Goodban Christmas

Every year we meet up with Paul's mom's side of the family since most of them work over the Holidays. We celebrate our own little family Christmas a couple of weeks before. It always a lot of fun and we get to enjoy the Norwegian lefse...Kitana liked it this year too!

 

So proud of her...she's a pro, just like her sister.

 

Zara just loves opening presents, the wrapping paper was her favorite part. I didn't let her suck on it for too long...just enough to tease her!

 

Love that face!!

 

This is the best Christmas card I've ever gotten. It was from Paul's aunt and it has a place for a couple of pictures from Zara's first Christmas, a place to write down her gifts, and little slot to keep some of her Christmas cards...such a good idea!

 

Paul's Grandma teaching me how to cook the lefse properly. I'm not sure of all the ingredients, but there are potatoes in it. You roll them out like pizza dough and then cook either side like a pancake. Then you put butter and brown sugar (or jelly) and roll them up and eat them kind of like a crepe. Fun family tradition that Paul grew up doing.

Christmas Lights!!

It has been our family tradition to look at the Christmas lights in Rancho every year. We've been doing this since we were dating and haven't skipped a year (except the mission years). It's even more fun now that we have kids to enjoy it with. We used to drive through and look at them from the car, but the last 3 years we've decided to get out and walk. It's sooo much more fun this way! There are even people selling hot chocolate, churros, cookies, nachos etc...This is the one family tradition that is all our own, and we love it!

We call this face "big eyes!"

This picture was from last year. We thought she would be soo excited to see all the lights and this is what she noticed most...(see below picture)

 

I saw this snowman santa thing again this year and wanted Kitana to take a picture with it. I told her to reach out and try to touch it. And this it what she did. Didn't pose for the picture, but literally tried to touch it...kids are the best! Also I noticed she is wearing the same jacket! 

A nice lady walking by offered to take a family picture for us. I love it when people do that!!

All snugged up and ready to go!

Just one of the amazing houses. I liked this one b/c it was a little more low key but still extravagant at the same time...if that makes sense :)

I can write my name!!

Kitana has been going to Brooke's pre-school once a week and has been learning sooo much! It's been amazing. She has such an interest in learning now and is picking up so quickly on things. Brooke is an amazing teacher and Kitana can now write her name. She can write her first name completely by herself without any help. In the below picture she asked me if she could write her whole name, so that's what she was practicing. 

 

Also, she's wearing a bib because we were trying to keep her new white shirt clean. My parents got it from Portugal, so we are trying to not ruin it right away!

 

So proud of her :)

Santa...in November.

We decided to see Santa early this year and it was completely worth it to beat the holiday rush. We were literally the first people in line and waited like a minute! Kitana got an extra long time to give him hugs and sit on his lap. Zara LOVED his beard and wasn't the least bit scared (probably too young to realize what was going on!). She gave his beard a few good tugs, definitely real! The santa was such a trooper and I took Zara as quickly as possible to give his beard a break...she was trying to eat it. It was so not busy that Kitana even got to blow Santa a kiss good bye and he caught it in the air...she was so happy.

Eagerly waiting to see him.

Greeted him with a big hug...they are great friends in her mind :)

Love her, she had a great time too. She loves being out of the house.

Such a good daddy.

So much fun!!

This was the actual Bass Pro picture, I just scanned it into our computer. They are the best!

Thumb Sucker!

Zara has officially become a thumb sucker! She gave up the binkie about a month ago. Right after we bought her a cute little stuffed animal binkie holder. She wants nothing to do with the binkie and instantly goes for her thumb whenever I lay her down to sleep, she also instantly turns to her tummy. She always turns to her right side. She also loves to sleep in sleep sacks and sleeps sooo much better in them versus the traditional footie pajamas. 

I snuck in and took this picture before she started rolling to her tummy to sleep. She was not too happy about this one, so I've decided to give up on the tummy picture and let her sleep in peace :)

Kitana has been very into coloring lately and will send you home with a picture to put on your fridge or to put up at work!

Just a cute one of the two of them :)

Pumpking carving in November. Somehow we forgot to carve the pumpkin before Halloween! Got too excited about the candy I guess. Paul asked Kitana if she wanted a happy face or a sad one. You can see what she picked by the pictures below!!

Halloween.

We made our first ever solo trip to Oak Glen this year. I feel like we've done a lot of firsts this year as a family and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. Definitely feel more like our own little family with two kids than it did with just one. We decided to go to Oak Glen on actual Halloween day. It was great, not busy at all. We had a lot of fun combining both of our families usual traditions and just kind of doing our own thing. It was really a perfect trip for us.

Thought it was funny that they were making the exact same face. 

And then went on to smile at the exact same time...they are so much alike!

Zara was making the sillliest faces at me.

We finished off Halloween by taking the girls trick-or-treating. Kitana had so much fun as usual. She was a horse and Zara was a little Zebra. Kitana had her heart set on being a kitty, but then quickly changed her mind once she found out Zara was going to be a Zebra. She wanted to be a Zebra too, so we found the next best thing...a pink horse :) I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get more pictures of them in costume. I was planning on dressing them up again for a little photo shoot, but haven't done it yet. Probably won't do it now because it seems a little weird to dress them in Halloween costumes when it's Christmas time!

Zara only made it about 10 minutes and then fell asleep. It was right during her bedtime.

Kitana's candy pile. We decided to let her stay up a little late and enjoy some of her candy.


She got into drawing and drew this picture...super cute! She's getting to be a little artist and it literally happened over night. I was just wondering when she would start drawing those cute people w/ the legs coming out of their heads and then she just started it....I love her, she is the best!

Pumpkin Patch

We had a fun time at the pumpkin patch this year. Kitana did her usual run wild and try to pick up all the pumpkins. She loves it there. I was planning on putting Zara in the baby carrier, but it was CRAZY windy and her naptime, so she enjoyed her first pumpkin patch trip in the stroller :( I feel bad, but she really does love that thing! Also, I ended up carrying Kitana most of the time because the wind was blowing dirt in her eyes.

We got in trouble from the worker for letting Kitana try & pick up these pumpkins. She said they might drop on her feet and that the stems would break off. First of all, did the lady honestly think Kitana could really pick this pumpkin up? And secondly....it sure doesn't look like she even touched the stem! There's my vent...I was annoyed, can you tell?!?

In the zone right before she dosed off :)

Paul was being artistic...

These two crack me up :)

Love Kitana's face here...This was right after Paul was petting the cow and the cow licked his arm w/ his GIGANTIC tongue! Kitana was appalled!!

She got to pick out two little ones. Then we went to the grocery store and bought the biggest one we could find for only $7, a comparable one at the pumpkin patch would have been $40+...we got smart this year!

I was a little bummed because they didn't have their usual snack jack pumpkins this year :( My favorite thing about Halloween is making pumpkin seeds and I have made them every year since we got married. The snack jacks are little pumpkins that have a ton of the little green seeds which are the best for eating. The lady said they were too expensive this year and would have been about $5 a pumpkin, and they are usually $2. Maybe oak glen will have them?!