Merry Christmas! - Dec 25

Hey! Merry Christmas! LOL!

It is actually Christmas. Like, seriously. Right now it is Christmas and I am a little nervous because I am up at 1230am writing this blog and I'm trying to get it published so I can get to bed before Santa arrives. I'm also a little concerned because this year we had our chimney retrofitted to accommodate a gas insert..so Santa has his work cut out for him getting down our chimney this year. =)

I just have a few photos to share from a classroom experience last week at Chloe's school. On Friday, their last day before a TWO WEEK break, the kids got to spend the first hour of the day making gingerbread houses. Actually, now that I think of it, there was no gingerbread in the making of these..let's call them milk carton frosting houses. Either way, the kids had a blast and that's all that matters. Have a Merry Christmas and I hope that Santa brings you all the things you hoped for..if you were good this year, that is.

Ho, Ho, Ho. Don't shoot your eye out, kid.

-B

Santa Drives A Honda! - Dec 18

Last weekend we did our annual visit to see Santa. THE REAL SANTA. Six years basically of visiting Santa and I am still sure if anyone can pilot a sleigh through the night with a bunch of reindeer pulling him through the sky it's THIS GUY. =)

Chloe has been working on her list for some time now and she wanted to make sure Santa had it. She gave it one last once over and placed it into his mailbox where he would be sure to see it. Daddy thought he knew what Chloe was going to ask Santa for but Chloe threw us all a curve ball when she said something completely different. Santa had no idea what Chloe was referring to but Daddy knew and had to double check with his friend "Amazon" to make sure that Santa would be able to get the parts his elves would need to make these toys that Chloe was asking for. Catch my drift??

Santa told Chloe she looked at least a foot taller than last year and he's probably right. He also asked her if she wanted to trade him glasses to which she replied a very certain "no!" lol. It was short and sweet and to the point and we were out of there in no time. Chloe has never had a problem visiting with Santa and this year was no exception. The only small thing we ran into this year was being outside at the end just a little bit to long. I'll explain.

You see, We were probably the second to last family to visit Santa that day. Once the workshop closed, Santa could go home to see Mrs. Claus and feed his reindeer. We were outside with one of Heather's friends for probably fifteen minutes after Santa walked outside and around the corner to what I assumed was his sleigh on the roof. On the sixteenth minute, I could hear bells jingling and I knew Santa was coming back our way. I watched him walk past us about 25 feet away jingling with every step and Chloe's eye's fixed on him as we walked over to a Gold Honda accord parked in a handicapped spot about 40 feet from us. "Why does Santa drive a car, Daddy?!?" Chloe asks. "Why does Santa have a Honda Accord?!?" (BTW, bonus points in my book for knowing what kind of car it was). "Uh, um, well he probably had to borrow a car to get around town and there just isn't anywhere around here to park his sleigh and all the reindeer!" She questioned it a few more times but as with a lot of things if you don't dwell on it and just tell her "That was pretty silly, right?!" she will agree with you and move on. PHEW. Bullet, dodged.

At least he has good choice in terrestrial vehicles. Have a great weekend, folks. =)

-B

Christmas Spirit! - Dec 11

We have had a busy week for sure. Chloe has been on Christmas overload between decorating and shopping but of course it still going strong. Only a few more weeks left before Christmas and almost more ridiculous than that is Chloe's 6th birthday is just around the corner.

INSANE.

I have been very busy doing family/holiday photos for lots of families and of course we have not had time to do ours yet. Such is life! This week i just wanted to share a photo I actually took several weeks back while shooting family photos for Heather's cousins/aunt/uncle/etc. It's a location I have been to many times but never had my own daughter available and photo ready to snag this photo I wanted to get. If weather permits we might try this weekend to get our own photos, wish us luck. LOL.

Have a great weekend, folks.

~B

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like..Christmas! - Dec 4

With Thanksgiving behind us the only logical thing to do is decorate for CHRISTMAS! Ugh.

We all know it will be here before long but once the calendar flips to Dec 1 it certainly gets "real". Time to pull down all the Christmas decorations and(in our case) the fake tree and (real) ornaments and go to town. Chloe was literally chomping at the bit to decorate the tree. She has been at this enough years now that she remembers all the knick knacks we have and where she wants to put them. She also has memory of the things we tend to do every year and wants to do those things as well. Traditions, if you will. She wants to go up on my shoulders and put on the tree topper and this week when I had time to put up our lights, Chloe wanted to recreate pictures we have taken the last few years and she immediately wrapped herself in the lights. LOL. She loves helping me by handing me the little gutter clips for the lights. Obviously this being the oldest she has been, she was the biggest help to me this year haha!

