I am massively behind on the blogging -- we have moved to a new house, celebrated Christmas and New Year, visited with the GA and TX grandparents, had a number of play dates with friends, and gone on a few adventures with Adventure Day.
I did post SPL's letter to Santa and Santa's visit to his young 5s class :-)
NOTE: please use your "guest pass" link to Flickr photos from the email I sent or your own membership to see the photos in this post.
Christmas was in our new house in Palo Alto this year. SPL has transitioned well to the new place and especially likes the
feature of his new bedroom. This room was built w/ a 5 year old in mind and SPL has populated it with his stuffed animals as well as some books. The only danger is bumping your head as you exit which sadly some 5 year old friends have done in addition to SPL's mom and dad :-(
We celebrated Christmas over 4 days this year due to everyone's travel schedules. Grandee and Nana Dana came out for a few days as did SPL's TX grandparents. Aunt Beth and her crew were around through Christmas Eve so we had
on December 23 -- a great way to inaugurate our new dining room table and house!
were our first guests. We had fun
(now only 5 blocks away!), visiting the Apple store (of course!),
and
(cars that have interchangeable parts -- SPL's Christmas gift from Grandee and Nana Dana).
This year we decided to support the Palo Alto sports department instead of going to the Santa Cruz mountains and chopping down
With the move and all the changes, it made life easier (plus, as SPL reminds us, there are no windy roads for him to get sick on between here and Palo Alto High School :-).Â
came over for dinner on December 23 (they were off to VA for Christmas leaving on 12/25) and we had a fun time opening presents. They got SPL 2 games: Parcheesi and dominoes which are perfect as we've had their edition of Parcheesi since Thanksgiving and have been playing non-stop :-). And SPL's mom *loves* dominoes after living 2 years in Jamaica (their favorite game next to football and cricket) so is enjoying playing with SPL now.
On Christmas Eve we said goodbye to Grandee and Nana Dana and hello to the TX grandparents, who'd been staying with Beth et al for the first part of the week. It was fun to wake up with them on Christmas morning and share the Howe family tradition of Hungarian coffeecake for breakfast. SPL sent a
earlier in the week and also
with his cookies and milk. Santa even wrote a note back to SPL! Christmas morning found an
built in our living room and inside, some
SPL enjoyed his role handing out gifts to each person and also
This year he made special gifts for each of his grandparents, great-grandparents,
:
Snuggies were also a popular gift this year:
and
! And games:
, Sue, Grace, and Evan;
from Beth and her crew;
All awesome choices!
And the key to getting us to Christmas with a lot more fun was Nan and her Advent calendar. She sewed it herself as a quilt of envelopes, one for each day and each morning SPL would wake up and discover a fun toy or object or game. Awesome! And the
this year came from the Advent calendar :-). And her gifts were spot on: super heroes lunch bag and underwear! Plus Busytown characters for mom, dad, and SPL.
And we were lucky enough to get to have a 2nd holiday meal with our friends the Holmes-Shavers & TX Grandparents on Christmas Day. :-)
And the TX grandparents stayed through the holiday weekend so we had some added fun playing at the school across the street:
,
, @ then home on the couch finding object after object after object in the
and
:-)
Thanks for a memorable and fun Christmas vacation!
