christmas eve in the park

The holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day is my favorite time of the year.  It starts really getting cold around here and I'm definitely a cold weather gal.  Both my birthday & my husband's birthdays are right around Thanksgiving.  Plus, the holidays means family. 

As kids we had a few traditions that my parents and aunts & uncles kept going for us and now we're doing those things and making new ones for our kids.  My sister's family and Ray and I and the girls go to Christmas in the Park on Christmas Eve.  So far I think this is our 5th Christmas in the Park.  Christmas in the Park is a giant holiday display at Cesar Chavez Park in Downtown San Jose.  Girl Scout troops, preschools as well as other school grades, clubs and organizations decorate Christmas trees and every few feet there's some sort of animated display for the kids to ooh and ahh over.  Santa visits and you can get the best hot chocolate there.  It's so good because you literally can only get it at Christmas in the Park.  For the rest of the year it is nowhere to be found.

Over the years the event has gotten bigger and bigger and now it takes up a few streets close by with carnival rides and junk, but we only go through the trees and get our hot chocolate.  Two years in a row now my nephew has helped decorate his preschool's tree so our goal was to find that one and our great nephew Jacob's tree, but we couldn't find his!  We don't go through the whole park - it's a lot of trees.

 Dominic and his class tree

Must be Christmas.  The three kiddos all smiling and looking at the camera!

 

Olivia's first Christmas in the Park.  She's thrilled.

Annnnnd....it wouldn't be Christmas at Christmas in the Park without the Jesus people.  This year they were on both sides of the park and this one was just yelling.  The other one talks about how we're all going to hell.  It's festive.

After that we head over to my parents' house where we have hot chocolate with candy canes and the kids open a present or two and then we head home.

We made sure to bundle Olivia up before going out in the cold

 My mom made the 'big' kids bathrobes for Christmas.  Emma got a Disney Princess one, Dominic got Cars and Chloe got Minnie Mouse.  Can you tell we're a Disney family??

Hope your Christmas Eve was full of hot chocolatey goodness!

'twas a gooood weekend

It was a busy weekend, but a good one for sure!

We started off the weekend with a bit of bouncing in the bouncy house.  Ray was getting it ready for our niece's birthday party so he decided to set it up and Emma could invite her friends that live on our street over to bounce for awhile.  And bounce they did!

Then we got ready and headed out to our fellow Daisy Scout's house for hot cocoa and cookies before we went downtown to take part in the Holiday Tree Lighting Parade.

When it was time we made our way downtown and got lined up to join in the parade.  It was going to go down the main drag in Morgan Hill and end with the tree lighting.  We marched along with other Girl Scout troops and the girls were so excited to see all the floats the other groups put so much work into!

We didn't see them but Ray was able to take a picture of the Marines who lead the parade.  They were so impressive!

There was this old firetruck and an old police car.

Lana's Dance Group

And here's our girls!  Their first time in the Holiday parade and in their Daisy uniforms!  They looked so cute!  It was so cool to see how many people came out to watch the parade.  They lined up along the street and cheered everyone on.  My parents, Auntie Marilyn, mother-in-law Frances & sister-in-law Theresa came all the way out just to watch the girls.  My mom had to leave right afterwards to go to work too!  It really solidified my belief that Morgan Hill is the best town EVER.  There's just such a feeling of community and pride.  And it was so much fun getting to spend more time with our Girl Scout parents.  We really lucked out in that department.  Each and every one of them is awesome and so gung-ho about giving our girls the best Girl Scout experience they can have.

After the parade we introduced the Kaisers and my in-laws to the Crying Tiger at Siam Thai Restaurant.  It's only the best steak EVER!

We had a great day and the weekend was only halfway over!

On Sunday we had the Minnie Mouse Chloe Day of Festivities!

 

My mom made Minnie cupcakes

Another picture of my sister not smiling - on purpose.

My friend Kim made the delicious cake pops!

I swear she's having a good time!

Chloe liked her dress up gloves.

Ray's downfall.  He spent time in the bouncy house.

lazy birthday

The last days of November are a birthday bonanza in our house.  My birthday is on the 28th and Ray's is on the 30th.  It drives our family crazy, but then they should be happy because then we just have one dinner for both of us instead of two separate ones!

