Decorating the Christmas Tree

I just wanted to share some of the pictures from when we decorated our tree and a few from the night of our Holiday Party. Caitlyn wanted to be a big help this year and with any other tree she could have, but the limbs on the tree we got were so flimsy, I could hardly get any of the ornaments to stay put. That's what you get when you stop at Home Depot during the first week of December, when they don't have many trees to choose between. We had fun and the tree looks nice. Next year though, we'll get a stronger tree so we can use all of our ornaments, not just the ones that weigh nothing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Love and hugs,
Jaime

Helping put the angel on top
Decorating the tree
Hanging up her Dora ornaments
Our Caty bug
The shirt says it all!
The finished tree
Family picture
Caty with my parents
Caty and Bella decorating stockings are our Holiday Party

Christmas Survey

Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!!
Just copy this entire post and paste into a new post/e-mail that you can send with the changes in answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you......Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both, depending on the size of the present, but wrapped presents are much more fun to open

2. Real tree or Artificial? REAL

3. When do you put up the tree? We usually get our tree the first weekend of December

4. When do you take the tree down? Before Dec 31st, as the local Boy Scout Troop comes and takes the tree for disposal right after the 1st of the year

5. Do you like eggnog? Occasionally, although I won't be able to have any this year!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Too many to name - when I was around 4 or so, I got a doll house (which Caty will be receiving for her 4th birthday this year)

7. Hardest person to buy for? Nobody really, as my parents tell us exactly what they want, Caty is happy with any toy, we don't exchange present with my brother and sister in law, and Scott and I probably won't be exchanging gifts this year, as we're hoping to get a flat screen tv for the living room

8. Easiest person to buy for? Caty

9. Do you have a nativity scene? No

10.Do you send cards or email cards? Send them, everyone loved this years card! :)

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Can't really remember anything that I've received that I haven't liked

12. Favorite Holiday Movie? Rudolph, Frosty and definitely A Christmas Story

13. When do you start shopping for Holidays? I've bought things randomly for Caty throughout the year, and my parents presents will be purchased over this weekend

14. Ever recycled a Holiday present? Maybe :)

15. Favorite thing to eat at Holiday? This year - EVERYTHING!!

16. Lights on the tree? Of course

17. Favorite Holiday song? I am really liking Mistletoe by Colbie Caillat, Winter Wonderland (Brad Paisley), Silent Night, Jingle Bells, just to name a few

18. Travel at Holidays or stay home? We'll be at our house with Scott's dad for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning, then we're heading to my parents later Christmas Day and spending a few days with them and my brother and sister in law


19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and of course RUDOLPH

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Holiday shoppers, those of us that procrastinate until the week before, I'm included in that number

23. Favorite ornament? Handmade ones from Caty, and some from my childhood

24. Favorite for Holiday dinner? Ham with my grandma's raisin sauce, Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce....the usual

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? A Flat Screen TV

Merry Christmas!!!

LPA Holiday Party

I just wanted to share some of the pictures from our LPA Holiday Party. We had a great time. My parents drove up to join us this year. Caitlyn always enjoying seeing her LPA friends. We have such a wonderful group and I'm so thankful for all of them!

The kids of our Chapter

The crazy parents all taking their pictures!

Caty getting her present from Santa
Caitlyn and Aidan playing with his train

Caty, myself, Melisa & Aidan Chase and Mandy & Bradley Williams
Caty playing with the boys and Riley

We've Been Elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Our Exciting News!

For those of you that haven't heard our news yet, I'm pregnant! For those of you that already now, due to our Christmas cards, Facebook and MySpace, I thank you for all of your comments you sent me. I promise to eventually get back to you.

My due date is June 16th, so as of today (December 9th) I'm 13 weeks. I have had nausea since the pregnancy began but luckily it was only nauseousness - no throwing up. Once I hit week 11, it completely disappeared!!!!!!!! This was the same way as my first trimester with Caitlyn went. So for two weeks now, I've been feeling "almost" great. I say almost because I'm so tired!! And I know that Caitlyn has just a little bit to do with that.

