Merry Christmas!

 Cameron woke up once in the middle of the night so I went in his room to see what he needed and to cover him back up.  It was so cute, the first thing he said is "let's go see if Santa ate the cookies and the reindeer at the carrots."  I said, "it's the middle of the night still Santa hasn't come yet so we can check in the morning when you wake up."  So sure enough when he woke up he ran right out of his room into the family room and said "mom lets see if the cookies are gone!"

After he saw that there were only crumbs from the cookie and the carrots and milk were gone, he was off to open presents.  It was such a fun Christmas this year.  He was so excited and cute.  He had a hard time understanding if a present was from "mom and dad" or someone else, he would say "no, it's from Santa".

I was sleeping on the couch with Kenzie when Cameron woke up so I got up and carefully placed her on the couch surrounded by pillows, not really expecting her to sleep since she can tell once you put her down!  But she slept through the first 20 minutes of present opening and excitement!

Cameron asked Santa to bring him a camera.  He even wrote Santa a letter and sent it to him asking for a camera.  Santa wrote him back and said he would bring him one if he continued to be a good boy and a nice big brother.  He was excited to open this gift!  Apparently he told Santa in the letter he wanted a bear too....because for days after when anyone would ask what Santa brought him he would say "He brought me a camera but he didn't bring me a bear".  Santa didn't get the memo on that one :)

I love this picture, it captures the excitement and the 'can't open a present fast enough' Christmas feeling of a kid.  The blur of the wrapping paper says it all.  I also love that Mackenzie is just sitting there watching Cameron open gifts with reckless abandon.

Mommy & Daddy gave Cameron a kitchen set, but of course he kept saying it came from Santa.  Sheesh, let's give a little credit where credit is due :)  

He LOVES this and plays with it several hours a day.  We turned the downstairs office room into his playroom and had it set up in there.  Cameron loves to cook and is totally in the stage of pretend, imaginative play.  He always wants to help me cook breakfast and dinner, so I knew this would be the perfect thing for him!

Cameron helped Mackenzie open her gifts and he opened one and I said "what is it?" Cameron said, "oh it's a thing that makes Kenzie happy" and went over to show her.  He pushed the buttons and made the music go.  It is the cutest thing to watch him with her.

She enjoyed her first Christmas and was happy as always!

We went over to Jeremy's brothers later in the afternoon for the gift exchange of cousins.  

Then we came back to our house and Grammy & Grampy came over to give Cameron his presents.

He was excited with the drawing board.....he is so artistic and loves to draw.

He said this picture was of a giraffe.

He had to test out the other side with the dry erase markers too.

Cameron actually took a nap after Grammy & Grampy left.  When he woke up we headed to Margo & Ricks for dinner and more presents :)

Santa brought us this microphone that turns your voice into an elf voice when you sing.  He wanted to take it to show everyone.  Cameron LOVES to sing & dance more than anything I think.  He sings all day long, either real songs or making songs up.  Then he says "remember that song mom" or "do you like that song?"  

Cameron told Aunt Margo that he wanted a truck so he was excited to open a big fire truck.  Uncle Rick helped him get it out of the box and put batteries in it.

I think Christmas wore Mackenzie out.  She couldn't stay awake any longer.  What a great Christmas it was and it will just get better and better as the kids get older!

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at Grammy and Grampy's and as always we all got stuffed with the delicious food.

Janessa, Lindsie & Mackenzie

I used to always get so excited to open one gift on Christmas Eve clear up until last year.  This year though the excitement for me has changed....I couldn't wait for Cameron to open his gift and wanted to get home to bed so we could see how excited he would be when Santa came!  Kids make Christmas so much more fun!

Grammy & Kenzie

Cameron is the biggest crack up.  He is always putting hats on and even putting things on his head that aren't hats.  Everyone was just talking and the kids were playing when someone said to look at Cameron.  He had taken this hat off of a bear that my mom had out as a decoration.  He wore it for a long time that night :)

We got home from Grammy & Grampy's, took a bath and got ready for bed.  Cameron was so excited to leave cookies for Santa and carrots for Ruldolph the red nosed reindeer and "Ruldoph the black nosed reindeer"  (he would see other reindeer in books, movies, etc and call them black nosed Ruldolph...I guess he figured all reindeer were named Ruldolph and some had red noses and some black.

Zoo lights

I found a new tradition for us every December!  We went to the zoo to see the lights this year.  I had heard about it, but had no idea how fun and amazing it would be!  Despite the COLD night we had so much fun!

