Christmas Eve Festivities

Christmas Eve included strolling the Naples Canal Christmas light extravaganza, Chinese take-out, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. You could say it put us in the proper Christmas spirit. Yes, you could say that...

Merry Christmas!!!

We have had a wonderful Christmas. So wonderful that Ryan was inspired to create this short movie (on our much needed, brand-new computer!). yay!

Christmas Parade '09

Last Friday was the annual Seal Beach Christmas Parade. It's a funny marker for us because it feels like we JUST went to this, but I guess it was a year ago. They advertised it as the largest parade they'd put on yet, and it was looooooong (but didn't feel as long as last year's, which must have had at least 10,000 Boy and Girl Scouts).
We've been kind of sick at our house, no Swine Flu or anything like that, but Ryan stayed home from work that day because they poisoned him the night before with their "dinner;" and Gwen's had a cold, and gave herself a little black eye on our ottoman. (I'm trying to explain why my family looks a little off in these pictures, haha.)

The parade was complete with elves playing baritones, the Volunteer Clowns of Orange County, Kazoo Marching Band, firetrucks, Navy boats, dog walkers, dogs who read, the Sunset Assisted Living Community short-bus...you name it, we saw it and clapped for them.

And I wanted to note that this is the first time that I've ever gone out early in the day to set out chairs and claim a spot - people mocked me, but nobody was complaining when we had AWESOME seats for EVERYONE thanks to me (and Gwen who helped move them out of the garage, into the wagon, and drop them off that morning).

Need a Shower

Jen and Alex threw me a sweet, sweet baby shower to get us geared up. Thanks Bizzles - you're fo' rizzle:)
Too bad we didn't take any pics together...

More Montana Thanksgiving

Lots of playing in the snow. Tubing with Grandma Jill and Grandpa Max.
I decided it was okay to risk the baby and also did a few runs. This is me and "Aunt Buckey."



Ryan and Max's snow bear attacking a human on the golf course.

Eating snow. "mmmmmmm" (a Gweener quote).

Four-wheeling.
Walks to the big house.
Air hockey.

First Sledding

We spent Thanksgiving in Montana with Ryan's family. We took Gwen out tubing on at a nearby ski resort that hadn't opened yet for the winter. There was still lots of snow, but we had the mountain to ourselves which was pretty nice, as you can probably imagine.
So, Ryan took her down in a tube and the first picture is of the snowball that you could see coming down the mountain (I think he put his feet down in an effort to slow them down so she wouldn't be scared?). The next two pics are at the bottom. It was HI-larious. She got over it pretty quick and had fun on the rest of her runs (which started out much lower on the hill).

Free Pic

Me and Gwen were at Babies R' Us for like 2 hours yesterday trying to figure out which double stroller we're going to graduate to (still haven't decided - I neeeed a big basket for groceries, but all those strollers are HUGE). During that time Gwen got a free glamor shot (they were giving away a 5x7), good thing she decided to accessorize that day. Since I'm too cheap to buy anything, I'm just scanning it into my computer and will print it at my leisure. Screw the man, mwaaa-hahahahahahaha (evil laugh).

*Oh, and don't worry, I've had a double jogger for months (Ryan found an awesome deal at a garage sale, of course) in anticipation of the burn that's going to occur after this baby comes. I'm sweating just thinking about it, but I sweat pretty easily.

Halloweenie

Gwen was a flower for Halloween. I was having a really hard time getting her to wear her costume. Every time I put it on she would pull off the hat and then tug at the outfit saying "off." So, a week before official Halloween, we had an activity at our church where the kids could wear their costumes, play games and trunk-or-treat from people's cars in the parking lot. I think when she saw the other kids in their costumes she became more cooperative, and theeeen, when people started putting candy in her bucket she was stoooooooked.

Then, on Halloween day, the shops in Seal Beach were giving out candy to trick-or-treators all afternoon. Some more good practice because we've been trying to teach Gwen to say "Trick or Treat" for like a month (but it was hard because at the time those words had no meaning for her).


Then, Halloween night turned into one of the highlights of her short life. It was us with 2 other couples without kids (so 6 adults and 1 child).

