Santa

12.17.2010- Even though we saw Santa a few times at Disneyland, I still wanted to go to Bridgeport to see him. Bridgeport Santa is really the best Santa. Andrew was very excited to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas and of course he said a car (the car from ridemakerz at Disneyland, to be exact). Both of the kids did great with Santa this year and we were lucky to not have any crying pictures.

Christmas Sunday

This year Andrew was in Tiny Tunes, the preschool choir at our church. On Christmas Sunday they sang during church and it was adorable! Andrew did much better than his school program and actually sang bits and pieces of the song and did a few hand motions. We were so proud of him. They sang "Away in a Manger" & "Gloria" and Andrew always wanted to practice the songs in the car and still does. By practice, he means listen to the songs. I've never heard him actually sing the songs!

I love these kids!

12.19.2010- Andrew 3yrs, Ava 7 months

Birthday party

A few days before my birthday, Nate threw me a wonderful birthday party. He made reservations at Jory at the Allison Inn in Newberg with 3 of our couple friends. It was probably one of the best restaurants I've ever been to. I told Nate that the only thing I really wanted to do for my birthday was get dressed up and he knows how much I like fine dinning so he decided on Jory. We had a private room for the 8 of us, ate amazing food-my short ribs were to die for, and had tons of laughs. It was truly one of the best birthdays.

My crazy friends! What a fun night!

12.14.2010

The big 3-0!

This year I turned 30...kind of hard to believe! Like I mentioned in my last post I spent the morning at Andrew's school Christmas party. After the party we went to my parents house so I could pick up Ava. We had lunch there and watched the kids play. Andrew really likes their piano and wanted to show Ava how to play. So the 2 of them sat at the piano and both of them were hitting the keys. Ava loved it and was very interested in playing.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing the regular "mom" activities at home: naptime, laundry, dishes, diaper changes, etc. That night we got all dressed up and went to Portland City Grill with my parents & my in laws. I was a little worried about taking the kids to such a nice place, especially Ava since she can be a handful, but they both did great! Ava didn't fuss much and Andrew enjoyed watching some cartoons on Daddy's phone. When we were walking into the restaurant Andrew said, "our we going to Mommy's party?" It was so cute! He realized that it was a different restaurant than usual so I think he was kind of excited. After dinner we came back to our house for cake and ice cream. It was such a fun birthday spending the day with my family.

The kids really didn't want their picture taken so this is the best family picture I got from the day.

I love this sweet girl!

Andrew loves birthdays!

My cute parents.

I adore him. Thanks babe for a wonderful birthday.

School party

Andrew had a Christmas party/mini program this year at school. They frosted sugar cookies, decorated ornaments, colored bookmarks, and sang several songs for all of the parents. The party just happened to be on my birthday so it was a fun way to spend my birthday morning.

When it came time for the kids to sing their songs we went to the choir room. His class also sang with the kindergarten class and you could tell that all of the preschoolers were pretty freaked out when they saw all of the parents sitting there waiting to hear them sing. Andrew had been singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas at home for weeks and practicing all of his hand motions so I knew that he knew the songs. However, when it came time for him to sing, he just stood there with a shy look on his face. It was pretty funny. Most of the preschoolers stood there freaked out while the kindergardeners did most of the singing. At one point Andrew came and stood by us until his teacher was able to convince him to go back and singing. He was adorable and the whole morning was a lot of fun!

He really wanted me to take a picture of him with his bookmark that he wrote his name on :)

Andrew with his friend Noah.

Not sure what is on his head, but all of the boys were wearing them.

The kids during their program.

12.16.2010- Andrew 3 years old

Our tiny girl

12.12.10-Ava loves her exersaucer and is the only thing that she is content to play with for a length of time. She bounces up and down, laughs, chews on the toys, and is all smiles.

12.14.10- One of Andrew's outfit's from his 1st Christmas

She is such a tiny thing that she can fit into some of the clothes that Andrew wore his 1st Christmas when he was only 3 months old!

12.19.10- Ava wearing Andrew's Santa hat & pj's from his 1st Christmas.

O Christmas Tree

As soon as we got back from our trip we headed out to get our tree. It was our second year at the McCulloch farm and we were able to find a tree within minutes. It's a little smaller than usual but we didn't have a lot of time since it wasn't raining at the moment and we were anxious to get a tree. Andrew was very excited to help with the tree this year. He wanted to put up all of the "jingle bells" on the tree and clumped them all together and hung them from the lights. He was so cute about it. His excitement and understanding of Christmas this year was so fun. He wanted Christmas lights on the house as soon as we got home, he loved all of the Christmas decorations, and showed everyone our Christmas tree when they came over.

(don't worry that Andrew isn't wearing clothes, he prefers to only wear his underwear around the house....hoping this is just a stage!)

Our tree!
We really wanted him to understand the meaning of Christmas this year so we talked a lot about Jesus' birthday. He was also very interested in Santa so I think he got confused some of the time. When we went to our church's annual Christmas performance we let him sit and watch (his 1st year watching). During one of the songs he turned to me and said, "is Jesus coming now?" It was so sweet. I think with all of the talk of Santa coming to bring presents and Jesus' birthday, he got a little confused.

11.26.10-Andrew's 1st letter to Santa....

Andrew has been doing a lot of crafts lately. So when he came home with this handprint wreath from school we were so excited. He was so proud of himself and excited that we were hanging it up in the house. It will be kept and treasured forever.

Since he's been loving crafts, we decided to make ornaments for some of the family members this year. His favorite part was definitely the glue!