Santa Picture Attempt #2 = FAILURE

In my second effort to get the Santa picture (1st with both kids) I dragged the whole family to the Tilden Park Carousel on Tuesday the 22nd. I thought the plan was a huge conglomeration of good ideas - live reindeer (only on Tuesdays), pictures with Santa (free!) and a fun carousel. Turns out this was more like the Bermuda Triangle of ideas! I should have realized that the place was going to be INSANE so close to Christmas. When we arrived it was so crowded we had to park the car waaay down the street and continue on foot in the pitch blackness (punctuated by the cars leaving and arriving for the event) to the park itself. Once we finally made it up to the carousel (which was beautifully decorated) we discovered easily 200 people in line for Santa pics. I spoke with one guy halfway up the line who said he had been in line for an hour and it was longer now than when he arrived. What? Yeah. I quickly ditched this Santa attempt and we focused on the reindeer and the carousel. Reindeer sighting was easy peasy, the carousel line was rather lengthy and we had to wait through about 8 rounds to get on but the ride was worth it at the end.

Taki was in charge of the camera - so this is all you get.

Nikos, fresh off a Disneyland Carousel high -

And Olive's 1st Carousel ride with Mom and Dad (she previously went on one with Grammy in DisneyWorld.)

Gingerbread House for Humanity

Wow, so much fun in December it is hard to keep up with the posts.

Flash back to December 20th when Grammy and Pop-Pop had Nikos and Kira over to build their gingerbread house. (Maile and Mason had already built their house.) Taki and I took advantage of the fact that they were offering to make us dinner so we crashed the house building and spent some time watching tv while they all worked hard on the construction.

Turns out Nikos had no clue that the decorations were actually just candy. He was diligently adding them to his side of the house when Taki came over and popped a gumdrop into his (Taki's mouth.) Dumbfounded would be an accurate word in describing Niko's expression. Although a lot more candy went into his mouth after this point, he was still no match for Kira (who knew what to do from the beginning!)

Olive occupied herself playing dress up and entertaining us.

I know Olive can't wait to join in the fun in a few years!

DISNEYLAND!

So I came up with a hair-brained idea for Nikos and I to fly down to LA (a week before Christmas) for approx. 36 hours to visit the park. Best mom ever, right? I was obviously more excited than Niko, since he didn't really realize what was going on. As luck would have it, on Wednesday (the day before we left) he puked TEN TIMES after I picked him up from daycare. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Like, this was serious poltergeist action. I was super bummed that we might not be able to make the trip (weighing the whole "I REALLY want to go to Disneyland and see my friends vs. HELLO be a good mom!" but as it turns out the worst of it was over by Thursday - phew!

At the airport - the little charmer in action.



Kayla and Nikos chill on the shuttle ride into the park.

Nicolas (or Baby Nico as Nikos was calling him) and Grandma Linda.

Christmas Mickey!

Dumbo! It needed to be a self portrait since we were the only ones with the camera. Sorry kids.

Casey Jr. Train

Check out how Jen and I basically look like the same person.

Nikos loved when the train sped up.

Carousel

Hmm, I forget whose house this is...Jen? Linda?

We went to go check out the live reindeer (!) and took the opportunity to take our picture with Pluto.

How cute is this one of Kayla and Pluto!

So, I could dedicate a whole post to It's A Small World and the Christmas decorations (and the addition of Disney characters that Kayla scrupulously ordered me to photograph) but I will just show you a few of my favorites.

Linda headed home with Nicolas so he could grab a nap and Jen and I took the kids on Autopia. Ha!



So fab! Next up was a ride on Monorail Red - where we got to ride in the front car! Of course I was super excited about this (expecially since we didn't get to this summer at DisneyWorld since all guest riders in the front car have been suspended since the monorail crash.)

Next up we rode the train around the park.

Jen and I were joking about how you could look at our kids and think Kayla was mine and Nikos was hers, since neither of them resembles us that much. Of course, in the picture above, with Kayla chowing down on a soft pretzel, she is TOTALLY me.

We rounded out the night with a ride on the MATTERHORN. Yes, you heard that right. (Read that right?) You have to be 35" for the ride and Nikos is 36". Wahoo!

Here's a before shot of the us on the ride.

He loooved it and did not want to get off at the end. He is in the habit of using the word "can't" instead of "don't" (as in "I CAN'T want to wear these pants." "I CAN'T want to go to bed.") and when we were waiting to get off the ride he said "I CAN'T want to get off." Ha.

After 12+ hours at Disneyland No Nap Nikos was in full effect. At 9pm, in the midst of a tantrum while we were shopping on Main Street he (mid-wail) spotted a spatula and said "Momma, Mickey spatula!" What? Yes, tantrum averted. (Both the whisk and spatula were repurposed as Nikos stocking stuffers - wahoo!)

And to all a good night!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

12 Days of Christmas - Day Seven!

Baby O chills out on Day 7 while she watches Nikos make a gingerbread house with Kira. (Post to follow later.)

12 Days of Christmas - Day Six!

Day Six! After a fantastic fun-filled 36 hours in LA and day at Disneyland we loaded ourselves back onto the plane and headed home. Yes, he is wearing the same shirt that he wore on Thursday - hey, we packed light. (Note how poor monkey has been abandoned in favor of the JUICE I bought him for the flight.)

12 Days of Christmas - Day Five!

The 5th Day of Christmas was celebrated with a fabulous trip to Disneyland with the Villafana family (detailed post to follow.) For now I will leave you with these two hotties by the Christmas tree on Main Street.

12 Days of Christmas - Day Four!

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to me - a Southwest flight to Disney! Taken with my iPhone, Nikos patiently listens to the flight attendant's instructions. (Notice how he stole the aisle seat from me - like father, like son.)

12 Days of Christmas - Day Three!

The 3rd Day of the 12 Days brings us a Mickey Mouse ornament that we purchased in DisneyWorld in July. This ornament is convenient foreshadowing for our trip to Disneyland on Friday. Can't wait!

12 Days of Christmas - Day Two!

To celebrate the 2nd day of the 12 Days of Christmas we took Olive's 9 Month pictures. True, the pictures are four days late, but there was a small problem with the mysterious absence of Opa Taki Bear. Well, you can breathe easy, I discovered him hiding in our closet. I think Nikos had a hand in that one.

12 Days of Christmas - Day One!

Today a friend of mine in LA let me know that the Sprinkles Cupcakes truck was going to be parked in Justin Herman Plaza by the Ferry Building, selling cupcakes from 11am-5pm. Score! Since the bakery is based in Beverly Hills, we don't get the chance to have them too much up here, so a few coworkers and I headed over for a morning sugar fix. A special bonus was the fact that 100% of the cupcake proceeds today were being donated to the SF Food Bank. $20 later, I left with six delicious cupcakes, two of which made it home.

O Christmas Tree

A few Sundays ago we headed over to the tree lot (Home Depot) to pick out our Christmas tree. Before we got down to the tree business we stopped by Aquatic Park to let the kids have some fun.

Olive almost fell asleep in this swing. I think the only reason that she didn't was that I kept talking to the father pushing his kid in the swing next to us. Shocking, I know.

Nikos tried out the tire swing for the first time and seemed to like it.

Off to Home Depot! Turns out we missed both the Cecchins and the D'Angelos by a half hour at the same "lot" that morning. Next year I say we all go to Half Moon Bay (or Evergreen Farm) and cut one down!

I decided we should go with noble fir again (over douglas) since the branches seem to hold heavier ornaments better. Like every year, I tried to pick a tree from the 8-10 foot row, while Taki kept me grounded by having us select from the 6-7 footers.

Sadly, our tree had a bulbous stump that went unnoticed (at least by one of us, the other one of us pointed it out and was ignored) so once we got it home we had to lop off about a foot. What? Boo. I think he sits at about 6.5 feet now. I guess you figure that a 7.5 foot tree may have been a problem, what with our eight foot ceilings and the ornamental Rudolph TreeTopper. Of course, since someone went ahead and stole that tree topper from us, we wouldn't have had to worry about that anyway.

When we got home we made to pose for the annual - My Parents Stuck Me On Top Of Our Car With Our Tree shot.

As a comparison - here's 2008 where I bought Nikos a shirt specifically for the occasion.

What? Yes. Obviously this is before I was spending almost 2k a month in daycare!

And 2007...

Happy Holidays!