Going to bed December 27th

Mckaley: Mom, is Santa going to come tonight?

Me: No bug, Santa only comes once a year

Mckaley: Well, when is he going to come back?

Me: Not for about 363 more days

Mckaley: Okay, when I wake up I'll start a countdown because I really like getting all those presents.

Me: I bet you did

Merry Christmas

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Christmas Morning

Waking up Christmas morning. . .

Well, we have certainly had a long day celebrating Christmas, but I really wouldn't change a thing. We woke up Christmas morning at our house and had the entire Cook and Herr clan over to watch M open up her presents from Santa.

Note to Santa: its very nice of you to spoil our 3 year old, but next time you don't need to bring so many presents!

She was exhausted opening up everything and at one point stopped to take a break relax in her new sleeping bag.

Some of her favorite presents were: Doll House, Dance Cam, Tag Junior and her sleeping bag. All time favorites included: Sippy cups, underwear, and ring pops. haha

Note to self: Yes, this years gifts could have cost us about $10 and we would have had an extremely happy child.

There were so many presents to open, so we took a short break to have some yummy coffee cake that the Herr's brought over. After all the presents had been opened we took round 2 to the Herr's. There we had even more presents to open up. Mckaley loved every second of it!

She especially liked getting to follow the red ribbon that led her to her very own pink motorized ATV!

She was a little squirrely on it, but I have to say a pretty good driver for a three year old. She will be ready to head up to the dunes with the Watson's in no time!

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the Herr's, playing cards, and having another great meal.

All in all, we had a wonderful time Christmas Day just being with all our family. Thanks to everyone who made it such a special day!

The anticipation. . .aka Christmas Eve

This years Christmas hasn't occurred yet and I can already tell its going to be one of my favorite Christmases ever. Mckaley is so much fun to be around right now. She is soaking in every bit of Christmas. I can really tell that this year she 'gets it'. On Christmas Eve we decided to go to the 5:00 church service followed by ham n cheeses at the Herr's. It was a wonderful evening and Mckaley couldn't wait to get home and fall asleep so that Santa could arrive.

The boys, just being boys

Mom and Mckaley after church

Here are two pictures of Mckaley and Dad lighting their candles. This was truly a magical moment that I won't forget.

Christmas Lights

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to look at Christmas lights. This year we took Mckaley to see a court in Mesa that is really spectacular. Each house on the court has their lights up and most have their own theme. One house was Disney characters, another was beach Santa, one was decorated for breast cancer, another was decorated to support the troops., and in one home, you even walk into their backyard where the entire story of the birth of Jesus is told using lights and figures. They all really do a good job. Most of the homeowners would set up a fire pit outside on their driveway and just hang out with everyone. I thought that was pretty neat. Tyler, Keegan, and my dad definitely liked the houses that had the garages up and had what we call a "man cave". There were 3 houses with these and many of them were decorated better than bars I have been in. I'm pretty sure every husband was nudging their wives, saying "see- she let him do it". For the record, I love you, but no chance Tyler! haha

You know you are 32 weeks pregnant when

You get up to go to the bathroom and before you even sit back down you have to go. . .again!!

Happy Birthday Dave

On Wednesday we celebrated Dave's birthday. We had a great time over at the Herr's house. We had a nice dinner, opened presents, played a little ping pong, played with Dave's Christmas train, and of course ate cake. Happy Birthday Dave- we hope you had a great night!!!

Trip to California

Mckaley and I took our monthly trip out to CA last week. I had a ton of work to do while I was out there, but we still tried to fill the small amount of spare time that we had with some fun. We went to the lake Friday and Saturday, but were rained in. So, instead of our usual lake activities we created a bunch of fun activities to do in the house. My mom and Mckaley spent a lot of time painting pictures, which Mckaley loved.

I would create little treasure hunts for Mckaley where she would go looking for treasures hidden around the house, and on Saturday we all (my mom, dad, and M) went to see Princess and the Frog. My mom surprised M after the moving with a Princess Tiana doll in her car seat so she was super excited about that!

We spent Monday and Tuesday in Pleasanton at the hotel. We did get out a couple of times though. My mom took M to see GGMA and GGPA where of course she got spoiled with great food and presents. They gave her a pink tea set, which she was thrilled about! We also all took a trip to Del Osso Farms in Tracy one night where they had fake snow with tubing. Mckaley was a little scared of the big tubing slide, so my dad enjoyed the rides and all of us played in the snow play area.

It was pretty funny to play in fake snow, but Mckaley didn't notice anything weird at all and really loved every second of it.

All in all, it was a fast but really good trip. Here are some cute pics of my mom and Mckaley hangin out. . .

And being goofy, of course :-)

Visit to See Santa

Mckaley is in love with EVERYTHING Christmas this year and of course that includes Santa himself. I can already tell that this week is going to be so much fun! It is great to watch her light up when we talk about Christmas- it really is very magical to her this year and I know that she really 'gets it'. It is such an experience to see the brain of a three year old work.

Right before M and I took off to leave Tyler to be a bachelor for five nights (yes, 5! for those of you who think we are insane-we are!) we decided to go out for a family dinner at my favorite pizza place. I'm in love with Grimaldi's pizza-yummy :-) Anyhow, Santa was outside at San Tan Village and there was no one there, so we decided to let Mckaley see him and take pictures with him. She just loved getting to sit on his lap and talk to him. She was in heaven. They wouldn't let me take pictures of the actual Santa experience because of course they want you to buy their pics, but I did snap a few shots of the anticipation of actually seeing him.