I've had two doctor's appointments. My first prenatal appointment, which I filled out a bunch of paperwork, including pre-admission forms for the hospital. I guess they wanted to get a jump on them. I don't remember filling them out this early with Caitlyn. Whatever! Caty came along with me, just this past Wednesday, for my second appointment. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat, which is always exciting! We'll return on December 31st for my next check-up. Luckily Scott will be on break, so he'll get to join us. And we already have our ultrasound scheduled for January 21st. Yes, we are one of those couples that will be finding out the sex of our baby ahead of time. About 4 weeks after this ultrasound we will visit the genetics department and have an additional, more thorough, ultrasound done to find out if this baby could also be a dwarf. The possibility of that happening again is a slightly higher chance as before, but only a 2% higher chance on that 1 in about 30,000 births. So we'll be looking forward to this appointment as well.

This seems to be the year that my family will be expanding my several members. My cousins, Jon and Natalia are due with their first daughter, Ella in January. I have a second cousin who is due in the end of May. And the best news of all (besides our news) is that my brother Todd and his wife Erin are due just 6 weeks before us (on May 9th)! How much fun will that be down the road!!

I'll be keeping all of you up to date, so please remember to check back!

Here's a few pictures of our Big Sister To Be!

We are very Thankful!

This year we spent Thanksgiving down in San Ramon (which is in the Bay Area) with family. My Aunt Claudia and Uncle Barry opened their home to us for the day. We were joined by my cousins, Jon and Natalia, who are due with their first baby in January, my cousin Greg, and my parents. Scott, Caitlyn, Jo and myself hit the road, with all the other travelers and eventually got there about 2 hours and 15 minutes after we left - which is about 45 minutes longer than it usually takes; not terribly back for the busiest travel day of the year.

The guys jumped into drinking their beer and watching some football, while us ladies chatted. We ate plenty during the day and into the night.

It was extra special to be able to spend the day with Claudia and Barry as Barry is courageously battling Pancreatic Cancer. He was diagnosed back in the end of March. You can visit his Care Pages-Barry Siders, to read about his story.

Since Natalia is due with their baby girl, Ella, in January, we threw her surprise shower, as most of us won't be seeing them before their due date. Jon and Nat live in Corona, down in Southern California.

We finally packed up and said our goodbyes. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to Jo, as we knew that it is going to be many years before we see each other again. At least we've got the internet to keep us in touch.

On the way home, Caitlyn slept for over an hour of the drive, which never happens. We usually only get maybe 30 minutes of sleep out of her during car rides. Her head falls to the side, which wakes her up. My mom made Caty some pillows (two knee high socks sewn together with batting) to help keep her head from falling over. They worked wonders! I'll have to get a picture of Caitlyn using them and post it, so you can see what I'm talking about.

I know that this blog is a week late, but hey, I've got plenty on my plate right about now. From reading your blogs, I know that you all had wonderful Thanksgiving yourselves! I want you to know how thankful I am for your friendships!

Much love,
Jaime

ps - sorry for the picture overload!!

Caty and Jo

Caty with Jon and Natalia
Natalia and myself
With Jo
Caty and Naty
Caty with her shot glass - it was the only "small" one that we could find
Cheers with Daddy
Notice who's holding which drink
Family picture
Caty and my dad - Papa
Caty and my mom - Nana
Self Portrait of my cousin Jon and myself
With my cousin Greg
With Greg and Jo
Caty helping open the gifts
Listening to Ella's bear from Grandpa Barry
Jon and Natalia
Auntie Claudia, Uncle Barry, cousins Greg, Jon and Natalia
Caty with Nana and Papa
Caty with Auntie Claudia and Uncle Barry

A Visit From Afar

Let me take you back 11 years....

I was away at college and during the school year of 1996-1997 my parents decided to host an exchange student. That is when Jo from New Zealand entered our lives. She lived with my parents and we got the chance to hang out whenever I made a trip home.

Over the years we have kept in touch, through email and now MySpace and Facebook, and she returned in 2001 for a visit. Once again, just this past week she was back in the states again. She had just spent 13 months living and working in London, but on her way home, she stopped over in CA for a visit. She arrived in Sacramento on Monday November 24th and spent a few days here. We didn't really do much as Jo wanted to spend her time playing with Caty, so we hung around the house, except for a few shopping trips. The two of them played many games of Candy Land, cooked in Caty's kitchen making: cookies, cakes, eggs, you name it, they made it. During the week, Caitlyn had her "quiet time" instead of napping and Jo, the lucky lady that she is, got to experience Caty having a tantrum or two. Yes, for those of you that still don't believe me, it happens. Maybe I can persuade Jo to post a comment on here about the tantrums. I'll see what I can do.

