Christmas/USS Iowa Battleship

Christmas morning Connor was much more eager to go downstairs than last year (last year we had to talk him into checking out his loot).  This year he was the first one down stairs after me.  I thought I took pictures, but apparently not as this was the only one on my camera...oh well.  The kids fared pretty well.  Connor's stuff is on the left, then daddy's, mommy's and Chloe's is on the right.  The stockings that I didn't finish last year, I once again didn't finish this year.  I made sure I got the needlepoint part done for everyone and then couldn't figure out how to get the cuff on the stocking, so hence the names are all missing from them.  My mom told me she would help me this week, so next year they'll be ready :)

As for other gifts-Connor got a new Twenty Trucks shirt and the second DVD of Truck Tunes, Candyland, a cement mixer, a cherry picker truck, a memory game, books, apron, a dinosaur pillow pet, pajamas and a bucket of gears.  Chloe got an elephant ball popper, a vacuum, clothes, a shopping cart, pajamas, a frog and a doll.   Peter got some shirts, and a pajama shirt.  I got a foot massager and some jewelry.  Together we got a Roku, a gift card for dinner out and sonicare toothbrushes.

We did Christmas morning at our own house.  Then my parents, Josh and Bubba came over for breakfast and to see what we got.  We gave them their presents then as well.  After they left Chloe napped and the rest of us played with our goodies.  Later we went to Sean and Amy's house for dinner and present exchange with cousins.

On the 26th Abbie and Rafe came into town and we spent the day with them and E and P were also in town.  We had a great Christmas break!

Today we went to the USS Iowa Battleship in San Pedro.  David, Peter, Connor, Chloe and I enjoyed the battleship.  On the drive there Chloe puked in her car seat.  At one point Connor announces that it smells back there and then the fumes wafted up to the front seat....it was pretty bad.  We arrived and I changed Chloe while Peter cleaned out the seat.  Then we went in and enjoyed the battleship. 

Connor as Chief of Staff

We had a great time, Peter is already talking about going and seeing it again, he picked up several buy one get one free passes.  The weather held up pretty well for us.  It was a bit chilly, but it didn't rain while we were there, which was nice.  On our way home it rained pretty hard.  We stopped for lunch at Cafe Rio, one of Peter's favorite places (we still don't know why there are no locations near us).  Then we got back in the puke smelling car and drove home.  Once home I showered Chloe and then we took the car seat apart and threw it in the washing machine.  The shell needed to be hosed off, but since it was raining I put it out in the rain to get washed off.

Ugly Sweater/Graham Cracker Houses

Friday was my last day of work for two weeks.  That evening my work held their annual holiday work party and ornament exchange at Carvers.  This year they added in an ugly sweater contest and said there would be a prize for the ugliest sweater.  Many teachers set out to make an ugly sweater, some bought one, and some went with festive sweaters.  One of my co-workers suggested that I pin a bunch of my teddy bears to a sweater, and so I did.  While looking for the smallest bears in my collection, I realized most were Christmas bears, so I purposely pinned all of my small Christmas bears to one of my sweaters.  It was awesome!  I walked into Carvers and the people at the front all agreed mine was the best.  One guy walked us to our room and announced to everyone that the competition was over that I had won it.  Awhile later the same guy came back to pick the winner.  Each staff member had to stand and display their sweater.  If you wore a shirt and not a sweater, he disqualified you.  It came down to me and two others, one got disqualified because she took it off and didn't wear it the whole time.  Then it was down to me and the music teacher.  I liked his.  He found a Christmas vest at goodwill and glued silver tinsel around the edges and then spelled out Joy on the back in gold tinsel.  It was pretty awesome.  The guy wanted to call it a tie, but my boss said there was only one prize.....so then he decided that I was the favorite.  Woohoo!  I won bragging rights, a certificate and $50.

Saturday my mom and I went shopping.  I promptly spent my winnings and some more on Christmas gifts, but can say I pretty much started and nearly finished my shopping that day.  I ordered a few things online for the kids as well.  Saturday evening we had cousins over for our annual graham cracker house makings and a trip down Christmas Card Lane.  The festivities got underway a little late, we ate dinner, did Christmas Card Lane and then all the kids fell promptly to sleep.  We divided up the candy and everyone took home their houses undecorated. 

