Happy Holidays!

Not much time to write but wanted to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We had a GREAT time in California for Christmas. I'll post more later with some photos but Jensen had a wonderful Christmas. She was spoiled rotten by Grammy, Grandad, and all the aunties. She had a great time but was pretty excited when she got home and saw her familiar surroundings!

I'll write more later this week with pictures, I promise :)

SANTA!

SANTA!! SANTA!!!

Friday we took Jensen to see Santa at our local mall. I figured we'd be in the midst of a total meltdown or at least a little pouty lip. But no! Jensen was mesmerized by the "North Pole" and Santa. She thought that this guy looked pretty cool and that he may be able to help her in the future.




Then we got the best baby photo with Santa...smiles and all:


Saturday we wanted to go downtown and see the sights....Macy's windows, the tree in Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Tuba players playing carols...but with the freezing temperatures and the impending snow we hung out around town. It was probably good, Jensen was exhausted since Mom and Dad kept her up way past her bedtime so they could eat dinner Friday at the Cheesecake Factory! Sunday it snowed and snowed...I'll post some pictures later today. We got about 3 inches. Jensen went on a walk in her front pack in it but since we don't have a snow suit for her she just looked. We're home today because of a snow day which is fine with me. With the wind chill it's about 7 degrees. That's just down right cold for this California girl!

We love parties!

Well as you can see I've done some housekeeping here on the blog. I am getting kind of savvy with this stuff. Ok, well I have some competition from my friend Jen. Her blog is so cute and she's very talented...where as I just ramble and figure it out as I go. But she's inspired me so here we are.

Speaking of Jen, her little one Emma turned ONE last week and we were invited to her birthday party at Gymboree. It was SO much fun! Marc and I kept saying on the way home that we'd had way more fun than we were expecting for a first birthday party. Jensen was loving all the babies to play with, the copious amounts of bubbles, and of course the parachute! What baby wouldn't love a parachute being lifted and lowered and lifted and lowered and jumbled all around. They were all so cute and had such a great time. Here's a photos of Jensen eating her birthday hat:



And one of the birthday girl:


Other than that we're just getting ready to head to California next week. We've been in debate over when we should leave. Should we drive half way Thursday night and so we get in at a decent time on Friday? Should we drive straight through Thursday so Jensen sleeps most of the time? Should we just drive as we normally would? I think we've decided to leave really early (like 4:00 am early) Friday morning. Jensen should sleep for the first three hours and we'd still make it the Bay Area before rush hour. So I'll let you know how it goes! We do realize that this is going to be the easiest drive with a child for probably the next 10 years or so. We've already started to save our money to fly next Thanksgiving! ha ha!

We are going to see SANTA tomorrow so I'll post some pictures of that. I am anticipating a very scared and/or screaming baby picture. But you've got to do it!

Happy 7 months...oh and turkey day too!

Whew...we made it! Jensen turned 7 months on Thanksgiving day. And to celebrate we had dinner for 9. We had a wonderful holiday with Judy and Rich, Charmain, Trevor and Taylor, and our friends Sean, Rachel, and Abi. It was such a nice day. I cooked and they cleaned! Ha ha! It was wonderful! But really - it was nice to all get together and enjoy the day. We all had so much fun and Jensen (and Abi!) were so good! Jensen took a nice long nap and then joined us for dinner. She loved sitting in her high chair with the rest of the family! Such a big girl!

The rest of the weekend was busy too. We went wine tasting on Friday - Jensen was such a trooper! Then Saturday we had a nice family day hiking for our Christmas trees. (Yes that's plural...I can't help myself!) We spent the rest of the weekend decorating and relaxing. We went to the doctor's today for more shots...but she did great. A loud cry, a few tears, and then smiles again!

Here are some photos from this past month if you're interested: