A Weekend In December

There's only so many weekends in December to make things merry and bright. If you want to have a special time, you still can bake and attend events without breaking your back and your bank account. My sons and I really wanted to make gingerbread men. Not only are they delicious and taste like Christmas, but the're adorable. So we did semi- homemade ones using a mix. This method saved us a few steps, and we still got to roll out the dough and use our gingerbread man cookie cutter. The boys had a blast decorating their cookies, as did I.

There are a couple of really cool holiday events in Seattle, and they're both spendy. They're around $120 for a family of four to get inside, and then you need to pay for parking and feed everyone. Instead, we visited the Bellevue Botanical Gardens for their 25th annual Garden d'Lights. The cost? Just five bucks each for my husband and I, and they boys were free. The entire botanical gardens are decked out in lights. There's flower lights and adorable animal lights that the kids loved. We took a couple of loops around to take it all in. They also had a fun Gingerbread display featuring Asia and Seattle.

On Sunday, we had family in town and we went out to dinner at Fonda La Catrina. This Mexican restaurant in Georgetown is becoming our place to take out of town guests. It's in walking distance to our house and the food is always amazing. It was all decked out for the holidays with a pretty tree by the door. The lighting was dim and cozy. This time I had the Rolled Chicken Tacos. Their food is always on point. The weekend was full of family, cheer, and good holiday eats!