We had a great Christmas in California with Marinda's family! Christmas morning was magical, as Santa brought Luke exactly what we wanted. Luke got a blue crawler tractor (which, by the way, don't exist unless they come from "Santa"). Jacy got a toy car seat because she has been so obsessed with stereotypically girly things like babies and dolls. She also got some princess slippers and necklaces (another one of her latest interests). After Santa presents, we opened presents within our family! Luke picked out a dump truck and excavator for Jacy (though he later clarified that the excavator was for him, and that his excavator that he had was for Jacy, because the new one was bigger, and he's bigger than Jacy). From us, Luke got a lightsaber that lights up and makes noises and a bunch of legos! Jacy got Luke got a puppy dog ornament, which Luke had actually picked out days before. We gave Jacy a pony-stuffed animal.
Marinda got a sewing machine from Amit and a fuzzy blanket, Thomas movie and a chocolate bar from the kids so they could have a movie night! Amit got a fitbit and an ice cream scoop and a Molly Moon's gift card to take the kids on daddy dates!
Jacy in her slippers and necklaces from Santa
Luke testing out his blue crawler tractor for the very first time!
"Here Jacy, let me show you how to play with construction toys"
Luke's puppy dog ornament
Jacy playing the piano for us
Later that day we went to church, and in the afternoon the cousins came over to finish opening up the presents. Overall it was a great Christmas, and the kids had a blast playing with their presents throughout the day!
But Christmas wasn't the end of our fun in California - the next day we went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and met up with the cousins! We were excited to see how Jacy would react considering she's been really into "fishies" lately. Luke wanted to see a hammerhead shark, which they have in the open ocean exhibit. He saw the hammerhead, said "yup! that's a hammerhead" and was content to move on. Then we went to the gift shop, and we got him his own hammerhead (named "Hammy") and he was soooooo happy.
Luke was on the lookout for a hammerhead shark, and Jacy saying "fishies" over and over
5 out of 7 in one shot!
Another group of 5 out of 7!
The next day Amit helped Steven and Ashleigh move while Marinda and grandma took the kids to West Cliff.
On Wednesday, we went to Henry Cowell State Park to spend some time in the Redwoods. Marinda enjoyed telling Luke all about the things she played with coming there as a little kid. Honestly, we were all just happy to get into nature for a bit. By the way, in case you didn't realize this, Jacy will do anything she sees Luke doing. She would literally follow him and do everything he did, down to the detail of climbing up the fence on the exact same spots Luke did. At one point Luke started walking backwards, so Jacy tried it too. But then I guess she liked it so much she wanted to keep doing it!
The next day was our last day in California. The cousins came over to hang out and spend one last day with Grandpa's train while we frantically tried to figure out how we were going to get all of our new stuff home. Everyone also had a blast with grandma's magic tracks!
Lorenzo was super-excited to see Jacy!
Jacy making a tunnel by doing downward dog!
Luke making a tunnel with his legs!
We flew back home the next day and spent a very quite New Year's Eve at home. But hey, we actually stayed up until midnight this year (as opposed to midnight east coast time like we normally do). Happy New Year everyone! Jacy stories: •Jacy absolutely loves the puppies. If you didn't get that from the last blog post, here's two more pieces of evidence.
Jacy feeding the puppy a treat!
•Jacy is in love with puzzles now! She can easily do three of the baby-type at the same time and is always asking for more!
•Jacy used her giant pink bear as a reading corner!
•Jacy loves hats - even if they're grandpa's and way too big!
"This hat's not big enough for the both of us...on second thought, it probably is."
•Jacy loves seeing herself in the camera, or I guess in general too :) Look at her interact with herself while Amit takes a video of her!
Luke stories:
•Amit took a time-lapse video of Luke playing with Tinker Toys and Luke just thought it was hilarious. The video is only 2 seconds, but Luke must have watched it 30 times just laughing his head off.
•One of Luke's presents (from Uncle Ben and Aunt Jackie) was a Star Wars poster with different kinds of ships. Luke said he couldn't wait to show it to his friend Liam (who also loves Star Wars).
•Another present Luke got was essentially glowing Dinosaur legos (from Aunt Ashleigh)! They have a real name but that's basically what they are. Amit helped Luke follow the instructions to make a T-rex, but Luke did most of the work himself. That's our little future Jurassic Park scientist!
Luke and Jacy stories:
•Luke and Jacy had a great time on the plane flight home. Look how happy they are! You can also check out the amazing views that they were too distracted to appreciate except for the one good picture we got!
Croissant time!
•One Christmas gift that we didn't take with us to California was a stroller for Jacy to play with! Here's a video of her and Luke with it
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