Christmas 2008

Christmas at home in Palo Alto.

Christmas this year will be remembered by:
-a fun Christmas Eve spent with our dear friends, the Asays. Yummy food, Janet's beautifully decorated house and table, fun group games, doing the navity with all the kids.
-reading the "The Night Before Christmas" right before going to bed.
-feeling more excited about Christmas than ever before. I had no idea as a kid that my parents were actually more excited and having more fun than I was.
-doing the countdown and running down our hall to the living room (in keeping with tradition...hopefully someday we'll have stairs)
-watching Jack rip open the trampoline and seeing Jordan's look of pure delight when she saw the kitchen and opened the food
-eating pizza and root bear by the tree Christmas Day night
-delivering cookies to a few friends "secretly" Jack loved it and thought it was so cool to sneak away.
-Jordan's chocolate covered face after eating chocolate ice cream bonbons.
-dancing in the kitchen with the kids



Sorry for the late posts! Better late than never, right? I guess this means I don't have to post for another couple of months :)

December Highlights

We met Kent his work in San Jose one night, saw Santa there (again), went to dinner, and then went to Christmas in the Park. It is a delightful display with tons of decorated Christmas trees, miniture Christmas scenes, little train, and even fake snow. The highlight of the night was going on the ferris wheel ride with Jack and seeing the city and all the beautiful Christmas lights from up top.




I caught Jordan snitching some popcorn off this tree. This girl LOVES popcorn. We went to a little event at the Four Seasons Hotel where they offered free gourmet hot chocolate and cookies, and rides with Santa on a horse drawn sleigh (however, right before it was our turn to get on the sleigh a wheel broke and we settled for just sitting on Santa's lap.

Other December highlights: Going to the Oakland temple christmas concert and first night when they turned on the lights, visiting our favorite houses in Sunnyvale that have their lights synchronized to music, ward Christmas party, joy school Christmas party, and Kent's work party, more lights in Palo Alto and ice cream.

Jordan's TWO!

We celebrated Jordan's birthday with her friends Abby and Emily. They were all born within 6 days of each other. We had a little party on a Saturday morning with the three families. It was SO FUN to watch those three girls dance around, play ring-around-the-rosies, and smile for the all the flashing cameras. We love our little Jordan Dolly. She cracks me up lately. She loves her babies. She got diapers and wipes and a little dolly bed for her birthday. She even sticks the babies up her shirt and puts a blanket over her belly. She's been hanging around a lot with my nursing friend April. Whether or not she really gets it??? Her life doesn't get any better than when she has her babies, stroller, and purse (complete with keys, wallet, old cell phone and of course the diapers and wipes. She's a good little mommy.

Halloween

Little Miss Spider and the Fire Breathing Bat (that was all Jack's idea...perhaps I need to explain to him that dragons breath fire, not bats. Oh well, I didn't want to crush his idea). The kids had several occasions to wear their outfits: our ward trunk-or-treat, the joy school Halloween party and on Halloween night.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Another Family Adventure! We took the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium back in September. The kids were fascinated by it all. Our favorite things: the jellyfish, the sleeping otters, and the kids zone. The giant tuna were pretty awesome too.

We made a whole day of it and stopped at the outlets in Gilroy on our way home and ate at In in Out. We have so much fun together :)

Moonlight Run

September 12th

Jennilyn (my good, good friend and running partner, who was pregnant when she ran this!) ran a 10K in Palo Alto's annual moonlight run around the baylands. The race started around 8:00pm so it was really dark when we started running and it was a full moon. It was so fun. There was a big group of girls from our ward and a few from other wards we knew who ran it or the 5K too. We definitely want to make it a September tradition.

Joy School

Jack's Joy School Group

Jack is surrounded by girls! He is the only boy in our joy school group and in his primary class. He is getting lots of dress-up and make-believe play in. Kent and I try to keep him "all boy" by playing tackle football at home and setting up play dates with Nate and Ben.

Joy School is going great. Jack loves it and is really taking some strides with letters and numbers. He loves to do "homework" while Jordan naps.