Christmas

Christmas always comes and goes way to fast. It is so sad. We went to the mall today and James wanted to see Santa! Awe! Anyhow, we had a great Christmas. When we woke up Christmas morning we waited for Brianna to awake, which wasn't that long after. Thank goodness. She still gets excited too, especially since she was awaiting a special gift! My Mom and Tom come over to watch the kids open their gifts and have breakfast, Craig makes his eggs that are becoming famous! We started with our stockings which James had been good about not really touching and he didn't even notice that there was a Curious George sticking out of his.

So Brianna gave James his stocking and he freaked out! He hit it and it flew, a couple times! He didn't want anything to do with it! We were all in shock and tried not to laugh! We have it on video and once I upload it I will post it! Finally when I started taking cars out of it he was so excited and wanted more. I guess he was a little confused on that part! He did enjoy opening his other presents though!

The only thing that Brianna wanted for Christmas was an Ipod touch. Santa brought it for her! She was so excited!

After Santa gifts we go down to Craig's sister's house for Christmas with his family. Here is James with one of his favorite presents of the day from Auntie Chris and Uncle JP!

Cousin Mitch and James

From there we went to my Mom's for Christmas with some more of the family.

James received another one of his favorite toys! Now we have two. Yeah!

James actually playing nicely and sharing his train with Jade and Aunt Rochelle!

Kissing cousins! Jade and James

All in all Christmas went well except for the fact that I forgot to mention in the Christmas Eve post that we did have a little mishap. James burnt his hair on a candle! Poor thing was eating a cookie sitting on my lap at the table at Nonni's house and there was a advent wreath with lit candles. He stood up to reach for another cookie and when he leaned over to get it he caught his hair on fire! He was smoking and I started hitting his head. He burnt quite a few hairs! He was ok though. I think more scared that I was hitting him than the actual hair catching fire!
We hope everyone had a great Christmas as well!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we start our day out pretty early at my Mom's and have lunch with my brother and his family. This year was much more fun with James since he now knew what presents were, was excited about it, and could unwrap them himself!

James with his new train set from Nonni and Papa.

After my Mom's we go to mass. Here is James running around outside church since he could not sit in church with everyone else because he wanted to see Jude or the Christmas decorations. He was going on no nap!

Family pic

James fell asleep in the car on the way home from church at 5:30 and was out for the night! Christmas is so exhausting!

Christmas Cookies!

Every year we go to my Mom's to bake X-mas cookies. Today was the day! James already knows what the mixer is for and that he is going to get to lick the bowl when we are all done so he couldn't wait!

My nieces and James


James finally getting to lick the bowl!



James trying to make more when he finished it all!



Helping Mommy decorate cookies!


Oops! He spilled the whole thing of sprinkles!


How much uncooked cookie dough is ok for a child to have???

James laughing

Here is a little video of James cracking up at Craig making silly noises!

Boat Parade

Tonight we did our annual trip to the Balboa boat parade. It was a little different this year since my brothers, (the scrooges) didn't attend and then the restaurant that we have been eating at for the last couple years...since my Dad has passed, was under new ownership and we didn't know until we got there! I was so disappointed as I was craving the blue cheese gnocchi! I did pick a good night though since it only took us one minute to find parking and it wasn't that cold! Anyhow, our friends Thorin and Nayla joined us with their 18 month daughter, Elena. James loved it. Lights AND boats what more could he want! Here are a few not so great photos we got!

Getting our X-mas tree

Today we went to get our X-mas tree. I thought for sure James would be so excited because he has been so excited passing by the x-mas tree lots and he loves everything to do with x-mas so far. He loves seeing Santa and x-mas lights. So we get to the tree lot and he wants nothing to do with the trees. Here are a couple pictures to show you how scared he was of the trees!

Brianna's 14th B-day

Brianna just turned 14 and on Friday she had a slumber party at Nonni's house. Very brave of my Mom to have 8 teenage girls to spend the night! They had a school dance that night as well so all the girls came over to my Mom's house to get ready and we took them to the dance, picked them up, and then after cake and ice-cream took them toilet papering! I know...my Mom and I taking these girls TPing! I think the last time I did that I was her age!

Happy Thanksgiving

Family pictures

Thanks to my friend Carrie we got some great pictures this year to use for our X-mas cards! Here are a few I didn't use that I love just as well!

Blogging

So I finally started a blog thanks to a couple of my friends. Mainly Lindsay who has been trying to get me to do one for a few months now. Since she had gotten me into scrapbooking, and I finished my first one, I now have so much time for blogging! (yea, right!) So we will see how this goes! Hopefully you will be interested in what is going on in our day to day life!