Christmas in Cali

As you already know, we got our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving from a tree lot... what you may not know is that our tree came all the way from Oregon... or Washington, I can't remember which one!  Either way, although it's about 3 feet shorter than the standard Foster tree, it is still very pretty, all decked out with our many beautiful ornaments.  We had to put the tree up on a table so Andrew couldn't get to most of our fragile ornaments, but that doesn't stop him from trying to pull off the ones he can reach. He will point to the tree and say a word that sounds a lot like "tree" as well as "oooo" (like in awe of its beauty). He also points to the colorful Christmas balls and says "ball" or growls at my Yosemite bear ornament. We are teaching him that Santa says "ho ho ho", but that's still a work in progress.

This was going to be our Christmas card - with the caption - We hope your holidays are merry and bright.  I ran out of time to print these, so you'll just have to picture how cute it would have been.  :)

We are starting a new tradition this year - Elf on the Shelf - courtesy of Grandma Foster. I am very excited about this for the future (totally inspired by Pinterest and other Mom's ideas), but this year is easy - Buddy (the Elf) isn't getting up to much mischief yet.  Andrew doesn't get the whole concept of not touching him (so Buddy is always in high off the ground locations for his safety) or the concept of Buddy reporting to Santa on behavior (I cannot wait for that part)... but its still fun in the morning to say, "Where did the elf go?" and Andrew will look in the direction he was the previous night and then we look together for him.  Now that he's gotten the hang of that, he laughs when we find him... kinda like, "That silly elf, he's always in the funniest spots!"

Also thanks to Grandma Foster, we got a large box in the mail... filled with ornaments from the store she works at - Pine, Wreath and Candle.  Each box was numbered from 1 through 12 and there was a note that read "2012 - A Year in Review".  We arranged to video chat with Grandma before we started opening the ornaments, so she got to see our reaction as we reminisced about what we did over the past year.   It was a lot of fun to open and a very special present that we will enjoy reopening for many years to come.  I should make you all guess what ornaments we got for which month and why - a quiz to see who's been paying attention... but I'll spare you all - here's the list - can you find each in the picture below?:
January - a plane (for our trip out)
February - a cable car (for our first trip to San Fran)
March - a wine barrel (for our many trips to the wineries)
April - a jelly fish (for our trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium - they had a jelly fish exhibit!)
May - cherries (for our Cherry picking trip on Memorial Day)
June - a saddle (for our trip to the rodeo)
July - a camping tent (for our camping trip to Lassen)
August - a birthday party hat and noise maker (for Andrew's 1st birthday)
September - a surfing Santa (for our multiple trips to the beach this month)
October - a hiking boot and a black bear (for our trip to Yosemite)
November - a piece of pumpkin pie (for our first Thanksgiving as hosts)
December - a holiday home (for coming home for the holidays)

The first weekend in December brought a parade (finally!) to downtown Livermore.  We headed in for dinner beforehand and quickly realized that this wasn't just some dinky small town parade - the streets were blocked off 2 hours in advance and chairs were already out, saving places along the parade route.  After we ate an early dinner, we still had 45 minutes to kill and were a little concerned about Andrew waiting that long... so, we made what perhaps wasn't the best parenting decision ever... we bought him a light saber. You know, like Jedi Knight style.  He LOVED it... but, Mike and I spent the next 45 minutes chasing after him and apologizing to strangers that he whacked while running through the crowd, shrieking in sheer pleasure.  Luckily, our kid is pretty darn cute, so we didn't get too many dirty looks... ;)    The parade was over an hour long.  Andrew definitely would NOT have cared if we left early, but we stayed to the very end to see Santa on top of a fire truck, waving to the crowd.  After he passed, the parade-goers filled the streets, following Santa up to the town center for the tree lighting ceremony.  Santa got down from the truck, we all sang "Santa is Coming to Town" (living out the movie "Elf" - this was my turn to LOVE it!), and then we count down as they lit the tree.  You can't get much more small town holiday magic than that.



Santa's at the top of that fire truck!



Forgive the horrible pic...  but it shows how many people were there...

Merry December 8th!  The beauty of having a small child that does not understand Christmas at all, is that we can make Christmas whenever we need to in order to fit into our bi-coastal December schedule.  Since Andrew and I are flying back to PA on the 15th, it was either do Christmas now, or wait until we got back.  We decided, why not give him a test run at Christmas morning here?  So, Santa's elves were up late on Friday night putting together a wagon from Gram and Pop, and a slide from Santa.  Andrew's wagon was then filled with a few presents for Santa's first visit. A friend with older kids had warned me that Andrew may not be as into this as I was hoping - but he was so wrong... Andrew was a perfect kid on Christmas morning.  He was a little surprised to see such large, new toys sitting in the living room - but couldn't wait to investigate them!  He also did a wonderful job at unwrapping his presents, showing the appropriate amount of enthusiasm and playing with each toy the appropriate amount of time before moving on to the next thing.  It was like he had been doing this for years!



Why do you want me to put this on my head?

And you want me to stick my hand in here?

Thanks Gram and Pop!

