Fun at Northwest Aerials

The location where I host my Stroller Strides classes has an indoor park that they open up to the public on Fridays. They have been nice enough to charge the Stroller Stride moms half the price to play on Fridays and the kids LOVE it!! Hudson has more fun than I think he knows what to do with. They have one of those big blow up slides and he will go up and down that thing so many times in a row it's crazy! Since it is a gymnastics studio, they have trampolines that are built into the ground and lots of spongy mats for the kids to jump onto. This is just one more reason why I love our current location and am hesitant to look for something else!! Join us there on Feb. 27 as NW Aerials will be extending the play time until noon just for the LUNA Moms Club: www.meetup.com/Stroller-Strides-LUNA-Moms-Club-Kirkland-Kenmore

Jumping into the foam pit

No fear!

So happy

Back for more jumping!

Even Charlie gets in on the fun!

Stroller Strides Grand Opening

My Stroller Strides franchise is finally up and running, or should I say strolling! After months of searching for an indoor location within my zip codes, I found a spot in Kirkland called Northwest Aerials. It's a kids gymnastics/dance studio and I am renting out one of the dance rooms. The owner has been amazing to work with, so accommodating, supportive, and very welcoming. Such a change from what I had experienced in looking for a location. I knew the room was a bit small, but I figured I could get creative with classes and make it work. Was I in for a surprise though when I opened my doors on January 7 and hosted my Grand Opening. 24 moms showed up and I was overwhelmed to say the very least! It was amazing!! Out of the 24 moms, I would say half were friends and half were new moms that were coming to Stroller Strides for the very first time. Not a bad turn out rate all in all!! The room was PACKED and there was no way we could have gotten one more stroller in there. I knew then that I would need to add an additional day for moms to have more options so I went from T/W/F classes to M/T/W/F classes. I am looking for a bigger location as well, but in the meantime if it's not raining, we head outside which has worked well so far! As of now, I have 10 monthly members, 4 punch cards members, and my biggest class since has been 13 moms. I am having so much fun teaching class 4 days a week and am so glad we bought a franchise! www.strollerstrides.net/kirkland

My handsome greeter!

Workin' those biceps

Down for abs

Look at all those moms and babies!!!

My Stroller Strides Family

Here She Grows Again

Charlotte had her 4 month check up about 2 weeks ago and I wasn't surprised with the results! Charlie came in at 15 lbs 7-1/2 oz (90 percentile) and 26-1/4 inches (97 percentile). She's already wearing 6-12 month clothing (comfortably, I might add!), trying to crawl, loves to blow raspberries, rolling over from front to back only, is very chatting, laughs the hardest at Bruiser and her brother when he dances for her, and still doing really well sleeping at night. I finally moved her into her crib around 3-1/2 months when the bassinet was clearly getting a bit snug. I joked with Ryan first though telling him we should probably move the crib in our room since she was getting too big for the bassinet. I think his response was something along the lines of "Don't push your luck" ;)




First bath together!

Christmas Take Three...Santa Returns

As I mentioned in "Christmas Take One...Our House", Santa was unable to deliver Hudson's first bike because of all the snow. So glad Hudson is too little to realize that Santa was able to deliver other gifts and just not the bike! Originally the bike was going to be available for us to pick up sometime between December 22-24. It was January 4 before we were able to pick up the bike, so after waiting for so long, we didn't even bother setting it up or wrapping it. We just put a sheet over the box and let Hudson pull the sheet off. We told Hudson that silly Santa left a present in the garage instead of under the tree and we just found out. Nothing gets past Hudson though...he and Ryan had been to Toys-R-Us earlier in the day to get a bike helmet and on the way home Hudson asked his Daddy "I get bike?". Ryan said he would have to ask Mommy as he didn't know what else to say, LOL!!!

Inspecting the new bike

Christmas Take Two...Suncadia

After New Years, my whole family went up to Suncadia to celebrate Christmas together...8 adults, 6 kids, and 1 dog all in the same house makes for one heck of a good time! We stayed for two days, opened presents the first night, had some really fun adult time after the kids went to bed around the fire pit, and went sledding on the ramp the boys made on the golf course. This was not your ordinary sled ramp, these boys spent hours making it just right and I can attest, it was awesome! Prepare for picture overload...

Hudson's new Workshop, actually a belated birthday gift

Cole's remote control race car

Alexie's new tool set from us. Yes, I know she's a girl, but she loves Hudson's and plays with it every time she is up visiting!

Grandma reading Fancy Nancy to Ellie and Charlotte

Jack pulling Hudson around the house on his new sled

We quickly made Hudson lay down once we realized how fast Jack could actually pull him!

Hudson and Alexie enjoy every last bite of their brownie ice cream sundaes

Then we put the kids to sleep...

Ryan on double monitor duty

Enjoying our beverages by the fire pit. My brother dug out a nice igloo for us!

My brother, Ted, resting after doing several jumps into the snow!

My sister-in-law Sarah and brother-in-law Shad "bonding" as Shad was saying

Ted, Ryan, and Shad out building our sled ramp

Notice the absence of coats on Ted and Ryan...these boys were workin' hard!

Time to test it out!

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Jack in the snow

Uncle Shad and Hudson

Tractor Ride

Every year we celebrate Hanukkah with Ryan's Mom's side of the family. This year the festivities were at Ryan's Uncle David and Aunt Trish's house and Hudson spotted the tractor immediately. David took Hudson for a ride which turned into them dumping snow on Uncle Jeremy's car, priceless. Thanks David for making Hudson's day!

Let's go that way!

Showing Hudson how things work

And they're off!

Could he be any happier about this?!?!

Here comes trouble...

Nice work boys!

Christmas Take One...Our House

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at our house this year. My brother & sister both stayed at their homes and we celebrated as a whole family after the New Year. Ryan's mom came over on Christmas Eve and we had one of my favorite dinners that she makes, Chicken Marsala. We decided that Ryan, Di, and I should open presents that night after Hudson went to bed so Christmas morning could be just for him. Plus, Ryan and I bought his mom a new digital camera and wanted her to be able to use it the next day!

The addition of Charlie's stocking! I have made all of our stockings, except Bruiser's. From left to right is Ryan's, mine, Hudson's and Charlotte's.
Hudson and I vacuuming the pine needles so it would be clean for Santa

Such a good helper!

Putting out the cookies we made for Santa. I wanted to make frosted sugar cookies that Hudson could decorate, but Ryan informed me that Santa likes chocolate chip cookies ;)
Di opening up her new camera! She had no idea we were getting her one so it was a fun surprise.

Charlie and Grandma


On Christmas day my parent's joined us along with my Nonnie. We had a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and coffee cake! I got Ryan a Wii for Christmas and we had a blast learning the ropes most of the day. I was sore the next day to say the least!! Santa's big gift for Hudson this year was his first bike. Unfortunately with the amount of snow we had gotten, Santa (aka UPS) was unable to deliver Huddy's bike until later. I'm sad I didn't get the picture I had in my mind of Hudson seeing the bike under the tree when he woke up, but there are worst things in life so I didn't let it ruin Christmas!

Coming down the hallway (yes, with my flat iron)

Santa came! (Still holding my flat iron, lol!)

New race track

Charlie's new toy from Santa!

Bruiser gets a new toy in his stocking every year and a big rawhide bone

Family photo time!

My adorable munchkins


My dad and Ryan boxing on the Wii

Nonnie and her sixth Great Grandchild!!