Santa Boat

Ashton was excited to see Santa come to Auntie Christy and Uncle Bart's house tonight. I did tell him that it was Santa's helper and that he had a pretend beard, but he was so happy to see him that I don't think he cared. Perhaps he was just thinking about the present that he was about to receive.

It was a cold and dark evening, but we enjoyed ourselves waiting for Santa to arrive at the dock.

Here he comes!!!

Hi Santa!

Hard at work

The kids loved the gifts that Santa brought them.  Ashton received Dart from the Day of the Diesel movie. Ben and Hannah received iTouch cases.  

 Thanks Santa!

Hannah Clause is wanting some toys

Hannah Clause is Wanting some Toys 
By Hannah Mietzner, December 11, 2011
 (sung to the tune of Santa Clause is Coming to Town)

She’s making a list,
Asking for it,
Gonna find out if she gets the gifts.
Hannah Clause is wanting some toys.
Might be a big price,
Let her give you advice,
You know that she’s not naughty she’s nice.
Hannah Clause is wanting some toys.
She knows if you’ve been shopping,
Or wrapping it all up,
She knows you did not get her list,
So now she’ll let you catch up.
O! She’s making a list,
Asking for it,
Gonna find out if she gets the gifts,

Hannah Clause is wanting some toys.
Hannah Clause is wanting some toys.

Ready for Christmas

The tree is up, the presents wrapped, it's cold outside and we have a rockin' little boy in the house!

Definitely feels like the Christmas season now!  

Ashton loves touching the ornaments all the time and he even put a second track around the Christmas tree.

15 more days!

End of Fall

Too many leaves!  Time to clean up!

He likes to cover up his ride on toy and hide it.

Technically I know that Winter doesn't begin for another couple of weeks, but when the yard is cleaned up and no leaves are falling anymore I think our Winter season has begun.  Ashton had some fun times in the leaves and then some added fun cleaning up with Daddy!

Go Cougs!

Santa Photos

Well the weather outside was awful, so the Christmas tree I really wanted to put up has to wait until another weekend. We didn't want to slosh around in mud while choosing the perfect tree, so we settled for visiting Santa Claus!  Ashton was very excited to see him. He walked right up to him with a big smile and was ready to be placed on his lap. Ben and Hannah are great every year and will still get in the photo. What a great morning!

Thankful for Family

Thanksgiving was a great time to see the family! 

(And I love celebrating my birthday!)

Are all these for my birthday? 

I will take my favorite one. The Pineapple pudding cake!  Melts in your mouth. 

Franklin Girls

 

Ashton with Grandma and Grandpa

Ashton with Hannah and Ben

Ashton with his Aunt and Uncle

Where is Ashton in this photo?

MMMM.....another birthday cake! 

Tennis Boys

Ben played in his first Open tournament last weekend at the Nordstroms Tennis Center at the UW.  There were a lot of University of Washington Tennis players entered into this tournament.  He didn't win, but it was a great experience for him! (Ben is in the White shirt)

Ashton played some tennis too this past Monday.  He always loves to go to Daddy's work and hit some tennis balls. Here he is rallying with dad.

Halloween

 Our Halloween celebration starts with the pumpkin carving a couple weeks ago! Thankfully Ben and Hannah haven't complained that we do this. They seem like they still enjoy it. I think Hannah loves getting all the seeds to bake!

Photos a bit blurry, but you can see that he was happy wearing some gloves!

Ashton tried to do more this year, but he had issues with the gooey slimy feeling.

Ben was pretty proud of his!

The finished product!

On Halloween evening we went to the Price's home.  We all had a great time! Hannah and Abby went one direction. Ben and Griffen went another direction, and Ashton wound up crying because he wanted his brother and sister.  We got his mind off of it and started trick-or-treating at houses.  He seemed to like going up to the houses and getting the candy. He did great with saying "Trick-or-treat" and "Thank You", but in between walking to each house he kept wanting to go back to Jenny's.  It must have been a combination of Ben and Hannah not being with us, lack of a nap that afternoon, and having to go potty. This potty training thing sure does limit your time out and about!  Ashton did great and had a fun evening!