Sunday we had a game night with my family and some friends.  My team actually won at Pictionary!  Sometimes things just happen so fast in that game that by the time I process what's happening the other team is rolling the dice!  We played Disney Apples to Apples and then Sour Apples to Apples.  I love that game!  Tho I did not win either. :(

My birthday was just another day.  Emma woke up a little under the weather from the busy weekend and actually threw up a little.  I kept her home from school, fed her some toast and quarantined her on the couch.  She was much better by the afternoon.  When Ray got home we headed out to Babies R Us and got Olivia a two mobiles.  She's starting to get interested in checking that stuff out.  One goes on the changing table and you can attach it to a play pen or the stroller.  It's simple, pink with three little butterflies and it plays tinkling music.  She loves it.  It does a pretty good job of distracting her during diaper changes.  The other plays music and has three little round animals (a lion, a monkey & an elephant) that alternate lighting up.  They're like little lanterns.  It also will project a moon and stars onto the ceiling.  It's so cute, but so far she's not too interested.

Dinner at PF Changs so I could get some Salt & Pepper Calamari and Salmon steamed with Ginger.  Then we headed back home and I put together the mobile.

The next day was our shared birthday and we had dinner with Ray's family at an Italian restaurant.  Emma and I scoured Targets looking for these wafer cookies that Ray loves.  Found some at the 4th Target.  Score!

Today Ray had the day off for his birthday and decided he would hang out in bed and catch up on his TV and get some much needed rest.

So now it's 11:40 pm and everyone's asleep (for now) and the birthday festivities are over.  This weekend my niece turns 2 and we'll be attending her Minnie Mouse birthday party!  I can't believe it's been two years already!

I've got to get some stuff done around this house!  I'd like to get the Christmas decorations up and get our tree, but I'm not sure when we're going to get around to that!  I should start with finishing the laundry....

labor day busy-ness

We had quite a busy weekend this first weekend in September!  We started with Emma getting to get a hot lunch at school on Friday.  She was so excited and wanted to me to take a picture of her with her envelope of money.

Look at how tan she is!

Of course, she forgot to take her money to the cafeteria with her.

Then Ray and I went on a search for a new bike.  First he was going to refurbish his dad's old bike, but after talking to one of the guys at Sunshine Bike's here in Morgan Hill he realized it would cost as much to fix this bike up as it would to buy a new one.  So we went to just about every bike place we could get to before Emma got out of school.

We didn't find anything.  So we picked up Emma and headed out to Los Gatos and decided to take Emma to La Fondue in Saratoga.  This is probably my favorite restaurant ever.  Emma was excited to try the cheese fondue and steak off the grill, but mostly it was just a stop gap to the chocolate.

She was so excited!  She barely got any cheese on the bread, but she said it was so delicious.  I was too busy eating chocolate to take pictures of her during the dessert course!

Afterwards we headed over to Sports Chalet and Ray found the style of bike he wanted on sale.  The only problem was the color.  It was blood orange with black accents and it mostly just looked red, but in certain light it did look orange.  He bought it, but I could tell he wasn't really super happy about it.

Saturday we headed out to DeAnza College where on the first Saturday of every month they hold a huge flea market in the parking lots.  Lots of fun stuff to look at, though we didn't buy too much.

As with all the school around the Bay Area DeAnza's adding the solar parking lot panels which will be awesome next year in adding some shade on the hot days!

I love these china plate wind chimes so much I took two pictures of them.

This would make the cutest cake topper!

After the flea market we headed out to look for some accessories for Ray's bike and then headed out to my parents' house to celebrate my Auntie Marilyn & Auntie Terrie's birthdays.

You can't see it so well but my mom made the candles from a 'M' and a 'T'.

Course all the kids had to run over to help blow out the candles.

My cousin Austin got some new glasses and I wish I had his dad's senior picture so I could show you how identical their glasses are.  I took a picture of him and he said I had to take one of him not smiling because he's pretty sure his dad didn't smile in his picture.

