Tea time

Casey was invited (with Mommy and a favorite stuffed animal) to her first tea party. She got to see two of her friends from daycare, Lily and Emma. Emma used to go on Wednesdays but now she only goes on Tuesdays, Casey's preschool day. She asks about her fairly often so I was glad they got to see each other.

A second after Lily's mom commented that Casey had good fine-motor skills (or something to that effect), Casey spilled her tea in her lap. Luckily they were tiny little teacups. Casey was incredibly sweet and polite while we were there. I was very impressed.

They all took turns riding Lily's new bike down the hall of the apartment building while the other two would run alongside. Casey's yellow chicken helmet fits much better, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind having that orange Kai Lan helmet!

Holiday lights

We finally made it to Gilroy Gardens to check out the holiday lights. Casey and Brynn had a great time going on all the rides at night. They kicked Eric off the carousel ride in the last picture because they wanted to go by themselves. Casey didn't really like singing and dancing performance by Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Linus but Nana and Papa loved it. Casey still doesn't like people in costume although she was impressed that Linus carries a blanket around all the time. She kept asking me what his name was but now she remembers.

Too many riders

Here comes Santa Claus

Papa Ron brought his Santa Suit and came in and surprised the kids the day after Christmas. (They didn't know the difference.) Brynn ran right up to him and he gave her a snack out of his bag. Then Cami and Kyle ran up. Casey was behind the couch and once she figured out he was giving out snacks she went over, too. He only stayed for a couple of minutes. Casey didn't recognize Papa Ron, but she did ask where he was. As he was leaving, Cami ran after him and held up two fingers like the peace sign and said, "TWO BARBIES!" Casey followed suit and yelled out, "A DOG!" Sorry, you're a day too late, girls.

Red Candy Caboose

Casey was very excited when Papa Ron and Kahuna arrived. So was Nana Micki! And of course Eric and I were excited too. Papa Ron brought Casey a copy of his new book, The Red Candy Caboose. Guess the name of the little girl in the story... . OK, I'll give you a hint. It starts with a C and ends with a Y. And it's not Candy. She also got a Red Candy Caboose nightlight, which replaced our ugly generic nightlight. I see the book is available on Amazon already! Impressive.

Check out my action shot in photo #2. I could never have done that with my old camera!

New camera

Here are the first pictures with my new camera. Can you tell the difference? Casey is showing Tolee himself on TV.

Hanukkah presents

Earlier in the week she opened her Hanukkah presents. First she took a bubble bath in the styrofoam peanuts and then DogDog and her new pillow pet dog from daycare (Socksy) got a new house out of blocks. Socksy has a little velcro thing underneath that you can undo and he becomes a pillow. It's really cute. I might have to take him for myself.

Baby's first Pez

Casey just shared the last of her chocolate coins with her Daddy. It was so sweet and generous (and maybe a little crazy). Now she is scrounging around to try to find more treats. She found Eric's Fig Newton and his Balance Bar and just looked at the wrapped package and said, "Yucky!" How does she know? I know she's never had a Balance Bar. I think he hid while he ate his Rollos.

.

The third picture shows her and Daddy reading one of her new Curious George books. Right now she and Daddy are playing with the cars and all of her new Leggo guys are sitting nearby having circle time. Oh, sounds like it's time for them to get on the plane. Not too surprising!

More

Notice in the last picture that DogDog is on the bottom floor of Casey's new veterinary clinic.

The award for slowest present opener goes to...

Is there a prize for the slowest present opener? If there is, I know who will win it. We had to take a breakfast break before Casey could finish opening her presents, and there really weren't all that many. She had a full stocking and a few other things, and had already opened some presents earlier in the week.

.

I got to open my present first. It was big and heavy and Casey pushed it over to me. I got a big girl camera! It's scary and has lots of parts and two hours worth of DVDs about how to use it and how to take good pictures. I had to take pictures with my old camera because I didn't think anyone would want to wait for me to learn how to use it. I've been complaining about how hard I try and how horribly my pictures come out, but I didn't want to take the time to figure out what camera to get, and now I don't have to! But soon I'll be able to take non-blurry mid-air pictures of Casey jumping off of things, which is my main goal.
.

Casey's stocking was full of the Kai Lan characters. She'd already gotten HoHo and was excited to get some friends for him. Other than that, I think Eric and Casey may have gotten their presents switched. We didn't put much junk food in her stocking but Eric got Pringles and Pez. She's never seen Pez before, and they taste just like her vitamins but come out of Buzz Lightyear's neck. Needless to say, she was a big fan. She was disappointed when the candy ran out. While she was downstairs having lunch, she heard the sound of a little battery-operated car running on the tracks, and begged to postpone her nap so that she could go play with Daddy, for 2, 3, 4, no 5 minutes. How could I turn her down?
.

We've been planning the days for while Nana was going to be in town and we could go out guilt-free. Yesterday Eric and I went out to lunch and didn't even color one placemat. Then we hung out at our favorite bookstore for a while. Today my plan was to work on my blog book. It's not as easy as I thought it would be and I am very frustrated!

Nana Micki is here!

Wednesday night Brynn and family came over for giant CostCo empanadas. We were all planning to go to Gilroy Gardens for the evening festivities but Lance and Jeanine called to tell us that traffic was at a standstill. So at the last minute they came over for dinner and Eric gave the girls rides in the laundry basket - a very close second to Gilroy Gardens. Jeanine was so impressed that our house was so clean when we hadn't even planned on having them over, and that's because... Nana Micki is here!

.

Nana Micki came to town to help us out with our end-of-the-year-no-daycare-and-negative-vacation-days problem. When I headed out to work the first day, Casey almost kicked me out the door. We left them home without a car for the first couple of days to keep them from going to CostCo and buying giant vats of things that you only need a few ounces of. Last time we ended up with restaurant-sized jars of capers and sundried tomatoes. But on the third day she decided to give me a ride to work so she could have the car and that's the first place they went. I made her promise ... no capers!

Merry Christmas!

Now that all of the grandparents have their pictures I can post the pictures we took last month on a VERY hot day at Hidden Villa.

Merry Christmas!

Make new friends

Here's Casey with her new friend, Hoho, from "Ni Hao, Kai Lan." She's been wanting him for a long time. When she sees him on tv she wants to go in and play with him. She asked me to take a picture of the three of them.

Little elf