Christmas Eve at my Aunt’s house:

The set of fake mustaches were my White Elephant gift… so awesome.

The outside table might have gotten a little silly, and Laura might have regretted sitting with us.

 

Jamie built a castle out of cups and those party poppers.

Ben’s White Elephant gift was a package of Gerber Puffs (baby food), which he thoroughly enjoyed after dinner with his BFF Aunt Jamie.

Christmas Day brunch was at my house after church:

 

The End!

A quote from Natalie as I was taking the picture above: “Daddy, I’m helping you by management!”

As soon as we got home, Ben dashed off to find his plastic saw… he knew exactly what to do.

An afternoon of painting salt dough ornaments with Grandma.

Our kids were Violet and Dash from the movie “The Incredibles” this year.  We are getting a lot of use out of these costumes, since the kids have been acting out the movie for weeks!  They even introduce themselves to strangers and friends alike as Violet and Dash. Unfortunately Violet’s mask disappeared the week before Halloween…

Since our neighborhood isn’t great for trick-or-treating, we headed to Old Town Camarillo on Saturday, where the stores pass out candy. The kids were very excited to walk with Jessica!

Sad attempt at a family portrait:

Theirs turned out much better!

(Natalie, Grace, and Audrey, completely engrossed in a Tinkerbell movie.)

Playing games and eating brownies till midnight is the best kind of party!

Here’s a picture of Natalie at midnight… she was barely staying awake.

Audrey didn’t quite make it!

The next morning it was off to the Santa Barbara Zoo, our New Year’s Day Tradition.

The otters had 5 babies are they are so cute and fun to watch!  My favorite of the day.

Ben loved these macaws, because he can make a squawking noise just like them.  Natalie’s favorite was the baby elephant statue, as usual.

I thought this was so cute and funny… the gorilla loves his brown blankie, too!  He was dragging it around with him everywhere, just like someone else I know…

We finished off our Santa Barbara excursion at the train station for lunch with Uncle Matt!

My sister had to work on Christmas Eve, so we started the festivities early with breakfast at her house on the way to Los Angeles.  She made chocolate chip pancakes for us and we passed out presents.

Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt Jessica’s house with Mom’s side of the family.  We always have a wonderful time there, and the kids have cousins to play with which is the BEST!

We spent Christmas morning at home as a family.  It was just right!

I think Natalie is going to be a great reader. She LOVES books!

Our family picture… courtesy of the tripod:

We were so happy to have all of our local family members over for a Christmas Tamale Lunch!   Andy’s co-worker’s mother-in-law makes bunches of authentic home made tamales each December, as we were fortunate to discover last year.  We got 4 dozen this time around! Tamales are one of my favorite foods so this is a tradition I can get really excited about (in case you couldn’t tell)

There was yet another Christmas celebration on Monday.  We had a delicious turkey dinner at Ted & Lennie’s house with Matt, who had to work on Christmas.

Natalie is so appreciative of all her gifts!  She has been thoroughly enjoying every single one of them, and that is fun to see.

There were more girls, but these were the ones who held still for a picture!  Their expressions are so funny.

We had GREAT seats this time, and really enjoyed the ballet!   Natalie has a surprisingly good attention span for this kind of thing.

We did start gearing up for the Christmas season, though.  The kids and I went “shopping” in the hand-me-downs box in their closet, and found some great Christmas footie pajamas.

We also hauled out the Christmas decor and did a little decorating.  I think this is the last year I will use my live tree.  It’s grown a couple feet since last year and doesn’t seem too happy to still be living in a container!

These were two VERY excited tree trimmers.  It still looks a little sparse, but  Mommy the Head Decorator was starting to get sick and wasn’t feeling terrible motivated.  Anyway, its hard enough to get them to leave those ornaments on the tree!

The tree inspired Natalie to dance, so she changed outfits (typical).

Can you tell we are excited to be on a trip by ourselves?

(PS- My bangs aren’t actually crooked, nor did I cut them myself even though it looks like it. Just having a bad hair weekend I guess. Sorry that was just really bothering me.)

I didn’t really take many pictures at the wedding, unfortunately, so here’s our smiling faces, along with Cathi (Andy’s mom) and Danny, who we got to catch up with during our stay in Madera (nice to see you guys!).  It was beautiful there, in a picturesque setting with a river on one side and a vineyard on the other.

Side note: Andy and I love vineyards.  Not only for what they produce– the perfectly uniform rows of grape vines just really satisfy our compulsive need for order and organization.  We had some good laughs over that, but truly it was sooo soothing to drive through miles and miles of vineyards. Yeah, we’re weird.

On the drive home we stopped in charming Los Olivos, which I knew Andy would enjoy as his Father’s Day treat.  It is almost completely made up of little shops and wine tasting rooms, and beautiful gardens.  Mom, you MUST go here some time… this shop has the most amazing succulents and you would love it.

I wanted to take this beautiful boxwood home with me very badly, but settled for a picture.

Pretty gardens… I would like my yard to look like that.

But this was the real treat we were there for:  cupcakes perfectly paired with a wine tasting at Saarloos & Sons.  Flavors included Peach Ginger Chardonnay (WOW, especially paired with the Chardonnay), Chocolate Blackberry Syrah (pretty and delicious), and my personal favorite, Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel. They were tiny and we were splitting them, but really it was the perfect amount.

We both loved it!   After that we headed back to our kids, who were in fact glad to see us despite their fun filled weekend at Grandma’s.

We had  Memorial Day BBQ at my parents’ house, where Natalie and Ben each quickly found a group of friends to hang out with.

The kids also got to pick out new pajamas on Memorial Day.  Apparently this is a very exciting thing, and that’s why Natalie wore hers to the BBQ.