Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Crabtrees!

Another year come and gone… Family highlights for 2009 included a 3,623 mile road trip to Bear Lake, UT (Family Reunion), Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, then back home to Seattle – Konrad joined for the UT and Phoenix stops the rest was Ashlee and girls and her mom. We also had a great time camping with friends a couple times. Here’s the obligatory paragraph on each family member:

Allison (4) – Alli is in her second year at preschool and thinks she has the best teacher in the world. She’s excited to have homework every week like her big sisters and looking forward to her first outside of the house activity with a tap and ballet class soon. She’s been quick to pick up that the most important time to behave is when her sisters are getting in trouble for not – and to remind everyone of it so that she gets proper credit.

Samantha (6) – Sam is in first grade and entering the world of reading, albeit somewhat reluctantly. She reads very well, just not always willingly. Math seems to be her forte. She is at the age where more complex concepts are starting to click – its fun to watch her learn! This year she took a break from soccer (but vows to pick it back up next year) to focus on her swimming career. She passed off three levels and can now swim across the pool while side-breathing. Next up: gymnastics, where she can hopefully expend some of her abundant energy on some different apparatuses besides her dad.

Kimberlynn (9) – Kimber is in third grade and continues to rack up AR reading points at record pace. She played soccer and scored her first goal ever (next year we’ll work on scoring one for her own team). She also did swimming, dance and theatre, volleyball, and started taking piano lessons. How many more years until she can driver herself to all of these activities?? The funny thing is that we always have tried to limit the number of activities that our girls do so they don’t become overscheduled… The different activities have been good for Kimber so that she can learn that not being able to do something perfectly the first time isn’t a good reason to give up!

Ashlee (30) – Ashlee is enjoying her bon bons and soap operas lifestyle of a stay at home mom. Luckily she is able to fill some of her spare time by teaching preschool with 12 students 4 days a week, volunteering in the girls’ classrooms, shuttling the girls to their activities, and being Primary President for the 3-11 year old kids at our church. She was so sad when the church volleyball season ended that she decided to start playing on a rec team starting in January (maybe I should have saved that for the 2010 newsletter…)

Konrad (32) – Konrad is still selling software to hospitals for the same company. The year started out with a lot of travel but slowed considerably after June. He is adjusting back to the life of a commuter, working in the Bellevue office rather than from home, and is still trying to adjust to losing 1.5-2 hours a day in the car. This year brought just a couple of new “phases” – P90X workouts and a 2-month trial of polyphasic sleeping. Otherwise basketball, volleyball, and being Ward Mission Leader at church keep him busy.

We feel so blessed as a family and hope your Holidays are filled with joy as we reflect on the birth of the Savior.
Until next year,
~the Crabtrees

It's official....

Christmas break has begun. Well for me it has. Yeah!!!!

Now for my "what I need to accomplish while on break" list:

• finish Christmas shopping (almost done, just a few more for Alli and Sam - maybe something for Konrad - other than that we're good)
• wrap all the presents
• send out the Christmas cards - already made them, just need to get envelopes
• send a box to California - that will happen tomorrow so it gets there in time
• deep clean the preschool room
• catch up on my couponing - I am waaaayyyy too far behind
• clean out my closet
• attend the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular on Saturday with my mom, sisters, and cousin
• get the Primary binders all ready for next year
• figure out what to do with the bulletin board for Primary next year
• plan preschool for January

and most importantly -

• spend time with family and friends!

Yeah for Christmas Break!

Alli Got a Haircut

Yeah for no more stringy hair!

Botanical Gardens and Snowflake Lane

We had a few recommendations to check out the Botanical Garden in Bellevue. It was beautiful. It is amazing what those people did with Christmas lights. We were a little rushed for time (or so we thought - we didn't know my dad knew the super sneaky way to get from the garden to Bell Square - in 6 minutes flat!) so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
We were "rushing" to Bell Square to check out Snow Flake Lane. It was magical again this year - I think this was our 4th year going. Not as fun as going the night after Thanksgiving (when they have a short Santa parade as well as the rest of the show), but still great. The drummers are amazing. Free suckers. People dressed up as Frosty, Rudolph, Snow Princesses, etc. Singing Christmas songs with strangers. And of course the "snow" falling to the ground.

