Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!

I wasn't sure what the outcome of this year's Santa photo shoot would be - last year he took a great picture, but he never even noticed Santa! I had high hopes, simply because he had no issues with the characters at Disneyland, but you never know with a toddler!

Well, as you can see, Timothy was more than happy to sit on Santa's lap - in fact, he got very impatient when we were next in line and the little girl before us was needing some coaxing to calm down, smile and look at the camera. Anyway, here's my sweet, adorable little camera-hog (we really should get him into modeling one of these days! hehe). Merry Christmas!

ZOO!!!

Since Nicole did such a good job posting about Disneyland, I thought I would post about my day with the little man at the LA County Zoo. Nicole had conferences all day on Tuesday, so Timothy and I had a boys day out.

The first thing that Timothy really recognized from his books was the zebra (this was his favorite of the day too):


There were lots of monkeys too!


They even had a playground in the park to make sure Timothy got every last bit of energy out for the day:


Lastly, we saw a little kitty (jaguar) drinking water:


All in all, it was a great day. There were lots of other animals Timothy really liked, but taking pictures and chasing the little guy was not the easiest job of the day. As soon as we got back to the car, he was out, so we took a little trip down sunset blvd before picking up Nicole from work.

Daddy's Birthday at Disneyland!

I had to be in Southern California for work the Monday following Thanksgiving, so we decided to make a road-trip out of it! We drove down to Orange County on Thanksgiving morning (4:30am departure time!) and Timothy was SO excited to see his cousins, Jack and Minsh (Vince), and Aunt Cwish-tee (Christie) and Unco Coo (Uncle Drew). For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to join Christie for Black Friday shopping the next day, so again, I was up before 5am (Christie got up before 3am to go get a "ticket" for one of the hot items she wanted to buy! Yikes!). Anyway, it wasn't so bad, and we both got some good deals, but I don't know that I'll be doing that again...

Anyway, we spent a leisurely time hanging out with everyone that weekend (Timothy even stayed with a babysitter for the first time ever!) and on Sunday, which was Billy's birthday, we went to Disneyland! Timothy had an amazing time! So without further ado, here are some photos for your viewing enjoyment.

Self-portrait at the main entrance.

Pirates of the Caribbean - in retrospect, maybe not the best choice for our first ride! He sat on my lap with his head on my chest for 95% of it - he only looked up a couple of times when we pointed out some puppies and pigs.

The Jungle Cruise was a much bigger hit.

In front of Sleeping Beauty's castle, which was so beautifully lit up at night, but our pictures all came out blurry.

Timothy pretty much insisted on walking most of the day. Luckily he likes holding our hands.

Napping while Daddy, Jake and Mary went on Space Mountain.

Cutie waiting for the Holiday on Main Street parade - which was AWESOME!

Billy with his cousins Mary and Jake, who shares Billy's birthday (only he's 11 years younger!). Jake and Mary are two of Timothy's namesake's siblings.

Timothy loved the Playhouse Disney stage show - Handy Manny was featured!


On a couple of different rides in A Bug's Life at California Adventure.


In a chair in the Beast's library.

"Nice to meet you, Mick!" Mickey was at a bit of a loss when Timothy wanted to shake his hand! :)

I wasn't able to get a picture of Timothy facing me, because he wouldn't take his eyes off of Mickey!


Yup, definitely the happiest place on Earth! Can't wait to go back! Yay!

Timothy's new shirt...

And soon-to-be new role! :)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Timothy has been working on making the "z" sound. It's really cute because he can't seem to make the sound to start a word, so he says "bezh-bezha" for "zebra" and "bizhau" for "zip up".

"Ah Tyooo"

Timothy said "I love you" (which sounds like "ah tyoo") to each of us, unprompted, for the first time yesterday! He's said it before, but only after we've said it to him. We were getting him into his jammies and he was sitting up on the changing table. He turned to Billy and made a kissing motion and said "Ah tyoo" and then turned to me and did the same. Ahhh! My heart just melted!

Halloween

Angie, Ryan and mapah came up to visit on Saturday and went trick-or-treating with us. And the little Dino had the trick-or-treating thing down pat from our Halloween walk the previous day. Watch the little pro in action!

Forever Young Halloween Walk

Every year, the preschool does a Halloween walk around the neighborhood. The kids dress up in their costumes and the parents come and we all walk to different businesses in the area and trick or treat. When it's all over with, we go back to the preschool for snacks. Timothy had a blast! After our second stop, he figured out that he was going to get something every time we stopped. So he decided he wanted to run in between stops, and to bypass all of his friends who were patiently waiting their turn. Once we got the whole waiting thing down, he was so cute - at every stop he said, "Tee-tee (trick-or-treat), ta-tyoo (thank you), buh-bye!"

This is what I saw when I got to the infant center to get him in his costume:

Carving Pumpkins

We had lots of fun carving pumpkins this year! I think it's even more fun now as a parent than it ever was as a kid. Well, maybe... :)

Pumpkin Party

We had a "Pumpkin Party" at the preschool today. Each kid got a pumpkin to decorate, and it was so cute to watch them! Timothy, however, was not interested in anything but the sandbox and the snack table. He had so much fun playing - I just know that he's going to love "graduating" from the infant center in March!

Cool cat

Cousin Joseph sent Timothy a stylin' new pair of Vuarnet Kids sunglasses. We've gotten him a couple of pairs in the past, but he had no desire to wear them. We now know why - he was holding out for the expensive kind! hehe

Rainy Day

We had a huge storm here last week. Accordingly, Timothy got to wear his new rain boots to school. It was quite funny watching him try to walk.


Too bad the power went out about 30 minutes into the day, and daddy had to go pick him up. This is what I saw when I got home:

Animal Sounds

One of the cutest things that Timothy's been doing lately is making animal sounds. My favorites are the horse (which I don't think made it to the video) and the lion. :)

Boogers!

So, if you noticed, he kept saying "noo-noh, noo-noh" as he dug... turns out he had shoved a noodle so far up his nose that Billy had to get the bulb syringe to suck it out! Heehee!!

Another visit from Grandpa

Grandpa Evaristo came to visit a couple of weekends ago and we had a really nice weekend. On Saturday we went to visit Aunt Susan at the winery where she works in Clarksburg, and then celebrated grandpa's 74th birthday! Happy Birthday, Grandpa! :)


Sunday, we went to Apple Hill to get some fresh cider and apple cider donuts. We also got to play at a pumpkin patch and check out some farm animals while we were there. What a fun day!





Come back soon, mapah! We miss you!