Christmas & New Year's

It was really fun this year to have Isaac be so aware and so excited about all things Christmas.  The lights, the Christmas trees, decorations, Santa Claus, presents, baby Jesus, and especially the treats! 

Isaac moved to a new school when he turned three in August, but his old school ICEC has a Christmas party every year where they invite all of their former students.  Santa Claus comes and lets each child choose a wooden toy (made and donated by a local retirement home).  Maybe we are bad parents, but we had never taken Isaac to see Santa before this.  I was a little nervous how he would react to sitting on Santa's lap, but Isaac was totally fine with it!  

We always love going to Fashion Island to see the enormous tree.  Isaac loved climbing on all of the giant presents and seeing the huge ornaments the size of his head!

We had some free tickets to Knott's Berry Farm that we needed to use before the end of the year.  Charlie had a few days off the week of Christmas so we took advantage of the first non-rainy day we'd had in weeks and went to Knott's.  It was a little crowded and Isaac could only go on the Camp Snoopy rides, but he loved it.  Especially the little kid sized roller coaster and the "Big Rig" ride.

A few nights before Christmas we attended a neighborhood block party.  The highlight of the party is Santa Claus, who comes to town with a full police escort.  Here is Isaac watching all of the police cars, fire engines, and ambulance coming with their lights and sirens blaring.  He was in heaven!

Then Santa goes inside and calls up each child by name and gives them a present (provided by the parents).  Isaac was thrilled to get a new Thomas train!

Around Thanksgiving time when all of the toy ads started coming out, Isaac saw a picture of Stinky the Garbage Truck and was immediately convinced that "Stinky" was the one toy he wanted more than anything for Christmas.  For those not in the know, Stinky is an obnoxious robotic trash truck that talks and eats trash.  And Isaac loves it.

I don't have any pictures from our family Christmas gatherings.  We ended up hosting Christmas day at our house, and things got a little crazy so I never got around to pulling out my camera.  My brother Brian, and my sister Sandy and her family came over and we had a nice (though some what chaotic) time eating, opening gifts, and visiting with each other.

Here is Isaac later that evening playing with his new airplane & airport set.  This was probably his favorite gift and he is still playing with it everyday.  I guess it's appropriate for a kid who's been on dozens of airplanes in his short life.

For New Year's weekend we were really excited to have my good friend Amy and her husband Paul come and visit us.  Once again, I was completely neglectful when it came to taking pictures, but luckily I was able to steal a few from Amy's blog.

We went for a beautiful morning walk/run on the Newport Peninsula, ate plenty of good food, got a baby sitter for New Year's Eve and enjoyed dinner overlooking the ocean at Las Brisas in Laguna Beach, visited the Christmas tree at Fashion Island, enjoyed cupcakes at Sprinkles, a bonfire at the beach, and spent a relaxing Sunday playing games, eating, and chatting.  We had such a great time and hope that they come back to visit us soon!

And now here we are halfway through January, and back to our normal routines.  Isaac is happy to be back at school and we have been enjoying warm sunny weather the past few weeks.  We have some exciting things coming our way in 2011 and we are looking forward to a wonderful year!