Bella's pre-school holiday party

Bella just had her first pre-school holiday party. It was so much fun! Teacher Chrisa and Teacher Jonnie, God bless them, attempted to teach 18 three to four years olds how to sing three holiday songs! One of them being "let it snow", which I think is an undertaking all by itself...
The day of the party the kids made sandwhiches and snacks for the parents and siblings, as well as christmas tree snowglobes and reindeer.
All the families were supposed to bring a batch of cookies to share. I, of course, made some gluten free cookies so that Bella would have a treat to eat. I also told her that mornign that the cookie that Mommy made was the only one that she would be able to eat. Little did I know that two other mom's at the school made a type of cookie that was gluten free because they felt bad that Bella never had any choices when it came to snacks. I was shoked and touched that other mom's, that we don't know that well, went out of their way to think of Bella. It was so sweet and Bella was sooo apreciative.

Getting ready for Christmas...

Disclaimer:: I started this post and then got caught up in the fun so I am going to finish it now even though it happened months ago::

We went to the Christmas tree lot last week to hunt for the perfect tree. When we got there the kids were more interested in climbing hay bales and going through tunnels than looking at any trees! It took us a while but we finally found THE one. We got it home and Bill had to get the tree ready and then put it in the house. I wanted to get the lights on the tree without "help" from the kids and then the kids were going to help me decorate.
After two trips to the store for more lights, we were finally able to decorate. I couldn't believe how excited the kids were to decorate the tree. I thought they would put a few ornaments on the tree and then get bored and move on. Bella stuck it out and was having so much fun decorating.

One of our christmas traditions is to have the kids pick an ornament every year and then when they move out and have their own tree they have a whole bunch of ornaments to take with them. This year the kids both ended up picking out candy inspired ornaments. Charlie's is a gaudy, sparkly piece of blue and green candy and Bella's is a peppermint lollypop ornament.

The kids loved looking at the tree and the ornaments really turned into new "toys" to play with. I had to give up on my dream of the perfect tree because every day the ornaments changed around!!!

Uncle Mike

My brother Mike has been living in Costa Rica for the past 5 years. A few weeks ago he was able to come home for the first time in three years. It was soooo great to see him. Bella has really changed since the last time he had seen her and Charlie wasn't even here so it was pretty exciting for him to be here.
He was here for a week and stayed with my mom half the time and with us half of the time so we really got to spend a lot of time with him. Charlie's tempermant is very much like Mike's so it was so fun to finally see them together. They got a long so well and so quickly. Usually it takes Charlie it little while to warm up to someone but with Mike he warmed up right away.
Mike brought the kids some special sheels from Costa Rica and they had so much fun exploring them together and the kids are still playing with them and remembering Uncle Mike.

Look who is 2!

Charlie turned two years old on Sep 27th. I can't believe that much time has passed since he was born. We had such a fun party for him. Charlie is VERY into trucks and diggers and tools. So, we had a construction party for him complete with construction site cake, diggers in the dirt, building site and dumptruck bean bag toss. Charlie had such a fun day. He would go from activity to activity every once in a while check in with an adult that he knew. Charlie gets a little overwhelmed by crowds, unlike his big sister.
This was the first party we have had at our new house and Bella was completely tickled that so many people she knew were in her house!
When cake time came Charlie was so happy and sat at the table for about 30min playing and eating. He took the diggers and played with them in his cake. He was having so much fun using the excavator to dig the dirt (cake). It was so cute to watch.
We had shirts made for the party. So everyone in our family was sporting a "charlie dunbar construction company" shirt. It has now become Charlie's favortie shirt and he would wear it every day if we let him.
I am so happy that his party went well and he had so much fun!

Santa Cruz County Fair

We have been going to the fair every year since we have lived in Santa Cruz. Each year as the kids get older the way we enjoy it changes. Now that the kids are older we are able to stay longer and later and ride more rides and they really enjoy checking everything out.
This year both Bella and Charlie were able to ride some of the rides and they loved seeing all of the animals. The mama pig and her liter of piglets were one of their favorites. The highlight for Bella was riding the whale ride all by herself!
The highlight for Charlie was, by far, the tractor parade and getting to see and touch and sit in a digger!
My mom joined us for the first time and she enjoyed seeing the kids have fun too.
What a great day!