The Day After Christmas

The day after Christmas Brian wanted to organize closets. Luckily Grandpa was there with the better idea of going into San Francisco! Good, Better, Best, Brian...

 The lobby of the Hyatt at Embarcadero.center.

 It was a cold and foggy day in the city. Within minutes of reaching the end of pier 39, the fog cleared and we snapped this picture.

 Just for fun, we decided to take BART into the city.

 Daddy and Grandpa were entertaining the kids with physics puzzles - flies on trains and Newtons Laws and other nerdy things.

 They were obviously enjoying themselves.

 Well. Except for Ty.

Can you tell I liked the lights.

Christmas Day

 

My favorite picture of the day!

 Waiting upstairs Christmas morning until we give the ok to come down and see the tree.

 Running downstairs. I'm pretty sure Ashlynn is always first.

 Reading the note from Santa after eating their cookies and carrots

 A random sampling of gifts.

 Opening up the Build-a-Bears Grandma Caroline had made for each of the kids before she passed away.(I'll include videos of these later)

 We came across some sparklers and started a new tradition. Fireworks on Christmas!

 Nana and Papa came and went to church with us. Here they are playing a game with the kids. It needs to be pointed out that even though Papa is keeping his distance, he was in fact playing the game with them. Papa doesn't play games, but apparently Apples to Apples was his speed!

 Grandpa and everybody checking out their new gifts.

Boys getting their LEGO on. I bet this is a picture that a lot of families with little boys captured on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

 Nothing like making cookies for Santa using massive amounts of colored frosting!

And we are ready for Christmas morning!

Old Sacramento Christmas

 On the night before Christmas eve, we took Grandpa and went up to Old Sacramento for the Christmas light show and story telling. The narrator is Samuel Clemens who tells what Sacramento was like in those day, then they do a live action version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with lights. It was a fun little event (and wasn't crowded, just like I like it!). We really like Old Sacramento.

Discovery Kingdom

In December, we took advantage of Ashlynn's tickets she earned and went to Discovery Kingdom. The park was all decorated for the holidays, and all of the shows were holiday themed.

And it was cold.

 I did mention it was cold, right?

The kids had a really good time. It wasn't crowded, just the way I like it!

And it was cold.

Jobs around the house

The kids have been doing a good job helping around the house. We are trying to give them chores that they can learn to do properly and be successful at. Ashlynn has been learning to cook. As of now she can make a pancake dinner by herself and here she is learning how to make spaghetti. She's getting pretty good at it.

Ty's job is to clean up the toys in the backyard. As you can tell from his graffiti, he doesn't like this job. In fact, he hates it and thinks it's stupid! That kid cracks me up. He gets so fired up and mad and he doesn't even care that we were obviously going to see his sentiments written in the very sidewalk chalk he was supposed to be cleaning up. This message was more than likely intended for Brian and I to see. His way of giving us the giant middle finger, if you will (even though he doesn't know what that is).

One of Briggs's chores is to vacuum, which he takes very seriously. Which is more than can be said about eating, because, as is very obvious from this picture, he doesn't take that very seriously. (He gets so mad when I call him skinny! I just tell him I wish people called me skinny!)

Scut or Farkus

This is how Ty dressed himself for school today. I had to get a picture of it because he reminded me of the little bully from "A Christmas Story" Was his name Scut or Farkus? Or neither? I don't know, but I thought he was pretty cute!

A little Advent Calendar

 Thank you, party city! The kids love this advent calendar.