Christmas, 2012

 We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  Both my brother and sister were able to spend Christmas morning with us, so like Thanksgiving, we had our entire immediate family at the house for the holiday.  With every one in my family married now, who knows how many opportunities we will have to all be together like this.  I know next year we are going to try to be in New Jersey for Christmas, and hopefully we will be able to have a second child by 2 Christmases from now, so we will probably want to actually spend Christmas at home.

We definitely enjoyed the day, and especially watching Kalea take every thing in for the first time.  Here is my parents tree Christmas morning.  Santa stopped by our house and delivered a nice tricycle for Kalea since she was such a good girl this year.

Gramma and Grampa picked out a nice Kalea sized chair for her to enjoy.

Of course Santa provides a new toothbrush, and this year he even brought 2 so she can keep 1 at our house and 1 at Gramma's house.

She really enjoyed spending time with her Aunt and Uncle.  i don't know why she was doing this, but I just loved her "Home Alone" look I caught on camera.

Every one enjoying the morning together.

The stalking all hung by the chimney with care.  Including Kalea's temporary stalking nice and small in the middle.  Gramma is still working on finishing her cross-stitched version.

Kalea really enjoyed her gift from Santa.  Here she is checking it out with Uncle John.

She likes it!  Grampa pushing her back and forth.

Daddy's turn to show her the ropes on her new bike!

What a wonderful Christmas we had.  I couldn't have asked for a better day, except of course for having Mom Mom and Pop Pop there as well!  I hope everyone  had a wonderful Christmas.  We are looking forward to the new year and what surprises and changes it will bring with our family.

Grampa's Birthday and Christmas Eve

My Dad's Birthday is very close to Christmas, and because of this, he grew up very particular about how he likes to celebrate his big day.  Now with Kalea in our lives, he has someone in the family to commiserate with in having a birthday so close to a big holiday.  He now is able to share in a joyful occasion with his first grandchild.

Here is a picture of the Christmas babies spending some time together watching football.

Kalea has a brand new outfit and I decided to have her wear it for Grampa's birthday.  Here she is chasing after Charlie.

My Dad's favorite birthday cake is usually made by my mom, but she took him to dinner while we set up his birthday festivities at home.  Needless to say from this picture, the cake turned out a little funny.  At least it still tastes great!

Skyping with John and Kristin while opening birthday presents.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Now on to Christmas Eve.  Sorry Dad, I just have to since I don't have a lot of pictures from that day!

We had some time in between wrapping presents and enjoying tamales to play "So Big" with Kalea while playing with a football.

Taking a break on the kitchen floor.

On Christmas Eve, my family always opens one gift and it is a new set of Christmas pajamas.  After the pajamas, it is time to read "The Night Before Christmas."  We read it to Kalea last year, but of course she was only 2 days old, so she really didn't know what was going on.  This year, she enjoyed listening to the story while playing with a new book.  In this picture, she is actually looking at the story, but for the most part she was playing with her book.

We really love the Holidays; spending as much time as possible with our family is the most important part of the Christmas season for us.  In the end the presents don't matter, they will be forgotten with time.  I love making memories and traditions that hopefully Kalea will be able to share and pass down to her family some day in the future.  Merry Christmas Eve!

New Jersey Trip, Part 2

Now that all of the fun of traveling, birthdays, and Christmas has come and gone, I can finally share some more from the events these past 2 weeks.  

When we were in New Jersey, Mom Mom and Pop Pop couldn't wait for Kalea to open her Christmas presents since we wouldn't be able to stay through the Holiday.  They really enjoyed her opening her presents, especially Pop Pop.

The weekend we were there, we had a little birthday party for our little one year old and I snapped this picture while we were opening her presents.  I should have taken one looking into the other room to see the rest of the family, but instead I just have this one.  It was a lot of fun and a great way to see lots of family all at once.  Thanks everyone for making it out and helping us celebrate Kalea's first birthday!

Kalea took a little bit of time until she dug into her slice of cake, and she really loved it!

While in New Jersey, we were able to have a little play-date with Pat's childhood friend and there little 15 month old, Zoey.  

We met up with Kalea's Great Aunt and Uncle for some lunch one afternoon.

She loved looking at all of the ornaments each night with Mom mom and Pop pop.

One of Kalea's many presents from her loving Grandparents.  This was one of her Birthday gifts.

Luckily, the rain we had the last couple days of our trip cleared up in time for us to head to Storybook Land and check out all of the lights and see Santa.  Mom Mom really wanted to do this while we were out there, so luckily we were able to do that.  We were also lucky that not only were we rain free, but it was in the high40's/low 50's for the night so not too cold for the middle of December.

We took a ride on the train and Kalea loved it!

We changed her into her warmer Winnie the Pooh outfit.

And we ended the night on the Carousel.

She really liked the ride and all of the lights.

The morning we were leaving, we had some time to head over to Aunt Mare's house to visit before we had to leave.  We got to meet the newest cousin, Juliana.  She is about 3.5 weeks old here.  

Her big brother Trevor is 3 and trying to sneak another scone.  

Pat's cousin Dave and Kalea crawling around.

Aunt Mare enjoying some baby Kalea time!

We had such a wonderful time visiting friends and family.  The time flies by so fast and we never get to see everyone we want to see.  I didn't have any pictures, but Pat got to go to the Eagles game with his two best friends (even though they stink this year, they had fun), and we met up with our friend, Amanda, at her work.  We also spent a lot of time with the family next door.

Hopefully next time we come out, we will be able to meet up with some of those we missed seeing this last time.  Until next year!  

