Wading Pools in January

It's official, our kid is definitely a Californian. Granted we had a wave of very nice weather, but getting in the wading pool filled with water from the hose on January 18 is still not right. She was enjoying running around the backyard without clothes so much, she pulled her pool over to the grass and waited for it to be filled! Fortunately, she didn't stay in too long.

My parents came out for a week and I'm really not sure who had more fun. Claire got to take lots of walks with Papa, and Gramma helped with Claire's potty training. They all went down to the playground, read plenty of books and tired each other out! Brandon surprised me and took all of us to Disneyland to celebrate my birthday. We had a great day. Claire wasn't too horribly impressed by the rides, but she was interested in Mickey and Minnie. We had lunch with GGP and Aunt Emily met up with us later in the day. It was a very special day and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

We also went to the zoo with my parents and got the royal treatment from our friend Jessi. She works in the Childrens' Zoo and brought us into an area to see some of the animals. She brought out a hedgehog, an ocelot, a fossa and a screech owl. Claire thought they were all really cool, but it would have been even better to play with all of them! She did get to pet the hedgehog, but the fossa or ocelot would have been much more exciting. We also got to see the baby gorilla- he even had diapers on! We all needed to take naps after such an exciting day!

Claire's other excitement is learning to use the potty. Brandon and I never thought we'd be dancing around and cheering for a child to use the potty, but we are definitely doing it! Claire

started taking quite an interest in her toileting a couple of weeks ago and hasn't wanted her diaper on, so we've jumped into the potty training. She's actually been doing quite a good job and is very proud of herself! We'll save the graphic pictures of her progress from all of you, but Uncle Shaun can tell you about them if anyone really wants to know!

Claire is definitely becoming a little girl. It's really crazy how fast she's gone from being this little baby to this independent (so she thinks) toddler. She continues to exhaust us and challenge us, but she can always make us laugh! We hope all of you enjoy the pictures and get a chuckle from them as well!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

What a fun and crazy holiday season! We have been extremely lucky and were able to spend time with lots of family and friends, and Claire has loved every minute of it. The exception to that was Santa- Claire is by no means a fan of his yet! She has figured out who he is and says "Santa" or more like "Sa-suh" whenever she sees a picture of him, but the real thing was pretty tramautizing. Hopefully next year will be better!





We went to December Nights for the first time this year. It's a big holiday festival held in Balboa Park that's massive! Supposedly over 300,000 people were there this year. The park is decked out with lights and decorations, all of the international houses are open and serving food, plus all of the museums are free. It was quite a crazy experience with all of the people and food. We decided it wouldn't be fun if Claire wasn't confined to a stroller, I'm sure we would have lost her at some point! Brandon, Claire, Aunt Emily and I also ventured over to look at the lights on Garrison St. It's a neighborhood in Point Loma that goes all out each year with their decorations. We all decided we could never quite give a good enough description of how amazing these houses are. Some of the homes block out their windows and put displays in them, they look like storefronts! One house even had Santa sitting at their front entry, of course this wasn't very exciting for Claire. The good thing was, she really liked the lights and all of the motorized displays and blow-ups.

Claire had lots of fun Christmas Eve with all of the other kids running around at the Withers'. She was very intrigued by the guitar and got a huge kick out of being a human bowling ball. Between that and climbing up and down the stairs repeatedly, she slept very well that night!
Christmas morning was very exciting to wake up and have books waiting under the Christmas
tree for her from Santa. Never mind the tricycle sitting next to the books, that was only interesting once Mommy and Daddy put the books away for later! Eventually the tricycle was a very cool thing. Claire wasn't overly interested in opening presents with just Mom and Dad, but once she saw everyone at Aunt Emily's opening their gifts, it became very fun. It was so neat, she helped herself to gifts under the tree that were not for her. Thanks again to Aunt Em for understanding and not being bothered with re-wrapping gifts!

The day after Christmas we all went to the Wild Animal Park with the Lee crew to see the lights in the park. I'm not sure if the kids or adults had more fun...We saw a black light puppet show, Makani and Claire went sledding down the 'snow hill' and the lions were wandering around in their exhibit. The male was putting on quite a show with his roaring, I definitely wouldn't want to meet up with one of those in the wild!

Our New Year's Eve was mellow, but plenty of fun. We went over to Jay and Bobbie's for great food, playtime for the kids and as always, a very good time. There was a lot of running around with the kids, they played hard the entire time. It was an early evening, which was very nice for myself and Claire. She was out within 5 minutes of leaving the house and I think I was out on the couch within 5 minutes of getting home! B did wake me up to watch the ball drop, so I guess I officially rang in the New Year. It's a little different than some of the past New Year's celebrations we've had!








All in all, it's been a fantastic holiday season. We're looking forward to the new year and plenty of new memories with Claire. We wish all of you a fantastic New Year with plenty of good health and good fortune!