Later on "Christmas" Day... we went out to return a couple things I had gotten Mike for Christmas, and we decided to walk through the mall.  Well, Andrew was not dressed for pictures with Santa, but I could not resist when I saw how awesome this Santa was... real beard and all!  There was a little bit of a wait, so Mike followed Andrew around the mall while I stood in line... whenever they would get close to me, Andrew would make a beeline for Santa, right past all the other waiting kids.  I thought that this must be a good sign, until we were finally next in line and Andrew had a melt down.  We figured, eh... we won't buy the pictures if this goes really badly... but, as soon as they said it was our turn, Andrew stood up, held my hand as we approached Santa cautiously, allowed me to place him on Santa's lap and then started adoringly at Santa!  It was priceless... well, not exactly - the pictures were so darn cute, we ended up buying the USB drive. Merry December 8th to everyone!

Thanksgiving Company

This was our first Thanksgiving as hosts!  We spent much of the weekends prior to our guests arrival buying and returning different dining room rugs (4), chargers (6), runners (3) and cloth napkins (2) until I was satisfied with our table display. (These pictures don't do it much justice.) Andrew had his own special Thanksgiving plate and seat at the head of the table.

 

The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, the doorbell rang unexpectedly - and to my surprise it was my parents - a day ahead of schedule!  They spent the previous week exploring southern California and finally listened to my pleas to come visit us early!  Andrew was excited to see Gram and "Pop" as Andrew now calls him and he warmed up to their arrival very quickly.  Gram and Pop spent Wednesday baby-sitting Andrew and cleaning my floors (I was supposed to do that BEFORE they arrived, but they came early!) - so, by Thursday I think they were very relieved to have Aunt Amanda come to help with our little handful! 

 

Before Thanksgiving dinner, Amanda and I took Andrew for a walk to the park where we were joined shortly by Mike on a skateboard and Pop on a bike.  "Where's Mom?" we asked.
"She's coming..." my dad replied. 
Then I heard my mom say, "Watch out little boy!" 
I ran across the playground, and there's my mom trying to ride a bike on a very narrow path, with a little boy running away from her wobbling bike. 
I ran over to suggest she walk the bike, and noticed a large clump of dirt on the handle bars.
"Oh, I fell," she explained as she tried to gracefully dismount.
 We walked the bike up to join the others, but when she got back on to show us that she truly knew how to ride a bike... she promptly fell back off after a good 45 seconds up.  I hope you can enjoy these pictures and just know she was laughing in them and no grandmothers were injured in the shooting of these photos.

After the playground excitement, we headed back in for dinner.  Mike was a very relaxed chef and prepared a delicious dinner (as usual) - sage, rosemary and thyme seasoned turkey, savory sausage stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, candied carrots and canned cranberries (for Aunt Amanda). 

 

The day after Thanksgiving, we headed to a Christmas tree lot to pick out a fresh tree... Yes, I said Christmas tree "lot", not farm.  Apparently, there aren't any farms where we could go cut down our own tree in a 60 mile radius (or more) from us.  So, we were forced to forego the Foster tradition of trapesing through a tree farm for hours on end, bundled up in coats, gloves and hats while the Foster boys pick out the perfect tree and chop it down.  Instead, Mike wore his Chacco's and a short sleeve shirt, walked around for 20 minutes before I forced him to pick one since they truly all looked the same, and a man came and picked the tree out of its bowl of water and carried it to the car for us.

Unfortunately, Andrew got pretty sick that day too... he had a fever and was just not himself, wanting to be held and sleeping large amounts of time.  He was on an antibiotic for yet another ear infection (I think number 4?), but it was either not working or Andrew had a virus.  Since none of the rest of us got sick (except Amanda being hung over one day), we are pretty sure it was a result of the ear infection not clearing up.  We took him to the doctor on Saturday and sure enough, now both ears were infected.  The doctor gave us a new antibiotic, which Andrew then promptly developed an allergic reaction to with a rash all over his body.  The poor kid was really out of sorts and our poor guests were very patient with us while we catered to our sick baby's needs and weren't able to entertain them much.

The rest of our visit with Gram, Pop, and Aunt Amanda was spent hanging close to home - playing cards, doing shots, going to a couple local wineries and shopping -  making short trips to the new outlets, Target, the mall, Toys'R'Us for Andrew's Christmas present, etc.   We were so grateful to have their company for Thanksgiving - it would have been a hard holiday to be by ourselves on - and I can't wait to see them again for Christmas in a couple of weeks!



Concannon Winery - owned by Cupcake Wine

 




October Fun

Even in California, October brings crisp fall air, golden sunshine and changing leaves.  To me, this season screams "Photo Op!"  So, be warned - this blog is full of photos of one of October's most famous symbols - the pumpkin.  We have pumpkin picking, carved pumpkins, pumpkin candy pails, and of course, the cutest pumpkin on the west coast - Andrew... making a special appearance as a Yosemite Park Ranger.  Enjoy!

How about this one, Mom?

 

Look how big I am!

Giddy-Up Partner!

First Hay Ride!

 

Mike teaching how to pick the perfect pumpkin.

I love this one!

 

My wheelbarrow full of pumpkins!

Free hand carving...

Template carving... Mike and I shared the carving duties on this one, and I think we did a good job!

Ranger Andrew

Getting impatient for candy!

Hmm.. what are we doing?

 

Whoa!  Look at this loot!

 

But Daddy!  I want the candy!!!!!!!