Merry Christmas

May you all have a wonderful Christmas surrounded by family and friends. We are thankful for this special season that helps to remind us of our saviors birth and life. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives & are so thankful for each and every one of you.

(I know, why do we torture our children? Because our parents did it!)

(Tate cracks me up in this picture. He's probably thinking..."Why are you crying? Daddy is holding you AND you have your Thomas trains. You're funny Max.")

(Taken on Christmas eve in our traditional jammies :)

Dingle Bills

Please to enjoy Max's version of Jingle Bells.

Sung while driving to see Christmas lights last Family Night.

(translated lyrics below)

Dingle awl way. Oh whut bun two wide, 1 perpon, HEY!

Dingle Bills, dingle awl duh way. Oh whut bun two wide, 1 person sley, HEY!

(mommy) Laughing all the way. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Tis' the season

The lights are up (& safely removed from the front door where Max wanted them),

The tree is decorated (except for the bottom half cuz' the dogs ate the tinsel & Max could not resist a few decorations),

The cookies are made (actually we've made a few batches- sugar cookies are Mike's favorite),

And we are all snuggled in bed waiting for Christmas day! (Don't I wish that were true. Just lay around in bed for a couple weeks. This particular day Max was happily playing in the other room and let Mike, Tate, Boo & I lay around for an hour or so- heaven!)

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah!

Doppelgangers

Watching news the other night I happened to catch this reporter...remind you of anyone?






I know, right? I couldn't believe it either. Maybe it really is her and that's why she's so exhausted. Being a sleep deprived full time mom, reporter, wife and friend can wear a girl out! (cuz being a mom couldn't possibly be doing it on its own...hopefully the sarcasm is coming through).

Personnaly, I think my sweet friend is cuter :)

Tate

He pretty much always sounds like this & he is a very eager smiler, particularly when he's held & spoken to.

How I feel lately

Tell me I'm not the only one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8

Halloween Celebrations

With the church's trunk-or-treat on Friday, the Ghost/Goblin festival at the Arboretum & hitting the most wonderful Halloween street ever in Sierra Madre on Halloween, it was a packed couple of days. It was tough to narrow down all the cuteness, so you'll have to endure a few pics on this post.

Trunk-or-Treat (indoors this year)
Fun stuff at the Arboretum. They had tons of crafts & games for kids.

We call it Halloween Street, but it's a fabulously decorated street in Sierra Madre where the homes go totally over-the-top with decorations. Max got a huge kick out of it even though we were there early and some had not finished setting up and not everyone was ready with candy. We attempted to charge Max the obligatory parent tax on his candy, but G.G. beat us to it and had already cleaned him of all the good candy. She's pretty quick for a Grandma ;) At one house Max decided to just sit and wait. It took us a while to get him to come away from their porch.

Tate was a Monkey on Halloween. I swear he breathed a sigh of relief when we got home and took the costume off him.

We stopped at a nearby neighborhood on the way home where Max finally grasped the concept of going to the porch and saying "Trick-or-treat" to get candy. He was very polite and would shout "HOORAY!" after candy was dropped in his bucket and then say "thank you" all on his own as we would walk away. Sadly I didn't have the camera with me.

Hope everyone got to charge a fabulous Parent Tax this year! Thanks to my sister for the idea in the first place, we were just gonna steal it, but a "tax" sounds so much better.