Christmas Vacation

This year for Christmas we decided to change things up a bit. We visited Riverside, the beach, Las Vegas and St. George.

First stop Riverside:
In Riverside we went to our old ward and saw some of our friends. James got to play at his best friend while we lived there. They had a blast. We saw some of our favorite site and went to some of our favorite places, like Canyon Crest shopping center, Fairmont park, the Christmas lights downtown.

James and Charles had a blast in our hotel room.
It was a great place to stay.

Feeding the birds at the park.

These birds started chasing James.

It was very funny.

Beautiful sunset

After a few days in Riverside, we headed to the beach. We first spent the night near Dana Point.

The patio and the view were great. Charles loved hanging out by the door.
It rained however so we didn't spend a lot of time outside.

This hotel was pretty nice. It had a separate room for the bed
and James slept on a sofa bed in the main room.
It had lots of room for the kids to go crazy.
We also quickly discovered you can tell just how clean the carpet is
by having a baby crawling all over it.
His clothes soon turned black.

After spending a night there, we headed north a bit to have lunch at Newport Beach and Balboa Pier before heading back south to San Clemente. We just had to have a meal at Ruby's diner. Rain or shine we were going. Of course our original plan had been to play at Balboa but it was raining. Sand and rain don't really make for a pleasant beach time.

At Ruby's

Charles loves sitting like a big boy.

 We then spent a couple of days in San Clemente. Joe's parents also joined us and we all enjoyed our time beach side.

James reading to Charles.

We went to Laguna to see some tide pools.
James loved seeing the anemone.

A painter and his art.

Sunset at San Clemente

Our view for the days we were in San Clemente.

The view outside!

Tracy couldn't get a good picture of Charles.

After San Clemente we spent Christmas Eve night in Las Vegas at Sam's Town. James' favorite hotel. It kind has become a little tradition to spend Christmas Eve or Christmas night there. Christmas morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast buffet and then drove to St, George. In St. George we mostly just hung out. We love that Tracy's cousin lets us use his vacation home there. When we arrived it started lightly snowing. Such a nice Christmas welcome. James was very excited about it. Though it only snowed for a little bit and didn't stick.

Charles' first time seeing snow fall. It was just a little bit and didn't stick.
(He's waving at me.)

I tried to get him waving on video but he just baby talked.

We opened presents and had a nice Christmas dinner. We mostly hung out in the condo for the weekend. James had a 24 hour flu bug that hit Christmas night. He has a knack for getting sick on Christmas. The next day Tracy and I went on a date and saw Star Wars. It was awesome.

One of our Christmas gifts was a nano bug operated bug. 

Charles chased the thing all over. It was funny. Here's a short video.

The longer one was too big to upload. :(

Charles trying to copy the face Tracy is making.

After the weekend we made the long drive home. And it was very long but was nice that we split the drive up into two days. We had a great trip. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Charles is 9 months!

Charles turned 9 months on December 15th! In just a few short months he'll be a year old. Where did the time go?

As of the 30th his weighed 19 lbs. 10.5 oz. and 29.5 inches tall. He now wears 9-12 month clothes. 

Charles has been keeping us busy this month. He started standing with help on December 10th and started waving on December 17th. He "talks" more and more. He's extremely fast at getting around and one minute he'll be playing with his toys and the next he's in another part of the apartment getting into something he shouldn't. When you don't let him do what he wants, he throws a huge fit. Not even a year old and has the tantrum thing down. Not good.

We haven't been sleeping very well, either. Charles has decided it is tons of fun to wake up every 3 hours again and sometimes at 5-6 he's done sleeping. It's been a long month. Maybe we'll get back to sleeping again soon!

On a good note, he loves food. I can't believe the things he'll eat. He started eating a lemon one evening and seemed to love it. He just isn't a fan of peas. His favorite is what ever you are eating. Don't think you can get away with out sharing or the tantrum will come.

James and Charles have been playing and interacting more. It is so fun to see their little bond growing. Charles loves to follow James around. One day when Tracy and James went some where together. Charles kept looking for him and was so upset he couldn't find his brother. But the love his mutual, the first person James looks for when I pick him up from school is Charles. They sure love each other.

We do love this little guy, even though he drives us crazy! Glad to have this strong willed child a part of our lives.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we celebrated on our own. James had the whole week off from school. He declared on Monday that we needed to go to the a different park each day. We made it to a park Monday. Rain ruined our park day for Tuesday. Then, when Tracy didn't have class on Wednesday, so we decided to do something else. He officially only had Thursday and Friday off.

Wednesday we went to the train museum. At the museum we saw them setting up model trains. James was excited to see them and was content to just watch the owners set their tracks up.

Thursday we had a low key day, with a low key dinner of pork, twice baked potatoes, peas and homemade french bread. We didn't want to spend a ton since we were saving up for our Christmas trip.

Friday, Tracy took James back to the museum since the model trains would only be on display that day and Saturday. They had a great father/son trip and James came home with another Thomas and Friends engine, Diesel 10.

Tracy said that this guy let kids pull and push the knobs to switch the tracks.
James would sit there patiently to be told which ones to move.
Other kids would come up and just grab the knobs as they pleased.
Apparently this guy really enjoyed having James as his helper
and let him stitch the knobs for quite awhile.

And just because they were taken shortly after Thanksgiving, pictures sleeping boys:

He isn't an easy one to get to sleep so sometimes
we just leave him where ever he finally crashed....

...even if that means in the middle of the living room.

James one day claimed my hat as his and then went to bed wearing it.