Kimber and Sam with Rudolph - Sam has really conquered her fear of characters this year. She was even holding hands with him and dancing.

My parents joined us for the evening. I thought everyone was smiling and looking at me, until I just uploaded the picture. Oh, well.

Despite the rain we had a GREAT time. I'd love to do it again this year - but if not, can't wait until next year.

Girls Only Ornament Party

First off - I want to APOLOGIZE for not having "my" salsa....I promise I won't leave that off the menu again!

Besides that fiasco, I think it was a success.

Thanks for coming ladies!

Love the earrings Michele! (oh and the pair of legs in the picture belong to someone who refused to be photographed - I won't mention names!)
How often do you see a group of women making funny faces? I think Courtney's is my favorite.

What are they all laughing at?

Tami's gag ornament. A 2007 framed picture of one of her own children. Luckily Laurel and Deena were good sports about it. :) Laurel (Deena's daughter) used Deena's "turn" to open the picture of Hallie - so here she is showing Deena what she got to take home.

Can anyone think of another reason to do this in a few months? What else can we exchange?

Beautiful Pictures taken by the Schultz's!

Awhile back I got a free photo shoot from Ashley (at an Enrichment Service Exchange) - thanks for the photos! We love them!!!!

Here are a few.....

(oh how I miss my tan legs....)

Dear Santa.....

Dear Santa,
This year I would like, an ipod (green), and a duck webkinz, a scarf (any color it just has to be cute), a none breakable umbrella (cause all mine break!), a new DS game (I really liked the one you got me last year.), and a candy cane (a big one to.). I would really appreciate it if I got one of these things or mabye even two thank you! By the way how is your family?
Sincerely,
Kimberlynn Crabtree

Dear Santa,
for Christmas I wood like tos (toys), cramu (camera - she still can't pronounce that word correctly so it's hard to sound it out :)), jragin (dragon), mooves (movies), megu blox (mega blocks), jornig and paynig set (drawing and painting set), paprrony (paperoni), Barbie pet care station, gtor (gator), Ipod, laptop. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.
From,
Samantha Crabtree
(words in italics added for translation :))

(Also - she FINALLY did it. She conquered her GINORMOUS fear of Santa! This is the first picture of her with him since she was 5 months old! Yeah Sam!!!!)

Dear Santa,

I'd like a make-up box and a booster seat.

From,

Allison Crabtree

Let the Yummy Treats Begin....

Okay, who am I kidding - we are always eating too many yummy treats...

But anyways.

Today Allison and I went to see Santa at the Supermall where we had free milk and cookies and heard Santa read a story (well not really - Santa wasn't the best story teller - way too quiet and not even close to animated). Here is Al with her self decorated cookie....
Yesterday while going through the ad's - Sam saw a gingerbread house kit on sale at Target ($8). I've always wanted to buy one, so we decided to try it out. We got the best deal b/c it was already cemented together - all we had to do was add the icing and candies. I really didn't want to deal with having to get it standing. The girls loved decorating it and love the finished project. I am loving the left over icing - a pure sugar slightly gummy concoction.

We weren't very good shoppers today - I somehow ended up not paying for a shirt (I called them and they said I could just come in tomorrow or whenever and pay for it) and left the ornament I was going to buy in the basket.

Guess we'll try again tomorrow!

I did however get a great cookie/cracker deal. I got 10 boxes/packages of Keebler cookies (fudge striped and grasshoppers) and Cheez-it crackers for a grand total of $5.50 --- .55 per item!!

We Take Crazy Hair Day Seriously in this House...

Sam even won and award!

This Morning

I was sitting on my bed and saw Samantha open Kimber's door. She opened it about an inch and shut it really quickly. She then paused for a moment, knocked, and said very slowly (as she was recalling what to say) "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". Then the door was opened and she walked in.

