The Princess and the Frog

Today I took Shane to see his very first movie in the theater! I was not sure how he would react because it is so hard for him to sit still, but he has been very into movies lately and I thought it would be a fun experiment while I was on vacation. We talked about it for a couple of days and he was really excited when we would see the commercials for this movie.

Honestly, I expected to be there for 40 minutes or so at the most before he decided to cause a scene...but I got him the kids pack with popcorn, M&Ms and Sprite and he was in heaven! He would ask me the color of every M&M before he hate it, but he managed to be pretty quiet about it. He was very excited during the previews and wanted to know what would be coming next.

He wanted to sit in a seat, "All by myself!" but he is so tiny that it kept folding up on him! I had to hold it down with my leg, but in a way that he wouldn't notice I was "helping." The characters were fun and he loved all the music. He especially loved the "scary guy."

After about an hour he started getting restless and said he wanted to go back in Mommy's car, but I convinced him to stick it out a little longer and we ended up making it until the end of the movie! I was so proud of him! Of course he keeps asking to go back to the "movie store" to see the froggies. He did great, but I'm not pushing my luck :)

My Favorite Time of Year!!

December is my FAVORITE time of year! The Christmas tree and decorations go up the day after Thanksgiving so that I can be sure enjoy the festiveness all month long. I have my birthday, Christmas and New Years all in one week! Plus a 10 day vacation from work!! It was really fun this year because Shane could really understand everything that was happening. We read lots of Christmas books and watched Christmas movies together all month long. He loves to look at all the Christmas lights around town and we would take extra long ways home from Grandma's house to see them all.

Here he is after helping me decorate the tree.

Shane and Sticky liked to cuddle under the tree together

My first Christmas event was our Cootie Christmas party at Linda Buffo's house. Linda is always the host of the Christmas Cootie party and goes above and beyond in her decorating, hosting, food and drinks, and thoughtful personalized gifts for all of us ladies. This is a great group of women and I am grateful to be a part of their fun each month!

One of the 5 or so Christmas trees at Linda's house

Mom and I

Cootie gals 2009

The next night was my birthday celebration. I decided to do an Ugly Christmas Sweater bar crawl this year. Ryan was not thrilled about having to wear an ugly sweater out in public, but it was my birthday wish...that and an iPhone which he got for me the weekend before and I haven't put down since!

Don't we look fabulous?!?

I love this picture of the guys!

Looking good, even in tacky sweaters

The very festive group!

My best girls, xoxo!

Then we had Christmas Eve at Grandma Sandi's house. Aunt Tammy and Uncle Peter made us the BEST dinner and homemade chocolate lava cakes! Shane had spent the morning at Grandpa Dan's house and went without a nap, but he did surprisingly well for having such a long and eventful day. The adults did a small gift exchange this year, but of course Shane was super spoiled by his Grandparents and Aunt and Uncle. We didn't leave until after 10pm and he didn't even fall asleep in the car! He still wanted to stay up after we got home, but fell right asleep once his head hit the pillow. I was exhausted and not feeling well myself, but I still had to set up for Santa and make dessert for Christmas before I could do the same!

Horsing around with Daddy

Spoiled by his Grandparents

Measuring Kiwi with Grandma's tools

I was probably more excited for Christmas morning than even Shane was! I set up Christmas lights from the tree and stockings all the way into his bedroom (a cute idea I got from Dominique last year). He was soo excited to see the lights that he didn't want to leave his bedroom! We decided to do stockings and make coffee before waking Daddy up.




Then we opened the presents from Santa (a new scooter and helmet that I didn't end up taking pictures of!) and the presents from Mommy and Daddy before heading over to Grandma's house.

Cool motorcycle helmet that makes racing sounds
(from Daddy of course)

Lining up all of his new dinosaur bath toys

We got to Grandma's in time for brunch. Grandma had to pick up Uncle Cory, Aunt Janice and baby Carah at the airport that morning. It was Carah's first trip to CA and we were all very excited to see her! Shane really got along well with Carah. The last time we saw her he wasn't interested in her very much and would get really jealous. Then Uncle Jim came with Kyle and Brett who were home for the holidays from the East Coast. It was their first time meeting Baby Carah! She is the sweetest baby and will sit content for hours and not even make a peep! Just about the complete opposite of her cousin Shane! lol

Playing his new harmonica with Daddy

Playing with Carah's new piano

Cousins...aren't they adorable?!?

