Christmas Lights Galore

If you want to see the ultimate Christmas light display, you have to check out this guy's light display!

Wizards of Winter Light Show

Holy cow! He has way too much time on his hands and I'm sure his neighbors just love seeing this every night for a month. :-)

Santa Arrived Early!

We had another nice weekend. I spent Saturday getting ready for us to have our Christmas that night. We had finger food type appetizers for dinner, some Asti, and we all opened presents. Ella had the most work to do since she was in charge of helping Lily open most of her gifts too. Ella is a getting really good at opening gifts now. And she plays with each thing before moving on to the next one. The gifts were under the tree for a whole week and she left them alone. I was pretty impressed by that! She really seemed to like everything she received. We have a bunch of pictures that hopefully I'll get posted before we leave for the blistery cold of Wisconsin.

Sunday morning we woke up and Santa had taken time out of his busy schedule at the toy workshop to deliver a few gifts early. There were gifts waiting for Ella & Lily by the fireplace. Ella was excited that he was nice enough to make an early delivery for us! Then we spent Sunday relaxing most of the day and had a very enjoyable evening visiting with our friends Matt & Allison. They live in Madison and were out here visiting Allison's family. We made our annual trip to Don Cuco's. We first took them there three years ago and now Matt requests that we go there each time they visit. ;-) We don't mind since we only seem to get there when people visit. Matt is going to be Lily's godfather so it was fun to see him meet her for the first time. And we look forward to meeting up with them again during the holiday week in Wisconsin.

So now, we are just gearing up for our big Christmas trip. I've got to find the winter coats, scarves, mittens & hats. Our poor blood has thinned after so many years in warm weather winters. And from what I hear there is tons of snow already and its really cold so far this winter. Oh joy.

Actually, it will be nice to have snow for once. The last two Christmases in the Midwest have been virtually green Christmases. This will be Ella's first real experience with snow! It will be so fun to see her reaction. Don't worry I'm sure we'll be posting photos and probably even video of it. So everyone will get to see her have snow fun!

I'm sure I'll send a post or two from the snowy Midwest. But, we hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakkuh, or just a Happy Holiday! And a great New Year!

Busy Times

Well I have all our Christmas shopping done except for two things I still need to buy. I mailed several packages at the Post Office yesterday. So the gifts should arrive in plenty of time for Christmas. We went to the Harvey's baby shower on the 4th, then the Hornet Christmas party was in Santa Monica on Thursday, the 8th. Andrew got home early and we dropped the girls off at Jenn's house. It was the first time we left Lily with someone other than grandparents. Jenn is awesome though and we knew both girls would have a ton of fun. It was also the first time Andrew and I really have gone out together since we've had Lily. It was a fun evening with really good food, drinks and gambling. They had casino tables set up for black jack and roulette. The room was pretty swanky too, like one of those VIP rooms you hear about with celebrities. There were couches and lounge chairs as well as big comfy booths. (There are pictures in the December Hornet album on our pictures site)

We spent the weekend trying to get caught up on stuff around the house. We never seem to get ahead with the house these days. Last night we drove around Glendale and Burbank looking at Christmas lights. Both girls were great in the car and Ella really seemed to enjoy herself. She would point at the houses that were really lit up. She is starting to recognize who Santa is and she would point out all the inflatable Santas she could find. The left picture above is the best house in Glendale and the right is the best house (or two houses) in Burbank. :-)

Have you ever noticed how every year there seems to be a new trend in Christmas decorations? Several years ago when we were living in Lubbock it was the icicle lights, then a year or two ago, the inflatable decorations popped up. It seems this year's newest fangled must-have item is the inflatable snowglobe with fake snow floating around on the inside. At least, out here in California that's the trend. Maybe because the fake snow is the closest thing we get to snow/winter around here. I wonder if this is the trend all over.

Today is Andrew's birthday, so he got breakfast in bed with the girls (just Pilsbury cinnamon rolls from the can, but still yummy). And then he opened his gifts from us. He's spent the morning watching football and keeping an eye on his fantasy league. He doesn't have to worry about his team this week because he's seeded #2 in the Playoffs and has a bye into the second round this week. Anyone else out there excited that the fantasy football season is almost over?!

This afternoon we are going to a birthday party. Not for Andrew, but he will get cake on his birthday! The party is for Ella's little friend, Xander who is turning three.

This next week should be a little quieter and more relaxing for us and we're looking forward to celebrating our Christmas with the girls next Saturday! Santa's even going to make an early delivery for us since we'll be in the Midwest for the actual day.

Nana & Papi visit

My mom and Dave came for a visit last weekend. They got in on Thursday, Andrew picked them up from the airport and brought them back here to meet Lily. Lily just loved being cuddled by my mom. In fact, whenever my mom held her, she fell right asleep and wouldn't let my mom put her down or she would wake up. And Dave did a great job of being in charge of bouncing Lily in the bouncy chair. ;-) We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Glendale, Don Cuco's for dinner. It was very tasty as usual and I got to have my first real margarita since getting pregnant with Lily. YUM!