Today Connor and I decorated houses.  I decorated Chloe's and she had a great time eating it afterwards.  Connor decorated his own, let me take a picture and then plucked all the candies off and ate them.  Chloe basically ate the whole thing.

Tomorrow will likely consist of waiting for the garbage truck and making crafts.

Christmas

Before Christmas, I spent several nights working on sewing projects at my parents' house.  Chloe and I would head over after dinner to work on the projects.  This is how I found her one night when it was time to go home.

I spent a lot of time working on fabric books, that I didn't get to making the stockings that I had planned on.  I got as far as cutting out the fabric and then got too tired and ran out of time.  So this year, Chloe got a blue dog that says "Baby's first Christmas" (Yes the same stocking Connor has been using the past three years.)  Connor used a generic plain stocking my mom had in her stash.  Next year we will have cool stockings (perhaps I should do them now, so they'll be ready for next year).

There were no children at my parents' house, so we invited everyone over to our house in their pajamas to see Connor's excitement.  He was a funny kid...took forever to convince him to come downstairs.

Santa filled the stockings with some yummy treats.  Connor requested bananas for Christmas...Santa was sure to please and left three bunches of bananas.  Connor loved them!  Chloe received baby food and cereals. 

Look what I found!

 

 Connor got this cool truck, but he wouldn't take it for a spin, so Chloe tried it out.

 Connor eventually decided it looked like fun.

 

The big highlight of the morning was the train table for Connor and Chloe to share from Mommy and Daddy.

Our first attempt to get Connor to come down stairs.

He finally comes down stairs and totally bypasses the truck...

Freezing and Christmas Adventures

We lived with this gap under our front door for about a week.  Frank and Peter removed all of the mortar from under the tiles and cleaned up the floor which involved removing the threshold for the front door.  Frank was then out of town for a week on a business trip.  We shoved towels under the front door to try to stay a little warmer.  It was really cold that week!  Frank has since returned and fixed the threshold and we are much warmer at night.  Still cold, but not freezing anymore.  A new furnace is on our priority list (current one is tagged by SDG&E DO NOT USE!).

While Frank and Peter were cleaning up the mortar mess, they taped off the family room but forgot to tape off the stairs and close all the upstairs doors.  This is how thick the dust was on the stairs.  There's a thinner layer on everything in all of the rooms upstairs as well.

Empty room

We got reprimanded by our...err ahem I mean my genius way of plugging in all of the Christmas lights.  I apparently did a major no no which could've resulted in a house fire.  Frank says this is a common mistake amongst all people.  I had three extension cords connected to a three outlet thingy that was then connected to another extension cord and then plugged into a timer into the wall.  I thought it was a good idea.  Frank explained why it was not.  He then sent me to Home Depot with a list of supplies and he would fix it.  He installed two of these four plug outlet boxes.  This one under one of the eaves, and the second in the garage.  Then he used heavy duty extension cords and wired them together and somehow they are all on the same timer which is located in a different outlet.  I don't know how he did it, but it works wonderfully!  They are specifically designed to be used for Christmas lights so we won't have any problems hanging them up next year.

Christmas Eve Connor enjoyed eating colored popcorn.  We spent the holidays amongst the families as usual.  We spent most of Christmas Eve shopping and spending time with the O's.  We also opened all of our presents from the O's then as well.  Everyone received jammies amongst other items.

We also did our traditional drive by of the luminaries in Westwood.  There's something so neat about seeing streets lined with luminaries.  When we got home it was bedtime and then Santa came.  At 10:30 there was the sounds of power tools in our family room.  The instructions were clearly misleading, there was no way someone with a regular screwdriver could puncture plastic enough to drill screws in.  It was a late night followed by an early morning.

 Connor enjoyed cooking breakfast

Gotta love the hairdo.

