Our Holidays at a Glance

Dylan and Addie enjoyed the holidays this year.
They met Santa at the Americana Mall, which was pretty impressive.



We spent two days at Disneyland with Ryan's family, complete with the Pixar Parade that knocked Dylan's socks off!



Then we went down to San Diego up through Christmas Day.
Dylan had fun waking everyone up on Christmas morning, opening presents, and giving Addie a present he made and wrapped by himself:



On the day after Christmas, we headed up to Lompoc to spend a week up at Briana's sister's house, where Dylan soaked up some time with his cousins and Addie popped out her second tooth.

Here's some footage of the cousins helping bring the presents into the livingroom for opening:

Christmas in Oregon

We just returned from a 10 day trip up to the Oregon coast, where my parents live for part of the year since they've retired. Their log-cabin house is incredible and very comfortable, which made it not only hard to wake up each morning while we were there, but also very hard to leave yesterday.

This is the house - viewed from the lake on our boat-ride between rain storms (FYI, Oregon gets something like 70 inches of rain a year!)
Here we are on my parent's boat, snuggled up and enjoying the time outside!
Dylan loved "driving the boat" with his grandpa (who he calls his Tapa).
Dylan in front of the Christmas tree that my parent's got for us to have downstairs during our stay and wake up to on Christmas morning.
Time to open presents... Ready, set, go!
Lots and lots of presents.

Sidenote: When we arrived at LAX yesterday, we ran into the paparazzi at the baggage claim. Who were they looking for? None other than Larry Birkhead (the daddy of the late Anna Nicole Smith's baby). As I stood waiting for our bags, I chatted with the camera-man for TMZ who said that the celebrities actually tip the press off themselves to get publicity. Gotta love LA.

Christmas Cutie

A Christmas Visit

Last Saturday Ryan's parents came up for a visit and to celebrate Christmas together. Dylan enjoyed the plethora of gifts, his and ours, excited to open anything and everything.
His favorite gift: a Cars racetrack. If he could have taken it to bed with him, I'm sure he would.
Grandma brought me some cookie cutters, along with some sugar cookie dough and a variety of colored sprinkles.
For as many sprinkles those suckers had on them, they actually turned out pretty good. Dylan, of course, was very impressed with the product!

Trimmin' the Tree

Sunday night we trimmed the tree. Christmas music was playing, ornaments came out from hiding, and little boys got giddy with excitement!
Dylan seemed to have a favorite branch (loading all the ornaments he could get his hands on - all together). And don't you even try to convince this toddler that he may like to spread them out. No way!

Back to his little branch.
And 'ol Thaddeus assumed the position most cats do at this time of year.

Christmas Morning

And two hours into opening presents barely made a dent in the massive pile of presents, but we got through them. Never you worry about that!

Christmas Eve

Dylan opening a few presents on Christmas Eve with Papa.


Dylan with his new rocking horse! At first he was a bit skeptical, but by the next morning, he warmed up and was ready to ride!

Here's one of Uncle Matt and I before dinner.

Dylan playing with Papa. No one can say that he doesn't get enough attention!

Kisses for mama on Christmas Eve.

After an exciting Christmas Eve with opening some early presents, playing, and NO NAP, this little guy was TIRED... He doesn't usually fall asleep in my arms these days, but he sure did this night!