Santa! & Friends, Traveling to NJ

It is amazing to think that it is already 2 weeks into December and we are already visiting friends and family in New Jersey.  It has been a crazy year, to say the least and that trend is going to continue right up through the New Year.  We have enjoyed a Christmas Cookie Party, a work Christmas Dinner at Donovan's (yum!), and just last weekend, Kalea got to meet Santa for the first time.  

We decided to see Santa while he was making an appearance in Temecula, and there was quite a wait.  We arrived to a pretty good sized line and were informed that Santa would be taking a 15 minute  break soon.  We had about an hour to hang out in line so Kalea decided to take a nice nap on Daddy's shoulder.

She was so tired but was quite a trooper once it was her turn to sit on the lap of the Jolly Old Elf.  She was quite fascinated with his fluffy cuff and big white beard.

The photographer was able to get 7 pictures and this last one she actually smiled for the camera (a tough thing to capture form our little one!).   Shortly after this picture, she had reached her limit and began to cry, so Daddy swooped in and saved her.  She loved visiting Santa and I hope she enjoys seeing him every year.

After Santa, we met my parents at a great winery and had some lunch.  It was such a great meal I forgot to take some pictures!  Sorry Mom and Dad!  I need to get better at taking pictures on normal outings!

The next day we made plans to meet by best friends, Andrea in Old Town Temecula.  We have both been very busy and it has been difficult to meet up recently.  This was a great opportunity to just hang out with her and catch up before the Holidays.  

I haven't gotten a picture with her and Kalea since last Christmas when Kalea was 3 days old!

It was a crazy few days getting everything ready at work for a vacation back East.  Hopefully they are surviving without me!

We decided to take an early flight to help with Kalea traveling since she is a morning person.  We were allowed to board just after First Class so we had some time to hang out while the huge plane was being boarded.  She was already interested in the screens in the back of the seat and looking outside the window.

She also grabbed the flight safety card all on her own and began "reading" it.  I promise she did this all on her own and was really interested in it.  It kept her occupied for a good 10 minutes.

After this cute moment we had a looooong day of plane problems.  After sitting on the plane for 2.5 hours, they decided they needed to de-plane and jack the plane up to check on mechanical problems.  We ended up getting food voucheers and a different flight that arrived 3 hours after our original arrival time.  To top it off, our bags didn't make it and we had a small snafu with our rental car (this one worked in our favor since we ended up with a better car!).  Luckily, we all ended up home safe and sound and our luggage arrived the next day.

The first full day of our trip, Pop Pop was very anxious for Kalea to open some of her Christmas gifts since we aren't staying through the holiday.  He wants her to have an opportunity to play with them while visiting, so he helped her along a bit in opening the gifts.

Later that night, Mom Mom was showing Kalea the Christmas decorations in the house.

And later that night Kalea was out cold in her arms with the long travel day finally catching up to her.  (She slept over 12 hours last night!)

We can't wait to see what else this trip brings!

11 months on Turkey Day!

Kalea's first Thanksgiving was also her 11 month birthday.  One more month to go until the big day (which means I don't have much time left to plan for her 1st Birthday party!)  We had a wonderful small Thanksgiving with my parents, siblings (all of us together) and my sister's mother-in-law.  Pretty tame for our usual family gathering.  

I haven't had a chance to weigh her and get her height, but I will get it when we go back home tomorrow.  

I have been taking all of her month pictures with the purple blanket my mom had made her, but I forgot to bring it up to her house so I had to use an alternative blanket, oh well!

She has grown up a lot this last month.  Especially over the last week or so, there have been so many new things she now does.  She is now officially crawling, though it is her own unique way.  She gets to where she wants to go, including climbing over our legs. 

She is eating pretty much everything we eat now, which is very helpful in keeping us eating healthier.  She is a pro at feeding herself, even with slippier foods.  

She has become very vocal  when she wants something, with lots of early morning chatter.  Yesterday morning she woke up the whole house and we think it was just because she wanted everyone else to be up with her.  

She just started waving the day before Thanksgiving, sometimes waving to herself.  I came home from work and she waved to me from down the hall.  She is still figuring it out so she has to be in the right mood to get a wave out of her.  She loves waving at the kitties in the morning.  

She LOVES looking at pictures and pointing to different things to hear what they are.  I have a few pictures below of her with her new favorite book.  She loves to look at our fridge and at pictures on the wall to look at familiar faces and hear their names.  

She has changed so much this past month, luckily a lot of our loved ones got to see her at Sara's wedding (post coming soon, I promise).

One last thing she is now able to do is to get into a seated position all on her own.  This of course means that we have now stopped using the bassinet attachment on her pack-n-play and will soon be moving her crib setting down.   Full on baby-proofing of the house is next (just in time for Christmas decorations!)

Now for some pictures, some from our Thanksgiving family time as well.

She loves turning the pages herself, and with the opposite hand.

Here she is pointing to the picture, wanting to know what it is.

A couple days before her 11 month photo shoot, I took some pictures for my Gma to use for her Christmas card.  Here are a couple of my favorites!

And now to the Thanksgiving pics.

Here is our first family photo with everyone married!  Both Grandkids/dogs as well.  

And here is our group shot with a timer on my camera.  It took us quite awhile to get it right, but it finally worked!

Our table this year

My dad was showing all of his sons how to carve up the turkey.

John loves to make faces.

Our first family thanksgiving as 3!

Kalea loved her turkey day feast!

Aunt Sara with a bundled up Kalea ready to snuggle.

The end of a wonderful family day and 11 month Birthday.  She was sweating so bad in this outfit, but she was so comfy on her Daddy.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!