 So this video is two videos in one.  I don't know how I did it, but when you get to the end of the first video, then the second one starts.  The first is of Connor being let out of the room to see what Santa brought him.  The second is him playing with the kitchen.


After opening the kitchen at our house we went to my parents' house to see the stockings and the rest of the kids gifts.  Connor got a rocking horse from us.

A tricycle from his great aunt and uncle.

And a toolbox from grandma and grandpa. 

We also enjoyed blowing bubbles in the front yard.

After brunch we drove to Chris and Mary's and enjoyed some fun with them.   We had dinner there and arrived home late.

Today we went to my parents' again.  Abbie and Rafe arrived and we opened the rest of the presents and had breakfast.  We hung out and enjoyed building a 3D puzzle, playing the Logo game and just chatting.

The Best Santas Village Ever!

This evening we went to see Santa and Mrs. Claus in Poway!  This was the coolest house I have ever seen.  This family has been opening their house to do this for years.  You walk up the driveway and get in a line to see Santa and watch a movie while you wait or you can walk through a few rooms of the house and then through the backyard that is just totally awesome!

Here's the staircase

One of the rooms all decked out with bears...I think this was my favorite!  If you look slightly to the right of the photo you can see Temple Square-just left of Kermit. 

Three little bears played the xylophone

This was the jungle themed room

As we left to go outside we were greeted by the Grinch.

These guys sang and danced for us.

Outside Connor enjoyed catching snow bubbles.

There was a whole village with giant houses.  This was the inside of one of the houses.

I loved the blow up critters floating in the pool.

Here you can see some of the village. 

Here's Mary and her kids.  Shortly after they put Calvin in Santa's lap, he freaked out.  Santa looks at Calvin and Calvin has the look of disgust staring back at Santa.

Connor on the other hand wouldn't look at Santa. 

After sitting with Santa, Mrs. Claus handed out candy canes.  Then behind the sleigh were bins of toys.  Each child was allowed to choose one toy to take.  Also on the property were cookies and hot chocolate and places to sit and eat.  It was just amazing!  The family that puts this on does it for 12 days before Christmas.  They don't hold it on Sundays.  Today was day 1.  I don't know what the hours are, but we were there around 6:30 and left about 8:00.  So to those of you with children or grandchildren-you have to check this house out!!!!  It's on Joyas Court in Poway.  As you start to get close there are signs that help you find the way.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 A couple of days ago we got out our Christmas tree and started decorating it.  This year we only hung the non-breakables as Connor really wanted to do it all by himself.  We've managed to hang a few way up high once he's been in bed.

 He carefully inspects each ornament before finding the perfect spot.

 Connor has been really into all of the lights this year.  So we walked along Christmas Card Lane last night.   Connor liked the chilly polar bear.

 We all liked Calvin and Hobbes

 Then this morning Frank came over and Connor and I got kicked out of the house due to all the noise they were making.  This lovely floor is now gone!  We removed the little half wall that was here too.

 Yes this is our living room.  Isn't it lovely!

 Peter and my dad watch as Frank removed the flooring.  Actually each man took their turn doing the manly work.

 The floor is all gone!

 This is where the flooring moved to.  Each bag weighs roughly 100 pounds.  There's about 15 or so bags here.

 While the guys did the manly work.  Connor and I went to my parents' house and hung up their Christmas lights.  My mom had bought new LED lights to replace their old regular lights...so....since they had no need for their other lights, I requested borrowing them so I could decorate our house.  (We only had three little strands from the condo...not nearly enough to do the whole house.)  Only problem was the ladder didn't reach nearly as high as I need to get to.  Luckily the previous owners had put nails in the wood that they hung the lights on, so I just needed something very long to use to hook the lights onto the nails.

 My mom suggested I use the pool sweep pole with a brush on the end.  I could extend it long enough to reach all of the hooks.  It was perfect!

Then this evening we went to Home Depot and picked up some more extension cords so we can light up all the lights.  We also picked up a blow up Eeyore to keep my Pooh and Tigger company.  Pictures to come shortly when we have everything up.  Yes at our house it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.