Snow

It snowed . . . in California . . . in the valley. This is what we woke up to.

It's Christmas time

Today was the day we got our tree and it was a wonderful start to the Christmas season. We drove up to Apple Hill to pick out and cut our tree. We had fun tromping through the trees and then finally settled on a gorgeous 9 foot tree. We cut it down, got it wrapped up, got some free candy canes and then moved on down the road for a free train ride with Santa. Following that we drove to a local apple farm in search of apple pie and found so much more. We enjoyed some apple strudel, blueberry turnovers, and apple donuts. We got to taste some apple butter and apple desert wine (Yum!) and then grabbed a half gallon of fresh apple cider to take home.

After all that we also managed to get the tree up, lit, have a wonderful tofurkey dinner (prepared by James) and then decorated the tree while sipping egg nog and listening to Christmas songs. The kids were so excited to decorate the tree, they ripped through all the ornaments and had the bottom half of the tree decorated before I had cleaned up the kitchen from dinner. (It was so cute, I should have snapped a picture of the tree bottom half decorated.)

The tree is gorgeous and huge. I've never had a tree so large. I thought it was only in movies that they almost knocked over the tree while balancing on a ladder trying to put up the star, but nope, it happens.

My baby is 7

He's 7, I guess he's not a baby anymore. I hope he had a fun day. He started off the day with opening presents, then had a big pancake breakfast. We went out to see the new movie Planet 51 and then ended the day with Round Table Pizza and ice cream. He wanted the day to be just a family day, and a good family day it was.

Party Day

JR's birthday party was this weekend. We had a bowling party. I think JR had fun.

Soccer Picture

JR had a soccer game on Halloween. Everyone was supposed to paint their face for a fun Halloween game and a team picture afterward. JR was the only one who didn't want to paint his face. But he looks cute anyway. And they won 4-2.

Halloween

The pumpkin patch was really cold and windy, but what a fun place!

My little pirate.

Optimus Prime.

Trick-or-Treating with a bunch of friends.

Time for videos

Mamimamals

Tristan can pedal

Our annual trip to Gold Rush Days!

Catching up

Here are some old pictures I had on my camera that I should have posted a while ago. So here is some catching up. . .

Tristan's first haircut (yes, this is post haircut picture)

JR getting ready for his first haircut in over a year


JR post haircut and in his soccer uniform

JR's first day of 2nd grade

Our very own house!

Grapes from our very own grapevine. (I didn't get a picture of our plentiful peaches)

The sweetest boy

JR is such a sweet person. I think that is one of, if not his best quality. Tristan was really ill this morning and I came into the family room to see this:



The thing I missed, you can kind of see the beginning of it at the very end of the video, is JR leaned over and kissed Tristan. The sweetest.