My Mom & Dad went to the Longworth family reunion down in Southern California a couple of weekends ago and our cousin Wally gave me his old Canon Rebel 2000 film SLR.  I took a few pictures and I can't wait to finish the roll so I can see how I did!

Wally had a 28-300mm lens and a standard lens.  When I was looking at lenses online I discovered that the 50mm lens I've been coveting is much cheaper for this one...*hint, hint* :)

On Sunday we headed over to Sunshine Bikes in Gilroy to see what kind of accessories they had.  While there Ray found a bike closer to the one he really wanted.  

It's the same bike I have except it's the men's version and matte black.  We like Electra bikes.

They're so preeeety.

So now he's a little happier about his bike and we can go on family rides now!

Today we headed over to Valley Fair to use up gift cards that we've had forever.  I got these fancy little beauties!

Sally

Jack

And now they're ready for my Jack & Sally shelf!  So cute!  I love them so!

It was quite the busy weekend, but we survived!  This upcoming week is a whole bunch of doctor appointments and all kids of fun stuff.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!!

thanks ixy!

 

My fancy bloggy friend Ixy over at Illusion gave me an award!  Isn’t she the nicest?

So the deal is that I tell you 7 things about myself and pass the award along to 15 other bloggers.  It’s really like a chain letter in blog form, but way more fun. 

1.  I hate clowns.  Who doesn’t, really?  I believe my hate-relationship began with Stephen King’s lovely bundle of joy, Pennywise from It.  Then the more I thought about it the more I found them creepy until my fear went beyond clowns and into the realm of ‘anyone wearing excessive amounts of facepaint or a mask’.  I do much better now, as I was once known to have fainted at the sight of a clown.  I don’t do that anymore, but I do freak out.

2.  Things that are meant to be creepy I generally find to be awesome.  And sometimes cute.

3.  I love ketchup on my mac & cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches.  I don’t think it’s that strange to put ketchup on my grilled cheese sandwiches because people always eat them with tomato soup so it’s not really that different, but I have yet to find anyone who likes it on their mac & cheese.  *sigh*

4. When I was in elementary school I was one of the last two kids in the Spelling Bee.  Until I spell ‘knee’ as ‘nee’.  To this day whenever I spell knee I think of my crushing defeat.

5.  I dress like a bum most of the time.  I’m constantly afraid that one day I’ll answer the door and it’ll be Oprah’s crew coming to show people how horribly I dress.

6.  I could go to Disneyland once a month if I could.  Ray would probably go insane, but I loooooooove it. 

7. I really dislike that while pregnant I can’t eat sushi.  I wonder if women in Japan abstain from eating sushi while they’re pregnant.  I think not.

I’m not listing 15 bloggers because I know a lot that I read have just been awarded so I’m doing 5 that I haven’t done before.  You should definitely check out their blogs!

1. Sewing Chic
2. Diary of a SnuggleSlut
3. Our Happily Ever After
4. Sonia’s Wonder World
5. The Minute Man’s Wife

Who Knew?

Did you know that mermaids were pirates sometimes?

According to Emma, they were.  This week is Pirate Week at her school.  On Friday they’re supposed to dress like pirates.  First, Emma told me that she was going dress like a fairy.  I told her that fairies are not pirates.  So she told me that she would be a mermaid pirate.  I figured we would cross that bridge on Friday.

She decided it was time for a dress rehearsal.

She’s like a mermaid-pirate-soldier-showgirl.

She must get her fashion creativity from her Auntie Kimiyo.

I ♥ Disney Crap

Today we went to Target.  As always, not the best idea because money is inevitably spent on stuff we really don’t need.  Howeverrrrrrr this time we walked by a bunch of Disney plates and stuff and I had my Christmas present gift card … so we bought crap.

Since I’m hosting Bunco next month at my house it’s really the perfect time to get some platters & a super awesome chip & dip dish.

Seriously … how cute is that???  It’s very cute.  Since we got the bowls, the platter & the chip & dip dish we had to get some plates to match.

I have a favorite villain and she also has some plates and bowls.  I got those too.  Shocker.

And since they were cute & Emma loves Tinkerbell we got some of those too

Yay fun Disney stuff!!