The kids were all bundled up to stay warm

Daddy and Cam 

This is just an example of the million animal light up things they had :)

Cameron had fun looking all around at the lights and finding the animals.

More fun animal lights

Wow a real tiger....I wasn't sure we would see any real animals.  But we actually saw several :)

We stopped in the bistro food place to warm up and get some treats before we went to the car.

The kids were happy to get un-bundled. 

This was one of the treats we got, a fried smore!  It was pretty tasty.  I also got a scone with honey butter and we drank some yummy hot chocolate!  That helped us get warmed up enough to run to the car and head home.  See you next year Zoo Lights! 

5 years of togetherness

Wow, it's been 5 years already!  My parents babysat our kids that night so we could go out and celebrate.  We ate dinner at Carrabba's, my very favorite place to eat! Then we went bowling....something I haven't done in a very very long time.  It was fun :)

Then we went to San Francisco, one of my very favorite places to visit!!  Jeremy has never been there before so we did all the tourist things.  Alcatraz is a MUST SEE and top on the list.  I don't know why I am fascinated with prisons, but Alcatraz is so interesting.

The audio tour really makes it feel like you are there with the prisoners and guards, Jeremy couldn't believe how much he liked the tour.  It was my 4th time and I still loved every minute!

OH how I love the Ghirardelli Factory.  We stayed in a marriott in Fisherman's Warf area and it was 2 blocks from Ghirardelli....we went there about 3 times for yummy hot fudge sundays and hot chocolate.



We walked the entire San Fransisco Bridge....it's only like 2.5 miles but it was a good walk especially since it was a little chilli.  I thought since Sauscilito was on the other side of the bridge there might be some good places to eat or something to do.  But there wasn't....it was just bridge information and boring stuff.  You had to take a taxi or something to really get into the part of town that was interesting.

Since it was December when we went, there weren't all the fun street people and entertainers out working for money.  We did see a "fire/comedy" act which was good and spotted the "bush man" but didn't get to see him in action.

I did try clam chowder and re-confirmed that I hate it :)  Jeremy ate the clam chowder and re-confirmed that he is alergic to shell fish....

Just hanging out in the lobby of our hotel after a long day/night out.

Dinner at the Cheese Cake Factory...on top of Macey's....this is the view of the tree in Union Square and people ice skating.  We sat outside and it was such a nice night with such an amazing view. I think this was the first time I have ever been to the Cheese Cake Factory and didn't order Cheese Cake for dessert....only because I wanted dessert at Ghiridelli :)



Jer in front of Macey's building.  The CCF is on the very top floor.

It's always werid to see christmas lights on plam trees...just doesn't seem quite right?!



There were festive trees and such all around.  This tree was at Pier 39.

Us by the tree in Union Square.



Ok I have to admit, I planned this trip to be about FOOD.  That probabally comes as no surprise to those of you who know me!  I researched places to eat and found a food blog that I stalk quite frequently.  On there she talked about this place called Mama's.  It's only open a few hours a day and its a tiny place.  I walked there by myself one morning (Jeremy had a business meeting to go to) it was about a 20 minute walk.  When I got there the line wasn't so bad....only about 8 people in front of me.  I was prepared for the way this place worked which was a good thing.  Basically they only let a few people in at a time since it's such a small place.  So you wait outside.  They open the door every so often and ask those next in line how many are in their party.  Then they shut the door and when someone leaves and a table opens up they let you in.  This picture is the line behind me....about 20 people.



The line in front of me.  So I finally got inside.  I ordered my food, you watch them make it while you wait in line...they are cooking right there.  Again, I was glad I had read about this place on the food blog because it's cash only!  How bad would that suck to wait in like for 1 hr and then order your food to find out you can't eat there.

My mouth is watering just posting this picture and remembering how DELICIOUS it was!  I would go back to SF just to eat here and order this Pan Dore again.  It was thin sliced baguette bread prepared like french toast, with sliced apples sauteed in a lemon cream sauce.    Needless to say I made Jeremy hike back there with me the next day!  I also ate my fair share of sourdough bread while in SF.  And we discovered another AMAZING restaurant called The Pub which had the best BBQ sandwhich on sourdough bread.  We ate there twice also :)  Of course I had my hot fudge sundays and Trader Joes cookies and snacks....oh boy it was a fun trip!  Thanks to my family for watching the kids so we could get away.  It was hard to leave little Kenzie for the first time and for so long.  It was a much needed break but I was also excited to get back to the kiddos!  After we got back I realized I probabaly should have relaxed and slept a little bit while I could....but who wants to waste time when they are in SF!!!  Not me :)