Chatty first thing in the morning...

Sorry it's sideways!

29 on the 29th!

I had a great birthday yesterday...went to see a chick flick (P.S. I Love You) with my girlfriends (it was an AWESOME movie!) and then we met up with the guys at my favorite sushi restaurant where they made me where a crown and sash that said Miss Birthday Girl and then we had cake and ice cream back at the house. Wonderful day!

Grace in her outfit from Chinatown in San Francisco

She's Keeping Us Busy

Currently trying to take her diaper off all the time, she very matter of fact says "Diaper Off!" Here's a picture of me making her hold her diaper on as she goes up the stairs to take a bath...she wasn't too pleased with that.

Christmas Dinner

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thanks for all the great gifts we got...Paul and Jone, she loves the books, it amazes me that they were all ones she'd never seen before and she loves anything with flaps and tabs to look under...love the 'Pablo' doll! :) Mom and Dad, she LOVED the cradle, it is currently deemed "Dora's crib" not even Bunny can sleep in it. Ok, I just realized I'm going to have to write a book if I name each gift, but thank you everyone who thought of us, it made being away from home easier. We miss you all! Can you see her joy in wearing that adorable Christmas outfit? Too funny :)

Christmas Morning (sorry these are kind of backwards...Christmas Eve and all pictures before that are below)

Grace saw that Santa had eaten his cookies and the reindeer ate the apple and carrot we left for them. She is IN LOVE with her Dora Doll that Santa brought to her...
Thank you Papa Tom and Gigi for the ornaments!

New Christmas Eve Traditions

So as Grace gets older and is more aware of the Christmas season we have set some new family traditions...we did chili in the crockpot all day, made Christmas cookies to decorate for Santa to eat when he came during the night, and we each got to open a gift that had new Christmas jammies in them...we put them on and watched Grace's new Dora and Santa movie, ate popcorn on the pull out sofa and drank eggnog.

Making and Decorating Cookies for Santa

Fun around the house...who needs a Johnny Jumper when you've got one of Dada's bike tires??

All dolled up to go Christmas shopping with Dada

She had her purse, and baby in stroller, all set to go shopping. She even had her credit card that she used to by some gifts for Mama. Is she a Weaver woman or what, Mom? :) The picture of her with the doll is so funny...lately she is putting her dolls in 'time outs' and if they're not listening to her, she gets right down in their face, holding the face by each side, and says "Listen".

Pre-Holiday Get-Together

A few more miscellaneous pictures from the trip...

The Hoffmans Week-long tour of Northern CA

Well here you go, there's LOTS of pictures to follow, all of our trip starting from Sequoia Nat'l Park and ending at Yosemite Nat'l Park. Pretty good start and finish with lots of fun in between.

Places that had everything we needed...

And places we had to improvise...

Sequoia National Park

Our first stop of the trip was at Sequoia...beautiful...we then traveled to Fresno to stay with my Aunt Sharon and Uncle John (thanks for everything, we had such a great time and wished we could have stayed longer!)

Sequioa Cont.

So....General Sherman...tricky little tree...you'll see David and Grace posing in front of what we THOUGHT was General Sherman, the largest (by volume) tree in the world...come to find out, around the corner, was the real General Sherman. :)