The kids commanding attention from my cousin Matt and his wife Vanessa. :)
Vanessa's brother was a sport and played that game with all three of the boys where they ride on the feet of the adult while he walks around, lugging their weight as best he can! :)
Aunt Kathy and Cousin Kim in the kitchen, we had some yummy lasagna after I don't know how many years of cracked crab and clam chowder. Changing traditions...dangerous! No, we had some sea food opposers in the group this year.
Every year at Christmas time, my Dad's side of our family gets together for a Christmas Luncheon. This year we were at my Grandma Jean's brother's house in Berkeley. The kids all had a great time together. Pictured here are of course the three usual suspects along with my dad's cousin's child, Julien. Sammy and Julien are about a month apart and get along just great! They had a fun time building a lego set while the younger too ran around with "guns" in their pants, I mean holsters! Were talking lincoln log guns. :) These days, Ayden will make anything into a weapon so that his character toys can fight each other! Uhhhg, I guess it is unavoidable. :) It was a fun party this year!
As if one 30th Surprise Birthday party wasn't enough back in November, Pancho threw me another one on December 22nd!! My reaction: "Ok, enough celebrating of my birthday!!" But it was so nice to have everyone together, even some friends that I don't get to see very often like Cherelle and Damian. We all had brunch at Marie Calendars and some more birthday cake, it was a fun morning that I wasn't expecting. :) Ok, are we done celebrating Cindy's 30th birthday? :) No really, I was grateful!
On the 21st of December, we were fortunate enough to meet up all together in old down town Sacramento for dinner. Caryl, Papi and Aunt Judy were on their way to accompany Grandma Betty to North Carolina to live with Judy and Henry, so we met up there the day before their flight and were able to have a fun dinner together with Caryl, Papi, Judy, Grandma Betty, Gayle, Marcie, Julius and all the boys! It was so nice to be together and Panco and I were even able to go to another birthday party that night, my old friend Damian was turning 30 that day also and he lives in Sacramento with his wife Jill. It was a fun day!
The Day after we arrived at The Guy's house, Lindsay and Garett drove up from San Jose to see us before they were off on their holiday travels. Garett's already 4 months old! Cutie!
I was completely surprised to find out that a "Girl's Lunch" really was a way to get all of the girls together to celebrate my 30th birthday and the upcoming baby. Sonja was so nice to plan all of this for me since all of the family was out for Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a yummy lunch and cake at the North Carolina's Museum of Art's restaurant. They guys took care of the kids for the afternoon and so we took advantage and viewed the great Impressionism art display. What a fun day that I had no idea about! :)
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner after lots of effort and fun! There were 17 of us and we had the usual fixings along with some delicious desserts thanks to Sonja and Frank! We all had a great time playing with the kids and watching movies too.
The day before Thanksgiving was Caryl's birthday! What fun to be able to celebrate with everyone! We had North Carolina barbeque dinner and birthday cake and gifts. It was a great night.
On a night before Thanksgiving, we all went over to Cousins Frank and Sonja's house for a yummy family dinner. It is always fun to walk around the lake by their house and they kids and boys had a great time playing guitars and percussion!
During the week, Marcie, Julius and Pancho took the kids to Marbles Museum to meet up with Cousins Frank and Sonja. They had a great time dressing up, building lego towers that they could go inside of, enjoying water play and so much more. It was great entertainment while we were all busy cooking Thanksgiving dinner!
The week before Thanksgiving Ayden and Daddy were playing on a Saturday. Ayden thought it was so neat that Daddy had a real stethoscope too so he ran to go get his (toy one) and they took each other's pulse.
This is a twin picture of jeans and a blue sweatshirt. I found a navy blue zip up sweatshirt for Ayden just like Pancho's favorite one that he wears. They then went out to ride bikes. :)
Ayden decided to pose with me in this one! He is trying to put his hand on his hip like I am. :)