Anyways, it was so great spending a few days with Jo. I love listening to her talk; her accent is awesome! I know that it's going to be several more years before we see each other again, as I don't see our family traveling to NZ anytime soon and she said it will be 5 or more years before she comes back for a visit. So for the time being, we have Facebook and MySpace to keep us in touch.

Enjoy the pictures!

Caty trying on Jo's boots - a tad bit too big!

Having story time

Playing Balls

Cooking up something YUMMY!

Math Skills

We got a video Caty doing some of her math skills and I think that you'll thoroughly enjoy them! At the end of the video, the batteries unfortunately ran out, but she went on to finish counting and blow her kiss to the camera - her signature exit!

CMA Awards

As you all know, I am a HUGE country music fan and the CMA Awards were held on Wednesday, November 12th. It was an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING night! I am just blown away by how many performances there were. I wanted to share some of my favorites with you!

I can't wait to attend the 2010 LPA National Convention, which will be held in Nashville. I'll be in heaven! I hope that some of you will join us for some live country music when we're in Nashville!

Enjoy!

Carrie Underwood - Just A Dream


Taylor Swift - Love Story



Brad Paisley & Keith Urban - Start A Band


Brad Paisley - Waiting On A Woman


Brooks & Dunn - Cowgirls Don't Cry


Miranda Lambert - More Like Her

Things at school

Caitlyn has now been in preschool for about a month and a half and is LOVING it. The activities they have out for the kids everyday are so creative and Caitlyn loves seeing what's on the tables each morning when we get there. She is also a HUGE fan of the painting activity. She has come home with so many art projects, we've had to create a folder to keep them all in.

She still isn't eating snack while there. She doesn't eat much of a breakfast either beforehand, so I'm wondering if she still might have some anxiety about going. But after school she always tells me how much fun she had. The teachers have a snack song that they sing with the kids, so I got Caty to sing it for me and we talked a little bit about her not eating snack - it was a pretty funny conversation.

She is also learning lots of other songs and they do some dancing everyday. One day she came home and told me that they floated like a feather. When she mentioned this, all I could think of was "light as a feather, stiff as a board" - any of you remember this? Anyways, I got her to show me how they float like feathers. It's pretty cute.

Halloween Fun!

We had ourselves a little Pumpkin Fairy this year for Halloween! Caitlyn LOVED her costume! Her preschool class had a "Harvest Festival" and they kids were able to wear their costumes. However I was quite bummed because the parents weren't allowed to stay for the party. Her school has rules about parents staying, which basically are that the parents can't stay. The class is only 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the teachers are wanting the kids to have their independence from the parents, which all is all is a great thing (because I know that if I stayed Caty would be glues to my side), but for "special" occasions like parties you would think they could bend the rules. Anyways.... Back to Halloween!

The day started with us having speech therapy followed by playgroup - which was at our house. Caty, Avery and Raya dressed up. I didn't get any pictures of the girls together as they were just too busy playing. The morning and into the after gave us rain showers, here and there. By the time we'd had dinner and Caty was in her costume it had dried out (some) and off we went. We just made a loop around the block near our street. We live at the end of a court and most of our neighbors don't encourage trick-or-treaters (boo for them!) Caitlyn was so happy and we were both surprised that we walked almost the whole way - we were gone for about 45 minutes, which is way longer than we thought she'd last. Last year we hit about 4 houses, so this year was a huge difference. We got a few rain showers while walking the block but nothing stopped her, except for when she got too excited and started walking a little too fast. She had some funky shoes on, that went with the costume, and since they were a little funny to walk in, she ended up falling. She cried a tear or two, then said she wanted to go to more houses - off we went again. She came home with a bucket full of candy and somehow we convinced her that she could only have 1 piece of candy, and then it was bedtime. She totally fell for it, no questions asked! We had a great time and know that she did too!

Say "CANDY"

Our Little Pumpkin Fairy

Trick-orTreating