Christmas 2010

I feel like I have so much to catch up on! I guess I'll start with Christmas.

We drove down to Utah Sunday morning and stayed with Matt and Mickie that night. Calin always loves playing with cousin Ty!

(This video was so long, so I sped it up, and like it even more this way! Jordan took the video, so he is the main commentator. Isn't his chipmunk voice great!)

We flew in on Monday the 20^th, and stayed at my mom’s house in Turlock all week.

We canceled our Disneyland trip for multiple reasons: to spend more time with family, weather was supposed to be horrible, and I was still trying to recover from being so super sick the previous two weeks. So we spent the week before Christmas doing lots of Christmas shopping, spending lots of time with family, and trying to simplify our Christmas break and time together.

Monday night my s.i.l. Stephanie came to my mom's for dinner with her little boy Troy who is 8 months. Poor little guy was terrified of Calin! Calin would go up to Troy and say "hi!" and Troy would just start screaming! I don't think he was used to seeing other kids Calin's age, but by the end of our Trip Troy warmed up to Calin and all was good.

Wednesday night we went over to my brother Dom’s house and all the girls made and decorated cookies. Jordan took Calin out to get a pizza and ended up locking Calin in the car with the keys (he was driving my mom’s car). Opps! So my mom called AAA and my brother drove her down to meet them when AAA came. They were standing outside the car still trying to get a door open (Jordan was using a coat hanger) for about 10 min before my mom realized she had her other set of keys right in her pocket! Calin was just fine the whole time he was in the car and kept putting his arms up like he was saying “I don’t know, what's going on?”

Christmas Eve we spent at Dom & Jenna’s also with my dad and Brenda. Dom and Jenna made a delicious tri-tip dinner!

(isn't this picture of Alan and Troy cute. They both sit and eat the same way)

(and another father & son comparison with my own boys)

We exchanged gifts, ate cookies and pie, and chatted lots.

(Dom & Jenna)

That night we opened our gifts from my Nana & Papa and I couldn’t believe how perfect our girft was! I got a pasta maker attachment for my kitchen aid! I can’t wait to try out my Nana’s pasta recipe. Now I really need to get down there and learn how to make her famous Valponi raviolis!

And of course I got some of my favorite chocolates from Nelson's Candy Kitchen :) yum yum!

Calin got lots of toys, clothes, and books. He loves books! They are one of his favorite things right now.

On Christmas we had brunch at mom’s house with my brothers, their wives, grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their little boy Henry.

My little cousin Henry is so cute. He's about 2 1/2 and loves to strum away on the guitar while singing Christmas songs! He knows so many songs, and can sing the whole thing! It's amazing and one of the cutest things ever! I wish I could have gotten it on video!

Calin loves this little mini magnadoodle! And the Christmas sweater he's wearing was actually from an "ugly sweater Christmas party" we went to earlier that month, hahaha.

Stephanie, Alan, and Troy

Calin loves to trample all over messes. Whether it's wrapping paper, or toys in nursery, I think he has more fun doing that than actually playing with the toys!

We also decided to do stockings this year since we weren't do gifts (the new TV was our Christmas gift), and it was a lot of fun. I think we'll go back to doing them every year!

We did another gift exchange after brunch, then Jordan, Calin and I headed up to my dad’s in Sonora.

(Calin and Jayla)

Jayla is Brenda's oldest daughter's daughter. She's almost 1, and the two of them had so much fun together! They were so cute to watch play, and were actually really great at sharing with one another!

Brenda made prime rib for dinner that night, and it was delicious! We drove back down to my mom’s that night so we could help her get ready for another Christmas on Sunday afternoon at her house.

Sunday was the Parkinson Christmas (all of my mom’s side of the family). We were missing my two cousins in Texas, and another cousin from Santa Cruz who just had a baby a couple days before, but we still had lots of fun! We had another gift exchange and got some more great gifts!

We do the gift exchange where a gift can be stolen up to 2 times. My aunt was very unhappy when the gift she had just stolen, got stolen from her. But after stealing a crockpot from my s.i.l. she was happy again :)

After that Christmas we drove back to my dad’s and stayed with him till Tuesday.

Monday my Nana and Papa came over for dinner.


Calin always has a blast playing with Nana! He loves to play peek-a-boo with her, and she taught him how to eat imaginary food from a new book he got for Christmas.

Jordan and I don't really do much to build his imagination, so I thought this was just so great! He caught on pretty quickly, and still loves to do it!

We wish we could have spent more time at my dad's, but we had a lot of fun while we were there!

We were supposed to fly back to Salt Lake on Wednesday, but our flight was canceled (after they switched our flight 3 times, and spend hours in the airport). Our flight was canceled again on Thursday, so we had a take a shuttle to the San Francisco airport and wait another 7 hours in the airport there. We finally made it to Matt and Mickie's around 11pm that night.

Our Christmas break wasn't as quiet and relaxing as we might have wanted, but it was still great to be with so much family!