I guess there is a password needed to enter Kimber's room. Who knew?

Also - I literally have a zillion things to do and I can't make myself leave the computer to do it. Sorry to all the kids in the ward - maybe we won't be crafting after all on Saturday. I'm too lazy to gather the supplies :) Okay - I'm going, I'm going.....

A Busy Week

(oh - this didn't really happen during the "busy" week, but it's better late than never - Kimber and Sam got their hair cut a couple weeks ago - Alli is next....Katie when can you cut her hair??? :))
Two of Konrad's 3 brothers came up for Thanksgiving this year. His oldest brother, Todd, and his family stayed with us. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins for a full week - or actually 6 days, which Alli reminded me of often "They are staying for 6 days mom!" They have 4 kids, ages almost 7, almost 6, 4, and 1. The last time they stayed with us was two years ago - that trip the Christmas tree got pushed over, the laptop written on, the fridge written on as well. This year wasn't nearly as exciting. :) They were the perfect house guests and we wished they could have stayed longer.

We spent last week hopping back and forth between my parents and Konrad's parents, as well as enjoying UW volleyball (we are addicted - we went to 2 games in 5 days), 2 movies, a Liberty High football game at the Tacoma Dome - Go Patriots!, many meals out, football on TV, shopping, and a few games played in between.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Crabtree's this year. Earlier in the day we went over to my parents to visit with my parents and see my cousin and her family as well as my Grandpa who came into town. (I am totally ticked - I carried my camera with me everywhere I went and still didn't take a picture of my girls with my grandpa!)

Kimber and Sam with Erica and Robby:

After visiting for awhile we headed over to the Crabtree's.

Sam, Kimber, and Quinton put on a little Thanksgiving play for us:

Grandpa had a lesson planned out:

Sam and Uncle Todd being silly:

It was also Great Grandma's birthday - she turned 84 a few days before Thanksgiving.

We also celebrated Jaden's 5th birthday - but I didn't get a picture of him opening his cool Bat Cave that kept 10 kids entertained for the rest of the week. Thanks for sharing Jaden!

Grandpa, Ellie, and Allison

All the Dad's and their kids....the house was pretty full! :) We missed Doug and Britt and their family---we really wished they could have joined us!

We had a great week, spent with tons of family, and full of fun. We were all so exhausted we slept in today - the girls and I didn't wake up until 8:30 - not a great idea on a school day! Luckily the girls still made the bus!

What's Going On With Us

Not much is going on right now. Kimber finished her soccer season - and may I add that we made it through an entire season without sitting in the rain - not even at practice! There was one game canceled due to lightening and we were leaving the field as it started to rain. Other than that, we stayed dry. That doesn't happen often in Washington!


Kimber is now playing volleyball and LOVES it. She has two really good friends on the team and our Bishop is her assistant coach. She is doing so much better than the first time around (2 years ago). In her first game she was the "Star Player" - I think she had 4 or 5 aces! :) We missed her last game, but heard there was actually a small volley - it was served, returned, and returned again. :) You don't see that very often at this stage.


Samantha just finished up 3 sessions of swimming lessons. She has now passed the Youth 3 class and will move into the deep end of the pool. We are taking a break for now (what will I do for the extra hour I have to entertain my kids on Monday and Wednesday's now?). She wants to take gymnastics or jazz next. Samantha is also reading like crazy now. Well she could read like crazy if she wanted to - unfortunately she hasn't caught the same reading bug as Kimber yet. She will read her 20 minutes a day so that she can be eligible for a Wii party at school, but not just b/c she loves to read. It's amazing to see how quickly she is picking up her school work - she loves math and grasps the concepts pretty quickly if you ask me. She is also a lot more outgoing this year than last year. It took her a good 4 or 5 months to really even think about speaking up during class, now she is often the first to raise her hand. She is still crazy Sam - always moving, always making us smile, and always moving.