Ben is the in the Jason Mask

Thanks to our friend MeiLi Chen, he had a very warm hat and mittens!

Hannah and Abby Price

Loved dumping it out.  He kept asking why he is only able to eat one tonight. 

Hannah took a photo of her candy!  Teenagers and they are still excited about trick-or-treating because of the Candy! 

It was a great evening!

WAY TO GO BEN!

This is out of the Everett Herald for this last week!

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20111018/SPORTS01/710189947/1004/SPORTS#Athletes-of-the-Week----Oct.-10-15

Athletes of the Week -- Oct. 10-15

The best performances in prep sports from last week

Ben Mietzner

Jackson | Boys tennis

The Timberwolves freshman beat Kamiak's Conor Garside 6-1, 6-1 and Cascade's Eddie Bayya 6-0, 6-2 as Jackson swept the week to finish the season 16-0 for the third straight season. 

Ben finished his tennis season with a 16-0 win in mostly number 2 and 3 singles.  His coach did have him play in some doubles this last month and he did great! This week the highschools had their league championships at his school, Jackson High, to see who would make it to districts. Ben played doubles with a senior David Hong.  They made it through the league championships and made it to districts! Six of their teammates made it as well! Ben and David are seeded 4th and next week they will be play at Districts at Stanwood Highschool to see who will make it to State!  

Exciting stuff for our little freshman! ;)


Go Jackson!

Mark Is Amazing!

Mark, with 4 other amazing women, organized a fantastic Breast Cancer Tennis Mixer to raise money for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and their MammoVan.  He took so much time and effort to go out to many of the local businesses and ask them to donate anything they can.  That can be a challenging thing to do, and he accomplished so much! At the tennis mixer people could purchase raffle tickets to place in a bag that would be randomly chosen for the winner. 

 Mark was excited to announce they raised $2,452!  

 

And the winner is......

Lightning McQueen came to the mall!

Ashton had just woken up from a nap, so he was still in a daze.  He didn't want to stand by himself for the pictures.  The line was long to just get your photo taken, but they were free photos and pretty cool cars! He seemed excited to see the cars in real life size, but they kept telling him to smile at the camera.  I think he would have rather just stared at the cars!

Pumpkin Patch

We woke up to a beautiful October day in Washington, and told the kids we were headed to the Pumpkin patch!

Hannah was the lucky one to get to ride the Cow Train with Ashton.  They sure enjoyed it. The driver went fast at times, and they received a little tour of the farm that we didn't see. 

We did have loads of fun at the pumpkin farm! 

There were two mazes to choose from.  The 10 acre maze that takes approximately 1 hour to complete, or the kiddie maze that is about 15-20 minutes to complete.  I think Ben and Hannah would have loved the larger maze, but it was close to lunch time and considering we had Ashton who is just recently potty trained, we stuck with the quicker one.  We didn't want any accidents on our fun day out, plus we still needed to go find our pumpkins!

We had one rule for pumpkin picking.  If you can carry it then we can get it!  

Ashton found the perfect pumpkin. 

Tons to choose from!

Hannah was very proud of her choice!

Ashton helped me find the perfect pumpkin too!

I think Ben was thinking he was too old for photos with his pumpkin - but I told him he'll never be too old with me!

Mark's is the biggest one in the wheelbarrow.  Ashton sure loves to help daddy!

I love the fact that this Pumpkin Patch has this growth chart.  Last year Ashton was just under 3 feet. 

This was last year.  Fun to see the difference!

What a perfect tire swing!

After I took this photo of Ashton, he wanted a turn taking photos of everyone else. He did a darn good job of taking our photos! All of the photos following are taken by Ashton: