White Christmas

For the first time in 17 years, Dave spent Christmas with his Mom, Stepdad and siblings (well, minus one who lives in Arizona).  And even better yet it was a white Christmas - as in snow on the ground, it didn't snow that day.

Of course the first thing Drew wants to do is open presents, unfortunately we made him wait until everyone woke up.  He was really patient though.
 

He was so excited to see some of his presents - here he was opening up one of his two stockings...





And then another present... here's the video..  What he says cracks me up.


Of course the present he loved the most was the iTouch (our recycled phone turned iTouch).

After a while Drew got to play outside in the white stuff...

And Grandpa built a bonfire! 

I came out to join the fun (notice the box of tissues I'm carrying).  I ended up getting sick for 3 days about 2 hours after this photo.

Aunt Brianna and Drew..

Daddy and Aunt Brianna

Me and Brianna

The temperature was dropping quickly, so we went inside for dinner. 

This was the last fresh air I had for days.  Getting sick on vacation blows.

Children's Christmas Service

Yes I do realize it's the end of January, but I have yet to finish sharing about the Christmas season at our house - things have been rather busy.

The Sunday before Christmas, Drew performed in the annual Children's Service at our church.  In the past he's been an angel, a pig and a cow.  This year he's a.....

... Star!

And here are some of the other stars of the show - many are PreK/K, but there are a couple of First graders in the mix.

And here is a video of Drew's procession...





They did do a few songs - here is a photo of the kids doing "Away in a Manger"

And then here is a video one of Drew's "speaking" parts (yes it was a group speaking part this year).




Drew wasn't so thrilled about the costume this year - it was kind of warm and not really comfortable.  His favorite part of the night?  Dinner and dessert afterward.

It's a California Christmas

This year we had two Christmases - one in California and one in New York with Dave's family.  I'll get to the New York Christmas in a different post, but first let me share with you Christmas at Grammy and GrampC's the weekend before the actual holiday.

I should preface we always have multiple Christmases - we just rotate who has the "actual" holiday between Dave's family and mine.  Since Thanksgiving was with my family this year, the actual Christmas holiday is with Dave's Family - and he has to determine which side (Mom or Dad) we visit.

This year we had a pretty full house for my family's Christmas.  My brother and his family, My sister with her girls (her husband couldn't make it), the three of us, my parents, plus GG.

Here are the youngest in the family...

L-R: Avery (my brother's Daughter) and Chloe (my sister's daughter)

And then we decided to get all of the cousins together...

L-R: Matt's girls - Adrina & Avery, Lisa's girls - Chloe & Kady, and then Drew

Here is the tree and a few of the stockings - which were scattered throughout the house (there are too many of us now to have in one location).

It was kind of nice this year we weren't throwing up presents like in previous years.  We drew name for the "Grownups" and then we of course all gave gifts to the kids.  In years past there were easily 3 times the amount of gifts you see here.

I had some reading time with Miss Avery - We were reading "Up on the Housetop"

She loved my book and my singing voice of course....

And Rana my sister-in-law with Adrina.

After a bit the kids were starting to get antsy so we decided to let them open stockings.  Here Adrina is helping Avery with hers...

Kady and Drew were chasing after Chloe to give her the contents of her stocking.   Chloe pulled out some food and then proceeded to run through the house only wanting to open and eat what was inside.

Drew cracked us up with how excited and appreciative he was with everything inside his stocking....

... including the Star Wars/Yoda Ornament.

Dave was pretty excited about his stocking contents too...

...notice the "PG-13" rated wine stop.  It pairs so well with his "naughty" wine glass.  (I have the "nice" wine glass to complement his).

For dinner we enjoyed some Prime Rib.  Miss Avery had her "ribs" for dessert.

After dinner Adrina read to us the story of Jesus' birth from the bible.  Drew didn't want to read this year.

And Kady put baby Jesus in the manger.

Chloe was just happy after she woke from her nap - it was quite the "gift".

And of  course we had to have a family shot....

One of the many highlights of the night was the 2nd annual polar plunge - Dave was able to join my brother for a dip in the pool this year (he was sick last year).  Here's the video:



If you look closely you will see the guys give a high-five before hitting the water. They were quite proud of that high-five.

Living Bethlehem

While we were winetasting picking up our wine shipments last Sunday we were reminded that Livermore had a weekend long event for a living nativity.  I remember hearing about it for the first time last year, but we never made it out there with my being sick and just before Christmas it would have put me over the edge.  But this year, healthy and all, we ventured back out to Livermore for the final night of performances last Monday.  The show was breathtaking!

Once you arrive you wind your way through the outside of Bethlehem where they have Middle Eastern Dancers, and you can see shepherds and suddenly the Angel appears announcing the birth of Jesus - this we later found out was timed with the performance inside.

And they only allow a certain amount of people inside the gates of Bethlehem - to be registered.

So I could see how the lines would be really long on the weekend.  We happened to go closing night and it really went pretty fast to get inside the gates.

Once inside Bethlehem we saw an actual recreation of what it was probably like.  With sheep and llamas...

And there were different "booths" or shops where you could experience fruit stands, metal works...

.... games... Drew had fun playing Dradel.

... and wood working where Drew made his own hammer!

So there were a lot of things for Drew to do and experience what he's heard and learned about.  But for a 6 year old to experience hands on was priceless.  It was great how we were only talking about incense at his Sunday School a week or two earlier and none of the kids knew what it was... they had some in one of the "shops" and I could show Drew and we spoke of what the Wisemen brought to Jesus.

Suddenly the soldiers appeared announcing the decree that all should be registered...

This paved the way for Mary and Joseph's arrival into Bethlehem.
(The soldiers had to protect the crowd from the Donkey who did get a little stage fright at one point).

So while Mary and Joseph were seeking shelter at an inn, we were allowed inside the next set of gates.  We made our way toward the main stage (stable) while Mary and Joseph continued to go from inn to inn.

Once they settled into the inn, the doors opened showing the baby Jesus was born - and the star shown above the Manger where he lay.

There was a beautiful performance then of Oh Holy Night -

And then the three wise men arrived to offer their gifts... coming in on a camel and chariots.

Shepherds were also there to worship the baby....

And at the end, the angel appeared while they sang Silent Night... and it was so moving.  Everyone in the audience began singing along.

Dave admitted he actually got a bit choked up seeing this show - shhh I kind of did too.  It really was a moving performance.

Drew told us unprovoked how much he liked it too and the next morning while I was helping him brush his teeth he brought it up again saying "Mommy that was really awesome what we did last night."

Here is the link for the Living Bethlehem - shows are over for the "season", but I recommend doing this next year if you're in the area on a Thursday - Monday while it's running.  Even better - it's free!

Visiting the Ice Princess

While we saw Santa at the free town tree lighting earlier this month, it's not the "official" Santa you can see at the mall.  So when my co-worker told me her daughter got a job as the Ice Princess at the mall, we made the trip to see her - and well Santa of course.  See my co-worker's daughter has babysat for Drew on several occasions and he refers to her as "Big Audrey" all 5 feet and 90 pounds of her.

So off to the Ice Palace we go!


So despite waiting an excruciating amount of time on a Sunday night no less, we finally get to enter the second phase of the Ice Palace - that's code for yet another line.


Thankfully this part of the line had some fun hands on things for the kids.  You know to help alleviate the whining and the "how much longer is this line" kind of questions.  Drew got to put his hand into real ice where they had polar bear footprints.

And then he could get measured next to a polar bear....



Not even Daddy comes close to the bear's size when he's standing up.


And then we get inside the ice palace where it's "snowing".  The kids loved the powdery stuff, but you could tell the parents hated it. 



The darned snow stuck to every article of clothing on you and your kid just before s/he sees Santa and pays a ridiculous amount of money for one photo (although they force you to buy a package - you can't get just one copy of a photo).


My camera didn't focus well on the photo... I promise the real one isn't blurry.


And then after you finally visit Santa (over an hour after we arrived) we finally get to see who we we really came for  - the Ice Princess.


Drew and Big Audrey.  We loved that photo!

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