Allison is pretty much the same. She is loving preschool and all her friends. She looks forward to the days she gets to have playdates with her two best girl friends - Ali and Leah. She is starting to catch the Webkinz bug, but can't quite do it on her own. One of her favorite parts of the day is when she hears the bus in the afternoon - she loves her sisters and misses them while they are at school. She thinks she is ready for swim lessons - so we may start that up in a little while.

Konrad and I had our dating class. It went okay. Nothing wonderful, but the kids participated and hopefully they learned something. We told them about our first date. We went to Theater Sports in Seattle to see an improv show. On the way there Konrad told me that if he got pulled over we had to switch seats so I would get the ticket not him. I was like, whatever. Anyways we were driving across the 90 bridge and about to enter a tunnel. Konrad decides to play the tunnel game (either holding your breath or saying the word tunnel through the ENTIRE tunnel). This was one of the longer tunnels, so as he starts to run out of breath he decides he should drive faster. Needless to say - he said tunnel the entire time, but as we exited the tunnel we were being followed by flashing lights. He got a $396 ticket. It was an expensive date! He was able to get it reduced to $100 by explaining to the judge that he was only playing the tunnel game. The judge made him promise never to play it again (which as far as I know he hasn't) and reduced his ticket. Memorable, right?

Sorry, I got side tracked.

Konrad's volleyball team is playing in regionals tonight - much to the chagrin of many wives in our ward who are supposed to be attending a New Moon party. It will be interesting to see who wins out of all the couples....personally I hope the guys do - it would stink for them to go this far and then end up losing or forfeiting!

Preschool is great. We had pajama day today. The kids thought it was hilarious and loved every minute of it. Who doesn't love wearing their jammies?

We're looking forward to Thanksgiving - we have family from both sides coming into town, so it will be a week full of visiting. Can't wait!

Okay - I am off to the New Moon party. No worries though, I will be home at 7:45 so Konrad can go to his game....

I Need Some Help

Konrad and I have to teach a dating class to some 16/17/18 year old youth and I need some great date ideas. Things that you guys did/do that we can add to a list of date ideas. Creative ideas - or even those you may not think are so creative (remember - sometimes your "not so creative" idea is "super" creative to someone else) - all suggestions will help!

I know everyone has to have at least one idea, right? That means I will get a TON of comments....right????

Help me out please!

Need a Marshmallow. . . ..

Call this farmer - he obviously has plenty!

My friend Heather posted a similar picture on facebook - I had to stop and take my own the other day. It just makes me smile! Think of the s'more(s) you could make with one of these!

Halloween Night

We had dinner at our neighbors - yummy warm soup and homemade bread, then headed out for some candy.

Here are the pictures from our Halloween photo shoot....

Kimber the vampire dancer with her pumpkin
Sam the witch with her pumpkins

Alli the angel with her pumpkin - I mean jack-o-lantern - don't tell her I called it a pumpkin!

All three of them

the lit up pumpkins

And the candy......

Kimber is definitely my child - she has it all sorted :) - my sisters and I used to do this every year, more so at Easter, but I'm sure we did Halloween as well

Happy Halloween!!!

A Trip to the Farm

Halloween morning we took the girls to a nearby farm to play. Alli and I had been there earlier in the week for preschool and I decided we should take everyone back to do it as a family.

Alli roping a cow

The girls Sam the moo-cow hopefully this never really happens

playing in the giant corn box

Sam is under there somewhere

Alli and Konrad

in the hay maze

family shot

3 cute girls

can you see the rain that hit while we were there

we'll have to see if they grow taller for next year

The girls had a great time. We've been there for many field trips (Sam in preschool, Kimber in 2nd grade, Alli two years for preschool) but never as a family. The girls loved it and had a great time playing together.

(on a side note - I ran into a guy from highschool while I was there. Had a conversation with him for a 5+ minutes - all the time thinking he was one of my pretty close friends from highschool. This morning I'm laying in bed and realize it was a totally different guy, that I hadn't seen since middle school - they look kinda similar, but still----am I going crazy??? Thank goodness Konrad walked away right as I was going to introduce him - I would have said the wrong name!!! Talk about embarrassing!!!!!! I still can't believe I did that.)