have ever received) along with a card that brought tears to my eyes. I love those guys so much. 

A few hours later, my parents arrived with a delicious lunch and armfuls of presents from my super thoughtful and generous family members who weren't able to make it up to our house in Snoqualmie that day. Then, as the greatest gift of all, they headed home with Ryder in tow, which meant that we were free to spend a child-free evening celebrating with our friends. 

Stew had planned a small holiday cocktail party at our house with just a few of our closest buddies. Although I couldn't drink Sparks and Olympia beer like I did ten years ago, I made the best of it with nonalcoholic wine and hot apple cider (sans cinnamon whiskey -- sad). It was actually a super fun, low-key evening, and somehow or another we ended up sitting around until after midnight chit chatting with my bestie and her husband... what?! I do not stay up that late anymore... let's face it, I usually go to bed with Ryder at 8:00.

The next morning I had a lovely breakfast with my former office manager before heading south to pick up our firstborn before the Seahawks game. They didn't seem determined to end my birthday weekend on a high note (let's hope they can pull it together next week).

Unfortunately, pregnancy makes me swell up like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so I absolutely forbade any photography at my party. I'd like to maintain some sort of third trimester dignity...

Instead, please enjoy this classic photo of 25-year-old me. 

Have I really changed all that much?

Honestly, I couldn't be happier with how the last ten years have gone, and I look forward to another decade of adventures ahead.

Oh Christmas Tree

Getting our Christmas tree every year is one of our favorite and most important holiday family traditions. 

When I was growing up, on the day after my birthday in December we always bundled up in our coats, hats and boots and headed to the tree farm with Dad to select and cut down the perfect Christmas tree. We never would have considered putting up a "fake" tree, or getting a pre-cut one from the grocery store parking lot. 

Now, as grown ups with our own little kiddo to celebrate the holidays with, we've learned that "you-cut" Christmas trees are a lot of work... but oh-so-much fun.

We typically dedicate an entire day to the adventure.

For the past three years, we have gone to Enchanted Winds Christmas Tree Farm, nestled in the picturesque cascade foothills near Issaquah. This place is so much fun! All of the employees are super festive and helpful, and we love walking across the bridge over the river and into the "forest" to select and cut down our very own tree.

This year the weather actually cooperated without any rain or snow, and Ryder was old enough to "help" choose and cut the tree. 

This one looks perfect!

Our little helper...

After securely tying our prize to the top of the car, we went into the festively decorated rustic red barn to warm up with hot drinks and cookies, and browse gifts, ornaments and decorations. 

We also took our traditional family photo in front of the Christmas tree. 

Once we got home, we set up the tree next to the fireplace, put on our favorite Pandora Christmas music station, and had so much fun decorating the tree and reminiscing over our ornaments (Stew and I have traditionally given each other ornaments for Christmas ever since we first started dating ten years ago, so we've got quite the collection!) 

This has become such a memorable experience for us, and even though the process of cutting our own tree can be time-consuming and messy, we think this is such a special and important tradition for Ryder.

We can't to do it again next year as a family of FOUR!

Do you have any special Christmas tree traditions?