New Year's Eve hike

On New Year's Eve I took my kids and Elaina and Chris on a walk to see the chickens, rabbits and turtles.  At first they weren't too thrilled to have to walk there, but they quickly perked up and ended up skipping and/or running almost the whole way there.

The first stop is always the chickens.  

Then onto the see the huge rabbits.

Andrew wanted to take a hike up the hill and take a different trail to see the turtles.  The hill was quite steep and Grant kept saying he couldn't do it, but they all made it to the top.  Plus his Crocs are almost flat on the bottom from wearing them so much.

We had a great view of the valley.  Notice Grant again in shorts and a t-shirt.

I made them take another picture with the hills in the background. 

We took this rocky path to see the turtles.  All of the turtles were either sleeping or hibernating which raised a lot of questions from Grant.  We took a different path back home and played on the playground at the school before heading home.  It was a great way to spend New Years Eve.

The beach in December

Since Natalie has been gone for a year she decided that we should go to the beach to see the ocean. I admit that I was skeptical about going to the beach in December, but it now might be my favorite time to go.  It was probably almost 70 degrees with no wind and no fog.  We we all shocked at how nice it was there.  We also got two great (and free) parking spots.  My parents came with us, but since it was Danny's birthday he was golfing.  I should have brought a change of clothes for the kids, but I didn't so I told them to roll up their pant legs.  You will see by the pictures below that that worked for a while until they got really wet and the water weighed down the pants so they kept coming unrolled. Needless to say, fun was had by all.  They ran in and out of the water, looked for shells, looked for dolphins and ate every last snack we brought.  

I was mocked for bringing my rain boots, but a least I did not get sand in my shoes!

Grant had fun chasing the seagulls away.

I love how happy they are in this picture.

These two stayed away from the water, but did a lot of digging.

Yep, see how well they stayed out of the water?  It was just too much to resist.

Grant almost got a bit wet here, look at him try to get away.

There were some rather large waves at times.

Even though everyone else was warm, my mom still had a large blanket and was cold.

We had to strip the kids down in the car and crank up the heater.  Claire and Grant fell asleep on the way home, so we must have done something right.  We had a great time at the beach and it is hard to believe that the weather is nicer than we have seen it in August.

Christmas 2013

As with every morning, Andrew was the first one up on Christmas day.  We told him he had to wait until at least 7:30.  They were really excited to open presents, but I got them to pose for one picture.

Among other things, Andrew got a basketball and the Sharks tickets he wanted.

 Grant got some Caillou race cars and a truck with a horse trailer.

Claire got the Lego Friends she wanted, some clothes and lots of American Girl stuff.

 After we were done we headed to my parent's house to open some more presents and eat some yummy cinnamon rolls.  Yep, more tries at the group shot.

Elaina got an American girl and Claire and I were admiring her.

I also got Claire and Elaina matching doll/girl outfits.

Andrew and Chris had fun playing Chris's new game

Later that day, we installed the new doll bike seat on her bike.  Super fun!

It was great to have Natalie's family here for Christmas!  We had a great dinner, again no pictures!  We thoroughly enjoyed the nice weather the week that Natalie was here.

Time before Christmas

As usual, things were very busy the weeks leading up to Christmas.  I didn't take very many pictures between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It always seems like I am taking pictures of things, but when I go back sometimes there aren't any, so maybe I am just too old now (see pic below) and can't remember things.  They had a Christmas party at the club where they had a Santa.  I didn't want to brave the mall to see the Santa there, so we got lucky.  Claire was quite thrilled to be able to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas.  Among her wants were an itouch (with a pink case), Lego friend Lego sets, an American Girl horse, a pink recorder, and black "high heel" shoes.  Well, Santa did pretty good at 4 out of 5.

Andrew didn't really want to sit on Santa's lap, but we told him to be a good example for Grant.  On his list were several PS3 games, more recorder songs, Sharks tickets, 49er tickets and the movie Despicable Me 2. Santa managed to get everything except the 49er tickets. 

The first thing to notice about this picture is that Grant is wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  It is really hard to get him to wear pants and long sleeved shirts and sometimes I don't have the energy to make him change.  Grant wanted a steam train, a fire truck and the Planes movie. 

The long awaited arrival of the Idaho cousins happened on December 22nd.  They were so excited to see them again even though it had only been a month since we had seen them at Thanksgiving.  After church we made gingerbread houses together.  I totally thought that I had taken more pictures, but most likely I was covered in icing.  They had a great time designing their houses and putting on as much icing and candy as possible.

The next day Natalie watched the kids for me while I went to SF for work in the morning.  Because the weather has been so nice they went outside and rode bikes and played for a while.  As usually, these two were inseparable.  It is always interesting to me that when they see each other again, they hug and are so happy to see each other but continue on like they haven't been apart.

Yes, it is true, on December 23rd I turned 40.  I don't feel that old, but apparently I am.  My mom had a big dinner with party hats of course.

Hats for everyone!

On Christmas Eve, Uncle Pete finally managed to get Claire's forever loose tooth pulled.  He is the expert at this.

My mom has a tradition of making cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning on Christmas Eve.  Natalie and her family were with Pete's family for Christmas Eve so Claire got to help all by herself.  My mom let her do all of the steps on one batch.  First she rolled out the dough.

Then she brushed the melted butter on the dough.

Next, spreading the brown sugar.

Yikes, cutting the roll.  It was more of a smashing until we taught her how to gently saw back and forth.

Arrange them in the pans.

Then let them rise for a while before cooking.

Claire's teacher gave her a bag of reindeer food which her and Andrew spread on the font lawn before going to bed.  They also made sure to put out cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer.