Flashback #4 - What else could there possibly be to celebrate??

December in our family is FULL of celebrations. Aside from the obvious Christmas and New Year's fun, we also have at least 6 family birthdays - whew!

So, in an effort to keep the over-excitement to a minimum (and who WOULDN'T be over-excited!), I'll see how much celebrating I can pack into one post. OK, deep breath - here goes!

We started off with my birthday, and Kristen made me this beautiful card (click to see it close up):

I love that Kristen is holding Evan AND a duck - talented little girl, that one!

Not that this is a celebration, because, if you really know me, you know I really don't like early hours of the morning. But who can argue with the beauty of a desert sunrise?

I just don't want to see that many of them, OK? :)

Along with the stunning performance shown earlier, Kristen got to lecture...I mean, visit with....Santa Claus.

And then here she is with her preschool teacher, Miss Gloria. We heart Miss Gloria a lot - a wonderful lady!

Then it was time for Kristen's 4th birthday!! Can't believe she's already 4 - how time flies!! Every year we've made it a tradition to take a picture in our pajamas on the morning of her birthday (see previous years).

She opened lots of cards and presents...

...and gave out lots of thank yous. :)

Then came the Christmas celebrations. Kristen was super excited to decorate cookies and leave them, with some milk, out for Santa.

Evan even got to open some Christmas presents - he really liked his big barrel of monkeys!

This was our first Christmas ever being just by ourselves (with no extended family), so I cooked a nice holiday dinner of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Since Evan is too little to have joined in our feast, I thought I would give him some holiday fun and dropped one or two drops of green food coloring into his bottle.

I thought this was a really cute idea! That is, until I tried to give him a little taste of cranberry sauce at dinner, which he proceeded to gag on and then threw up GREEN FORMULA all over my clothes. Yeah, great idea, genius! :)

OK, so on to the last celebration for the month of December (I promise!). My mom's birthday is at the end of December, and she decided she wanted to celebrate this year at Disneyland. So we all met up there and had a really fun time with Grammy and Papa and all the cousins!

Papa and Kristen on the Dumbo ride

Kristen and cousin Kiley

Evan and Daddy enjoying Casey Jr.'s Train Ride

Look at that little face - don't you just want to eat him up?! :)

So that was our month of December in a nutshell. Crazy, no? And, in case you think I'm done with the flashbacks, worry not. I still have soccer and car shows and flooding and....stay tuned!!