Christmas Images

 Wow!  Each kid and their pile of presents on Christmas morning. 

 Our Christmas Eve ham dinner.  After dinner we drove around looking at Christmas lights.  On Yale Ave. in Fullerton, there was a neighborhood that worked together to make and hang these beautiful lighted Christmas balls (made from clear plastic drinking cups!).  It was a beautiful site that my camera really couldn't capture. 

 One of my favorite things this Christmas was this platter that my friend Christine gave to me. 

 Below is the nutcracker that Brad made at the free LEGO build in downtown Disney.

 More Christmas lights...  People here really go crazy with the Christmas lights.  It's like they're trying to make up for not having snow or something.

 Another use for those Hallmark gold crown stickers:  I discovered Brad using them for his alligator.

 We have a special lady at church who has adopted our family and two other families who don't have family nearby.  She is always giving things to the kids and offers to babysit, etc.  She is a blessing to us!  This year one of the other moms made this quilt for her with a different kids' name in each sqaure.  We all got together to present it to her.  She really liked it!

 The Christmas performance at church was really fun.  Brad and Lila are on the other side of this picture.  Mostly Lila roamed around the stage with another boy.  It was pretty funny!  Sky sang with the older kids and, as always, really enjoyed it. 

It was a wonderful Christmas!  We're looking forward to more good times in 2012!!!

A Christmas Tradition

 One of our Christmas traditions is attending the MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) pancake breakfast at our church.  Somehow the pancakes always taste so good (I think it's because I don't have to cook them or wash the dishes, etc.). 

Sky is really into making picture frames this year. 

 Then we go, as a family, around to different centers that have a Christmas theme.  The kids got Christmas tattoes.  And everyone brought a set of kid pajamas to wrap and give to a crisis pregnancy center. 
Below Lila is seaching for the baby Jesus (a foam sticker) in this bin of rice.  Later I noticed a new group of kids searching for Jesus and unable to find Him.  Then I noticed that Lila had stuck Him on her sleeper and was walking around with Him.

 Lila is deinitely going through her two year old growing pains (I'm trying to avoid saying "terrible twos" but that's totally what it is).  She's been in trouble at church (for not listening) the past few times we've been there.  I'm hoping this stage is short-lived! 

Brad enjoyed making Christmas shapes with play doh. 

 There was a brief performance of some songs that they are learning in church. 

It was a super fun morning and it has definitely become one of our family's Christmas traditions. 

December Fun

 Every year our church hosts a drop and shop where parents can drop their kids off for a few hours and go shopping (or whatever).  Every year, they have a Santa (actually a guy in our church) who comes and takes pics with the kids. 

 Ice skating in southern CA???  Not really.  This is synthetic ice (plastic) but people actually come out to skate on the stuff.  This was Sky's first experience with ice skating and she liked it but was pretty terrified of falling (thankfully she didn't!). 

 One day while Sky was at art class, I decided to do some creative cooking with Lila and Brad.  First we made this cream cheese/moz. cheese snowman and then we made gingerbread.  Brad has been enamored with this gingerbread ornament on the tree (he really wants to eat it) and so I thought he would enjoy making his own gingerbread.  WOW!  What a mess!  I didn't even get any pictures because we were all covered in flour and dough.  Lila especially made a HUGE mess (flour in her hair, dough in the carpet, etc.).  But they had a good time.

 The day after Thanksgiving we decorated our little artificial Christmas tree.  Ken loves this tree because it came pre-lit. 

 The kids really enjoyed looking at all of the ornaments and putting them on the tree.  Brad especially seemed very interested in all of it.

 Some of my favorite gifts already this season are a gingerbread table runner from my mom and Bill, a beautiful handmade Jesse tree from my pastor's wife, and a really nice red and white serving platter that says "Jesus is the gift" from my friend Christine.  Maybe I'll post pics of these in a future blog post.

 Just tonight we went to our good friend's, the Denham's, home for dinner and cookie decorating.  That was very messy also, but again, the kids had a blast. 

What else has been going on lately?  We went to a faculty Christmas open house on Sunday and met Norman Wright (famous author who writes mostly on marriage).  That was cool.  He was really nice and down to earth.  And we had a great time visiting with other professors and their spouses. 

Yesterday we went to Downtown Disney to the LEGO store for a free LEGO build.  The first Tues. of every month, the LEGO store hosts a free LEGO build.  Every month it's a different thing.  Yesterday Sky and Brad got to build a LEGO nutcracker.  It was super fun and you get to keep the LEGOS you build with!!!  Hopefully we can do it again sometime. 