On Friday, my mom, Ella and I made the dough for our gingerbread men and cut-out cookies from the store bought Pilsbury sugar cookie dough. The Pilsbury dough was really good and a lot less work and cleanup than making them from scratch. We cut-out the gingerbread men on Saturday and frosted the other cookies. Ella did really well. I measured out the ingredients and she helped me put them in the bowl. She helped stir and she cut-out the cookies as well. But her favorite part was eating the mini m&m's I bought for the eyes and buttons on the cookies.

Saturday afternoon, we walked up to Kenneth Village. They were having a sidewalk art fair in the afternoon. We looked at the art (paintings, ceramics, knitted things) and then sat at the coffee shop and had a snack. It's so great that Ella is getting a little older now. She gets out of the stroller and sits by us at the table to eat her snack. She wanders a little bit, but she knows to stay right by us. This is much improved over 6 months ago when she would want to get out of the stroller and just run everywhere.

Sunday, we spent much of the day lounging around the house. Andrew and I went to Greg and Kelly Harvey's baby shower in the evening. Nana and Papi babysat Ella. Nana had a great time playing with Ella in her room and Ella even gave her several hugs! Ella was a little nervous we weren't going to come home though and stayed awake until we walked in the door. ;-) The shower was very nice. It was at the restaurant in Barney's department store in Beverly Hills. We had a great meal and it was fun to bring Lily to meet the Harvey's baby girl, Grayson as well as our friends Robin & Terry's little boy, Julian. Julian is just 11 days older than Lily and Grayson was born on November 2nd. It's fun that Lily already has a built-in playgroup!

It was sad to see my mom and Dave go, but we'll see them again in Racine over the holidays along with the rest of the Comande/Isaacson clans!

Birthday Wishes!

The cookie making was quite a success with me, my mom and Ella. I will post more about our weekend with my mom and Dave and update pictures shortly.

I did want to quick post that Andrew's birthday is on Sunday (Dec. 11th). He'll be the big 2-9, only one more year left of the twenties! If any one would like to wish him a happy birthday, you can leave him a birthday message in our guestbook!

Now I'm off to try and finish my Christmas shopping this morning. Only 16 more shopping days until Christmas!

2-Month Check-up

Lily had her 2 month check up on Friday morning. She did great! She now weighs 12 lbs. 4 oz. and measures 24 3/4 inches!! She is off the charts for length! Just for comparison, Ella was 11 lbs, 10 oz. and 23 1/2 inches at her two-month check up. Lily did really great getting all FOUR of her shots too. Poor little girl!

We brought Ella with us to get her flu shot. Now, she has a HIGH tolerance for pain. She totally watched the nurse the whole time, watched the needle go right in her arm and everything. And didn't even flinch or anything! Nothing. No crying. What a trooper she is!

'Tis the Season

Well, we have polished off the Thanksgiving leftovers (yes, including the two pies--that I believe I probably ate most of by myself--here come those holiday pounds!). We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Erin and DJ. The dinner turned out perfectly, even though my mom wasn't here to help with the cooking this year. And as always we played board games in the afternoon and evening. I can't really recall past years' records, but the Women squashed the Men this year in a rousing 4-0 victory (one game of Trivial Pursuit and 3 games of Scene It!). And for those of you that know my reputation for winning at Scene It!, I would just like to say this was an even match. All three games the guys were close, and actually had the chance to win at one point. But Erin and I persevered! Stay tuned next year for the rematch of Battle of the Sexes!

We are not a little tipsy in the photo above. ;-) Just the camera is. We were trying to get a picture of all of us and the camera kept tipping after Andrew hit the timer button and was running back to his chair.

Andrew, the girls, and I had a really nice rest of the weekend as well. We got the Christmas decorations out and made the house look festive while listening to holiday tunes on the iPod. I saved all the unbreakable ornaments for Ella. When she woke up from her nap, she helped me put the finishing touches on the tree. She is a really good helper when she wants to be!

So now we are all decked out for the holidays and my mom and Dave are coming in today for a few days. My mom and I plan on trying to make Christmas cookies with Ella. I'll let you know how it goes!

There are Thanksgiving pictures up as well as a few of us decorating the tree (in the December 2005 album) and trying to get a cute picture of the girls in the outfits my mom bought them for Christmas. Happy December! Only 25 more shopping days until Christmas!

Our Little Artistic Genius

So, Ella is a budding artist, can't you tell? I mean clearly the picture she drew above is the ocean (with all the different blues and greens she used) and with little "fishies" (the fish stickers) swimming in it. Andrew and I were just amazed by her talent!