We still don't have many spectacular ideas as to what Chloe wants for Christmas (and we only have a couple of weeks to figure it out) but I'm sure it will be fine. She definitely is showered with gifts and stuff all year long so if Christmas is low key, I think that would be fine. =)

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

With A Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!

Thanksgiving.

It's over!

This whole week Chloe has been off school for Thanksgiving break and we have been finding things to fill our time for sure. Last week(on Friday) Chloe's class had their little Thanksgiving "performance" and pie with the parents. The kids reveal things they are thankful for in small groups and then performed several thanksgiving songs as a class. They made these little turkey outfits out of paper bags which Chloe insisted she wanted to wear on Thanksgiving(which she did). =)

Hope you had a great Turkey day(or at least a good couple of days off work, maybe?). Have a great weekend, folks.

-B

It's Coronation Day! Nov 20

Chloe may be full blown into the movie "Inside Out" as I'm sure you have heard me mention before but like every girl her age, she is still into Frozen. A while back Chloe "earned" this "dress up" that she has talked about and wished she had for a long time. It's a specific "coronation" dress that belongs to "Anna" from the movie Frozen who Chloe has found she likes after a year of being obsessed with Elsa. The dress is legit and unlike most of Chloe's dress ups actually fits her properly(She has basically outgrown her Elsa and Anna dress but she still will wear them) and really looks super cute on her. The fall trees at the end of our court have been approaching their most beautiful stage of which the sun sets and they seem to just glow. They really look neat for about 20 minutes before the sun drops behind the hills. I finally had the opportunity to get over there the other night and snap a few photos of Miss Chloe so I figured it might be a good time to wear the dress. Why not?! =)

Have a great weekend!

-B

Making A Sled Car! - Nov 13

Last weekend amidst some rainy and cold weather Chloe had the idea that she wanted to make a sled. She asked me if I had a small piece of cardboard to which I replied yes and came back with something I had hoped would blow her mind. It just so happened that we ordered a few things for our new car and I had a giant box that one of the parts came in that I knew would do the trick. =)

I cut a big hole in the box and using one of Chloe's jump ropes suddenly we had an indoor "sled". After dragging Chloe around inside a few times she decided she wanted to make it a car..that was also a sled. LOL. We made a spoiler and Chloe got to work adding decorations and embellishments. Without any help she made a licence plate and even an "si" badge(like daddy's cars). That night, she brought out a few blankets from her room and covered it(like daddy's car). A cute exercise in creativity and "do it yourself" fun. I did tell Chloe that she would be able to play with if for about a week because after that we would need to recycle the cardboard as we are required to. ;-) Unfortunately, we cannot have a gigantic, floor covering, space taking up, cardboard box sled car inside our house that long.

we took a few videos when we were building it and playing with it but for this I just grabbed a few shots with her playing in it. She even put in a seat belt(which I didn't see her do). She found that she likes to sit in the sled/car and eat her snacks, haha! This kid is hilarious.

Have a great weekend, folks~~

-B

Maleficent! - Nov 6

I'm sure you are aware that last weekend was Halloween. For the first time in many years it actually fell on a Saturday so we were finally able to get Chloe ready and start our typical Halloween festivities before dark! I didn't think Chloe's costume was going to be that involved but in the last minute Heather found some green face paint makeup stuff and the character was born.

You may recall from one of our previous trips to Disneyland that Chloe really wanted these gigantic Maleficent "ears". At the time when we bought them they hardly fit her head, it seemed. She knew she wanted to be "Maleficent" for Halloween but we did not have the rest of the costume. As luck would have it, good old Costco came through with a non-specific evil witch type costume that Chloe took one look at and deemed it the one. Only problem was they did not have her size, of course. As luck would have it I was able to find (what appeared to be) the LAST ONE at the San Jose Costco (just a few blocks from where I race). Phew. A fairly inexpensive costume pieced together with something we already owned but I'll be darned if it didn't come out..pretty freaking awesome. =)

We trick or treated the most houses we have ever been to. Candy, well we definitely have more of it than anyone would ever need. Chloe got to sort and select the stuff she wanted and Heather took a bunch of it to work just to get it out of here, lol. Halloween is such a weird holiday but hey, it's fun for the kids!

Just a few pics from last week. Have a great weekend, folks.

~B