Photo Ready

"Just call me bruiser" (note a pretty banged up face ... he tries to start many fights with the floor, pool table, and pinball machine ... the inanimate objects tend to win...)

On our walk to the waterfall today, Charlie was so happy to be out and about walking around.

"Peekaboo!"

He was filled with so much joy, and was expressing it so openly.

I'm really enjoying him at this age!

Wow, that bike sure is ... purple!

Santa's big gift for Alli was the much-desired big girl bike which, we were informed, had to be purple. Oh boy, that it is, tassles, and all!

Alli will bike herself all the way to the waterfall and back, doing several loops over the bridge in between.

Between that and the roller skates that are occupying the other 50 percent of her awake time, she's going to be one in-shape 3 year old! She better sleep really well now!!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The kids had a great and fun Christmas this year. Charlie's still on 2 naps, so he slept through much of it, but it was so fun to see Alli enjoying every aspect of it this year. We went to Christmas Eve church service the night before. Charlie enjoyed playing in the daycare, and Alli chose to sit with Mommy and Daddy and loved singing along with the Christmas carols which she was well familiar with by now since I've had them cranked for a whole month by now! She made it through the whole service and we were really proud of her.

She left out specially decorated cookies for Santa, and carrots for his reindeer. The next morning they both had a ball exploring all of Santa's generosity, and were delighted with the thoughtful family gifts under the tree too. Here are a few fun pictures from the day.

Self Portraits

Self-portraits are so fun to watch develop...
Alli hasn't done a self-portrait for me outside of school.

The other day when I was putting Charlie down for his nap, she whipped this one up on her white board ...



... and then the next morning decided to add arms/legs/body/freckles...

Alli's First School Program

November 2 was my last post?! Good grief, you'd think I forgot how to do this or something.

In the coming days I'll try to catch you up on all that's been going on, but for now, here's the latest!

Alli's class ... well, she's MWF, and some of them are just TTh and they're all bunched in there together making it look much bigger than her class size really is...

Alli's first school program was a Christmas program last night that was super cute!
There were 7 classes that each performed 2 songs, and then at the end all the classes sang one last song together. Alli did great, and didn't show any signs of stage fright, and sang her heart out and did all the hand motions that the teachers taught them to do. Alli's class had a "king" theme (singing We Three Kings and Joy To the World) so her class dressed up as kings.

Here are a few fun pictures, it's hard to get good ones at night!
We did take video on the video camera but it may take a few days for Dan to get around to cutting it down to a small enough version for me to post it on YouTube, but as soon as we do, I'll let you know.

Trujillo Halloween

Alli and her pumpkins!

Note Mommy's cow pumpkin!

Our little purple butterfly...

And our little bitty bumble bee...

Alli's costume parade at preschool ... don't even ask about the sunglasses ... *sigh*

Go Packers!

Packer Kids!

Father - Daughter bonding, watching the game...

Yay Packers! I need a drink ...

Waaaahhhhhh... Packers Lost!

Another October, Another trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We hit the pumpkin patch again this weekend, on another warm California October morning. Alli finally braved the pony rides on her horsie named Spinner. Thankfully he didn't do any spinning, and she had an absolute ball!



Both kids had fun exploring the now-familiar parts of our favorite pumpkin patch farm...

Charlie loved the giant orange balls that are pumpkins and was only annoyed by the fact that he wasn't yet strong enough to carry his chosen pumpkin to the wheelbarrow, but he still had a smile to share with us.

Charlie's walking!

Charlie started walking consistently about a week before his first birthday. I've just been so busy chasing him around, up, and down that I haven't had a chance to post it here to tell the world about it!

It is a tradition in my family to get a picture of the grandchild's first steps in the same Stanford t-shirt. My parents have a shrine to their grandchildren with an 8x10 of each of them taking their first steps in this now very well-worn shirt!

Check out the comparison of Alli and Charlie, who both started walking right around their first birthdays:

Charlie:

Allison:

Think they look related?!

Happy 1st Birthday Charlie!

Charlie celebrated his first birthday this weekend. Of course we had to celebrate with a luau!

Here are a few pictures from the celebration.

Celebration dinner at Black Angus for Charlie and Karen's birthday

Playing at the party - always with a smile on his face!

They say I'm about to eat cake, but I'd just rather eat bubbles ...

Oh they're right, this cake stuff's not so bad!!

Oh wait ... I'm related to my sister ... I don't like being messy!

The palm tree bounce house!

The Coconut Cabana Cake!

Alli's new boyfriend

Dan and Alli spent the weekend in Tahoe while Charlie and Karen stayed home (and stayed warm!). A friend of ours that works in construction up in the area helped him with a couple of projects at the cabin, and he brought his 4-year-old son, Andrew, along to "help". Andrew and Alli had a great weekend of hanging out, going out to dinner, sharing pop-tart breakfast, and watching movies... Dan snapped this picture of them watching Cars together... Oh my, they start so young!

The Kids' First Race!

This weekend, we all took part in another 5K race as part of the Lake Tahoe Marathon weekend. The 5K was the "stroller friendly" one, but we all sure felt the lack of oxygen with the thinner air at the high altitude up there! Still trying to recouperate!




The kids are ready for the run!
Bundled up in the jogging stroller,
and a pile of puffs ready to go!









Dan and the kids on top of their
podium for their 1st place finish
in Dan's division!









Karen's turn!














The whole family!

Charlie's First Haircut!

I finally dragged Charlie in to get those cute but messy curls trimmed a bit for his big first of many haircut trips, so we can get some wingless pictures for his upcoming 1st birthday! Alli was a good coach and he had a ball, and loved the water bottle sprayer!

The "Before" shot ... a little messy!

"What do you think you're doing with those scissors?!"

"Look ma, I have wings!"

"mmmmm ... water bottle ... mmmmmm"

"I'm one cool dude. Get in line, girls."

Boy loves his beans!

Happy First Day of Autumn!

Still beautiful out here in CA, doesn't feel like fall yet. But happy first day of Autumn anyway!

We took one last dip in the elephant pool this afternoon before it gets put away in the garage until next summer!

First Alli has to shovel out the bugs out of the water because we don't want to swim in dirty water, heaven-forbid!

Then she has to get into the freezing cold water

Charlie just being his cute personable self!

Alli shovelling water onto Charlie to get him wetter!

Alli drying off on her 'beach'

Alli in her 'Downward Dog' pose to get the top of her hair dry ... oh my ...