Day 1: Alcatraz Island and Ghirardelli Square

 Last week we took an awesome trip to San Francisco.  None of us had ever been there before and we were all impressed with this amazing city.  Let me start by saying that when I was growing up, I heard about things like the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island but I never imagined that I would actually see these places in person someday.  As far as I planned, I was happy to live out my days in a small town in New England and California seemed so very far away. 
But, somehow, along the way, God led us to California.  It has been difficult to move from different places (first Connecticut, then Chicago and then Cincinnati) and say good bye to good friends and start over somewhere new!  I feel like I'm still trying to find my way here in CA.  But, in many ways, I feel like I've led such a privileged life, in that I've been able to enjoy so many unique experiences and see so many amazing things.  I am very thankful for the life that God has given me and very thankful for this trip that we were able to take. 
Ken attends a Bible conference every year and it is always held in a different city.  This year, since it was in San Francisco, we drove up together.  As Ken attended the conference, I took the kids out sightseeing.  We bought something called a City Pass which was a very economical way to visit 5 different sites (Alcatraz, CA Museum of Sciences, Exploratorium, Aquarium of the Bay, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).  It also included unlimited free public transportation. 
Ken really enjoyed his conference and we really enjoyed exploring a new area.  Ken was able to come with us on our adventures on this day so that was extra fun.

 Alcatraz was a truly amazing experience.  Above was the shower room where the inmates would shower.  The building was very cold and the wind seemed to blow right through it.  Each inmate was given clothes, a blanket and a pillow.  Their cells were very small.

 Some of the most notorious criminals stayed here.  It is surprisingly close to the shore of SF.  On the audio tour, it said that the prisoners could often hear the people in SF laughing and having a good time. 

 Much like life at our house, there were a few escape attempts (some successful) and a few prison takeover attempts.  Above you can see some pretty notorious troublemakers.

 The picture above shows the solitary confinement area, otherwise know as "the hole".

 The view of the city from Alcatraz was amazing, especially with the fog moving off the bay. 

 The buildings on Alcatraz are in pretty bad shape but I wonder how much better they were when the prison was in use.

 Brad and Sky finally relaxed once they realized they weren't going to see any real bad guys.

Later that night we rode a cable car to Ghirardelli Square.  Sky lost her coat off of the cable car and when the cable car finally stopped we were too far away to go back and get it.  She also had her American girl doll with her so, thankfully, she didn't go overboard too.
Ever since I worked at the Ghirardelli's in Chicago at the Water Tower, I have wanted to visit the original Ghirardelli's in SF.  I never thought I would actually get to do it though.  This was definitely a great day for crossing things off my bucket list. 

Day 2: CA Acad. of Sciences Museum and Pier 39

 The CA Academy of Sciences Museum is located in Golden Gate Park (which is a huge park!).  We were able to watch the penguins being fed and we learned a lot about their diet and way of life as the feeder talked while she was working with them. 

 They have a pretty nice aquarium here and we had fun looking at all of the different fish.  I never cease to be amazed at how God created everything so spectacularly.

 Sky was thrilled when she was able to handle a real abalone shell and also work a marine microscope.

 Is that a really big starfish or a really small baby??? 

 We went into a preschool play area for a while and Sky did a presentation on sea turtles.  There's always a performance of some kind...

 Meanwhile, Lila comandeered a pirate ship:

 There is a really cool, 4 story, glass ball that contains a rain forest climate and also the levels of a rain forest.

 We walked up through each level, looking at the plants and animals along the way.

 The orbweaver spiders were enormous!  I'm so glad that we had glass between us!

 There were some pretty cool trees at Golden Gate Park! 

 Later that night, we walked over to Pier 39, a shopping and entertainment area.  We stayed in the Fisherman's Wharf area which is pretty close to everything.  The kids rode the carousel here.

 And posed for a few pictures...

 A short distance up the road were the Occupy San Francisco people.  This picture doesn't quite capture it.  There were lots of tents and lots of people.  What would a trip to San Francisco be without a protest, right?

Day 3: The Exploratorium

 Our good friends, Jolene and Robert Denham, grew up in the Bay Area and usually come to the Bay area to be with family for holidays.  They came up a little early for Thanksgiving to do some sightseeing with us.  Robert is a music professor at BIOLA and Jolene also homeschools her kids.  They live right down the street from us and are our closest friends here. They have Robby (6), David (5), Benjamin (3), and Kathleen (7 mos.).  It was really fun to be able to explore the Exploratorium with them!

 Everything here is hands-on and the kids had a blast.  Sky designed and built this butterfly.

 There were lots of pulleys and levers to experiment with.

 When you tap this drum, the plate under your feet vibrates.  The girls thought that was pretty cool.

 There was some cool steamy things that Lila really enjoyed.

 Brad LOVED this beach ball in the air thing.  He could have played here all day. 

 He also really enjoyed this peg board with which you can use other materials (funnels, wheels, etc.) to design your own marble track.  Then you can test your track with marbles and make necessary adjustments.  Brad was really into this!

 This was a spinning plate with sand and you could make your own designs and speed up or slow down the spinning.

 Lila and Robby built some marble tracks with these blocks.

 Brad liked this mechanism where you could speed up, slow down, or change direction of the rope on the pulley.

And Sky waited in line to have the chance to do this art project.  She shook the platform in a variety of ways until she was ready to set the marker loose on the paper.  Then the marker would make waves according to how the platform was shaking.  She got to choose her colors and keep her paper when she was done.  The Exploratorium was really fun and quite extensive.  I feel like we could go back tomorrow and spend the day doing things we didn't even have a chance to do.