Carah playing with her Auntie

Shane making all kinds of noise with his new power tools

The guys horsing around before dinner!

Everyone contributed to the delicious dinner!

So nice to have everyone together for Christmas!
xoxo

The boys are always hard to shop for, but I had the brilliant idea that we could all do the indoor go-kart racing this year. I had the guys in suspense for weeks wondering what we were all going to be doing! Well...I didn't anticipate that TONS of other people would have the same brilliant idea and the place was packed and fully booked when we arrived the next day. My awesome plan backfired! Ryan and I still did racing with Cory and Janice the next day and then went again with Brett and his friend on Monday. It was soo fun, but just not the same as all of us doing it together.



I was feeling sick Christmas Eve and that whole weekend of non-stop entertaining and running around had me exhausted! It took the my entire 10 day vacation to recover, but we still had a great time! I was sad for everyone to go home so soon!

Wine, Turkey, and my Reunion!

We celebrated Mom's birthday a month late in early November. We did the limo wine tasting trip again and it's always hard to get all those ladies together on one day! My boss and her mom joined us this time so we had a big, fun group of ladies! We were worried about the weather, but it turned out to be a beautiful day!

Shane got to check out the limo before we left

Fun times at Ravenswood!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Thanksgiving was nice and simple this year. None of the family was around this year so it was just us and Mom's cousin, Niki. Dinner was great and it was nice to be mellow for change.

My handsome man

Shane had lots of fun reading books with Niki

Then it was time for my 10 year high school reunion! I still can't believe it has been 10 years!! Mom even had us pose for a picture, just like before a school dance! Thanks to FaceBook I have been able to keep up with lots of people from high school, but it was really fun to see everyone in person. It's very rare that I get a chance to go out in Petaluma! I had such a good time and I can't wait for the next reunion!!

"Let's go get MORE candy!!"

We have created a fun tradition of taking pictures of Shane and Dakota at the pumpkin patch every year. This year they wore their Halloween costumes and Dominique took some amazing pictures! Of course it is near impossible to get one with both of them looking at the camera AND smiling, but they are always cute!

We had an awesome Halloween Cootie party this year and all the ladies dressed up as Rockstars! I had to post this so the world could see Mom dressed as a member of KISS!



We went back to the pumpkin patch with Daddy to pick out pumpkins. Shane had a blast checking out all the animals and farm equipment and PUMPKINS! This pumpkin patch went all out this year. It was more like a fair than just a place to pick out a pumpkin! They had all kinds of food and yummy treats...HUGE blow up jumpy houses and slides...tractor rides and train rides...animals and crafts...a haunted house...it was a bit overwhelming! Shane was bummed that he didn't get to ride the train (and talked about it for weeks afterwards) but there were just too many people! We picked out two big pumpkins and two tiny pumpkins and he was happy.

Last year Shane was totally into the whole process of cleaning out the pumpkins...this year, not so much!

Then it was time for Jackie's birthday party! My best friend's birthday is the day before Halloween and she always throws a big costume party at her house. This year I was Jem from the cartoon Jem and the Holograms!

Dr. Ryan...you can get what he prescribed all night!

There were some great costumes this year!

Birthday girl...a.k.a. Sally Jupiter

I loved Popeye and Olive Oyl!

Shane's first lollipop!

This was Shane's first year going trick-or-treating! We went in Grandma's neighborhood since the houses are all close together. We had been talking about it for weeks and he was soo excited!!

Grandma and Shane heading out!

So excited to get candy!!

We met up with other kids in the neighborhood and he felt like such a big boy! He wanted to do it all by himself, but some of the houses let him pick his own candy out of the bowl and he would take it all if they let him! After every house he would say, "Let's go get MORE candy!!!" It was the cutest thing!

First piece of Halloween candy...YUM!