Here's the loot (now hidden from her greedy hands).
So, she figured out trick-or-treat and then on Sunday had a little meltdown because she wanted to go again. So she trick or treated our house a couple times and then we took her out for a walk in the wagon, during which she kept saying "trick or treat" randomly and getting sad because we weren't stopping anywhere.

Thanks

Liz Block made and sent these to Gwen and her little brother for no apparent reason. A couple of my girlfriends noticed them on Gwen's wall and spent like 10 minutes complimenting them - super cute. We thank you in this month of thanks :)

15 Dolla

Me and Jen took a field trip to Little Saigon to investigate the rumors we've heard of hour massages for $15. The rumors turned out to be...TRUE!!! Unbelievable. Full body massage from a little Vietnamese man with super-strong hands smelling mildly of cigarettes. Hands so strong that I worried for my safety a couple of times - he almost broke my neck and then later I honestly thought my arm was going to be ripped out of its socket. Definitely worth it.

Pumpkin Patch

Our second annual visit to Pa's.
I put Gweener on this car ride - but since it was pretty deserted the night we went I hadn't seen it actually moving. I saw other kids who looked like they were just a little bit older than her and the ride guy didn't blink when I went to put her in, so I thought it would be fine. Theeeen...when it started up it kept going faster and faster, and every revolution I could see Gwen's face changing from kinda bored to terrified. She started crying and they stopped the ride so I could take her off. I felt like an awesome mom, haha.

She liked some of animals at the petting zoo, like the chicks and bunnies, pretty much anything tiny and in a cage.
She was pretty nervous around the sheep and goats that were roaming around, I had to do some heavy convincing to get her to pet anything.

Feeding the Birds

Anyone can watch these, but they may be kinda boring. I figured they were something more for the grandparents who think everything Gwen does is cute and interesting ;) And maybe keep the sound down/off because I HATE my voice on tape, haha.

Guess Who's a Broker

(Here's a hint, it's one of the people in this photo.)
If anyone's planning on buying a house in Cali, call this guy - he'd looooove to help.

La Semana de los Dos Madres

This week we had visits from both me and Ryan's moms - my mom was here Sunday and left Tuesday; and Ryan's mom (and her mom) got in on Wednesday and left Friday.
Above is a pic of Gwen racing my mom to the park (funny that on Monday it was FREEZING and we all dressed in sweaters, and today, Friday, is like 90 degrees).
Thursday was Jill's birthday so we went out for a fancy dinner (so fancy that we got appetizers AND desserts) at a place called Parker's Lighthouse. It was recommended to me by a friend and was sooooo good and right on the water in beautiful Long Beach.

Potty

Gwen used her potty for the FIRST time!!! I'd been putting the little seat on our toilet (someone had told me that it's better that way for some reason, can't remember what it was) and she would never go, but I moved it to the little potty and put her on right before her bath and, miracle, she went. I'm so excited that I had to blog about it right away - this just happened like an hour ago. I don't think she's on her way to being potty trained, she still thinks it's hilarious to pee on me and the floor after her bath, but I'm just glad she's figuring out what to do with the thing.

I'm feeling Bjorn Again

Ryan's firm gave him some tickets to see this ABBA tribute band on Saturday night. He figured it might be more of a girl thing so he gave them up for me and my friends. We were happily surprised that our seats were in the very center of the front row. We were so close that the keyboard player "Benny" gave Alex a high-five and the guitar player "Bjorn" announced that he was enjoying her kicks (she was by far the most excited person in the audience).
(Alex, Sally, me and Jen)

Shark Friday Night

The aquarium has free shark nights on Fridays, when they open up the shark lagoon area and petting zoo (which consists of a variety of little sharks and stingrays), and have live music. Gwen was appropriately frightened of the animals and was mostly interested in the band and little play area.
A family photo (just imagine my face on Jen's body).

Angels Game

Ryan's work gave us Angels tickets to last Saturday's game so we forwent G's bedtime and decided to go for a few hours (she got kicked out of the church's nursery the next day as a result, she was too sad to be with the other kids). What a difference from a Dodger's game - all of the "excuse me's" and "thank you's" contributed to a considerably friendly and safe-feeling atmosphere (as opposed to the gang fights and stabbings at LA games, haha). I was worried that the Gweener would get a little out of control having to stay in a seat for a long time, but the random music, cheering and applause actually kept her quite busy and she had a really good time.