Trip to Palm Springs

The day after Christmas we drove to Palm Springs to visit Grandma Lala and Papa Rod.  We were so thrilled that Auntie Ashley, Uncle Paul and baby Liam were able to visit, too!  Such a fun trip!  We had Christmas all over again, were able to hang out as a family, saw the cousins play together and even swam a little (even though it was a chilly week in Palm Springs just like it was at home).

Fairy wings, a tiara, a bedazzled mask, and a new dress with sequins = BIG SMILE

Oh, yes, and then add Legos and you have a big smile + hours of play!

(Thank you, Doug and Donna!)

And then there's this little cutie!

We were so excited to snuggle baby Liam, but quickly discovered baby Liam is so anxious to move that he simply has no time for snuggling.  He has exploring to do!  But we still snuggled him against his wishes until he broke free!

 He looks thrilled, doesn't he?

He wasn't sure what to think of tall uncle Corey at first 

but warmed up quickly!

 All 3 grand kids in one place makes for a very fun

and very noisy house!

The girls thought it was awesome to army crawl like Liam!

And poor Liam; the only thing worse than being

snuggled against your will is being put in a tiara by

your older cousin and THEN snuggled against your will!

Such a great trip!  Thanks, Mom and Dad!  

Merry Christmas!

Another awesome Christmas here at the Brooks house!

The girls both sang at the Family Service at church on Christmas Eve and did a great job!

That night after dinner we let them open one present under the tree and they chose their gifts to each other.  Even after all the smiles and cheers on Christmas morning when they received a lot of what they'd wished for, I still loved the Christmas Eve moment the best when they unwrapped their gifts to one another.  Each had selected something that she knew her sister would love. And, sure enough, they know each other well; both girls adored (and haven't let go of) the snuggly toy her sister selected.  

 Christmas morning was the usual pre-dawn madness!  I was struggling with a cold and had taken Nyquil around midnight the night before.  Big. Huge. Mistake.  Getting up early on Christmas morning is difficult enough under normal parenthood end-of-holiday-season-marathon exhausted conditions.  Add Nyquil and I was foggy, to say the least...but the squealing and screaming of two little girls tearing open wrapping paper woke me up eventually.  The girls both received scooters with light up wheels (seriously, the coolest), and numerous other lovely little toys.

 One of Audrey's favorite gifts...a container of cats.  

She has carried these kitties everywhere since opening them!

And one of Natalie's favorite presents (that we actually have a picture of her opening...remember the Nyquil?...Corey was videotaping and I was in charge of pictures.  Woops!) is this cool mermaid fin for her to wear in the pool.  She's working on her butterfly at swimming and this fin makes her actually LOOK like a mermaid when she's in the pool.  She got to use it in Palm Springs the week after Christmas (more on that trip later!)

Oh, and, of course, Julie the American Girl doll had to get braces, too.   

Such a great Christmas.  We're pretty blessed!

December...in 1 post!

Well, it's December.  That means there's just too much celebrating and decorating and baking and office/school partying and purchasing and wrapping and stamping and shipping going on to blog about it.  So, it's all here in this post.  The whole month.  It's been a full one.  And our limited pictures were captured entirely on iphones because of all the comings and goings and above mentioned "-ings" so they're not that great.  In fact, they're a bit foggy.  But, then again, so are we!

These two aren't excited for Christmas at all.

We kicked off the month with tickets to the Nutcracker.  It was an abbreviated one hour kid-friendly production by the Contra Costa Ballet and it was excellent.  The kids loved it and so did we.  It was their first time to the ballet and they both did so well.  I'm so excited about all the ballets to come!

Of course, the girls both had parties at school.  Audrey's was the usual adorable preschool musical production.  They sang everything from Rudolph to Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus, and finished it off with the Reindeer Pokey (think Hokey Pokey but with reindeer parts...antlers, tails, hooves, etc.). Super cute.

But Natalie's class party was a little different.  She spent the last month working on a heritage project at school and researched her Basque ancestor, Grandma Mariluch. The project ended with a Heritage Feast the last week of school and each student's family brought in a dish to share of the studied ancestry.  The feast was amazing and delicious and featured foods from Russia, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Germany, England, France, Mexico, Canada, Armenia, Bangladesh, Italy, China and, of course, the Basque Country. We made Basque beans and although they didn't end up looking very glamorous (who can compete with those Italians and their cannolis??), they were delicious. I loved how many different heritages were represented in her class of 31 kids and it was touching to see how much effort these families put into their shared dish.

Unfortunately both of these important parties were scheduled for the exact same date and time. What are the chances?  So, we divided and conquered; Corey attended Audrey's preschool party and I feasted with Natalie's fellow second graders.  

On the last day of school we picked up Corey at work early and headed into San Francisco for a night.  We'd booked a hotel room on Union Square over a month ago and it couldn't have been more perfect.  We had a picture perfect view of the Union Square Christmas tree and ice skating rink.  We had a great time exploring the holiday sites and feeling the excited energy of the city.  

 The awesome view from our room!

 A really bad family selfie in front of the Union Square tree.

Corey and Natalie decided to ice skate at the rink in Union Square and while Natalie was a bit wobbly at first she picked up confidence and speed within  a few laps and they had a blast.  Audrey and I cheered them on from the sidelines (until William Sonoma beckoned us from the background of our snapshots and we decided to take a break from our skating spectating  to feast on sweet and savory samples and admire Christmas dishes). I think I could spend all day in that store!

We also checked out the most amazing life sized gingerbread house in the lobby of the Fairmont.  

 As well as a very, very tall tree.

And ended the trip visiting Santa at Macy's

Totally packed and perfect 24 hours in the city.  When the amount of people in Union Square seemed to increase by the hundreds every minute, we were ready to come home to our own lovely Christmas tree (although it did look rather short after all the gigantic ones we'd admired in the city!).  Such a fun trip and one we hope to make a tradition of.