I HATE when I get behind on blogging and have to catch up. Then I end up having a really long post, oh well.
I LOVE the holidays!! When they are over, I get depressed and miss it. I know January is the start of a new year, but I just miss the feeling of Christmas.
Thanksgiving was a blast. We all got together at the Zarates house and just had fun. My aunt and cousin came up and spent the day with us as well. It seemed to go by way to fast. The food was AMAZING especially Kristin's new sweet potato recipe, that was my favorite!
I don't have a lot of pictures of Thanksgiving but this is what I have.
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| Kristin trying to organize the food! |
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| I wish this picture wasn't blurry, she loved Thanksgiving. |
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| The rest of my pictures are just the kids playing outside. |
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| I LOVE this next set of pictures. Emma and Lindsay were playing Pat a Cake with Brooklyn, and she was in heaven! |
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The first Saturday in December we wanted to try something new, we were going to get our tree ourselves. We are so tired of buying "live" trees locally and then they die a week later. My brothers have been "tree huntin" before but not with all the kids. I think I stressed out about taking Brooklyn on the adventure then actually finding a tree, but wanted this to become a new fun family tradition. I kept quoting Clark Griswold.
Here are the kids waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. |
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We would find at a spot, everyone would get out and then we would find nothing. We had four different cars so you can imagine the amount of people that were having to get in and out of the car. At one point because we were going so slow some of the older kids just rode in the back of the trailer.
Lookin and huntin' |
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| After looking and driving and driving and looking for it seemed like three hours, poor Penelope got sick and threw up all over Ashley. I kind of just gave up and said let's go home. I called my brother and told him that if he found me a tree that would be great but don't stress about it because we were going home. |
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| Of course he didn't let us down and found us a tree! By the time we got the sucker to stand I was too tired to decorate, but Brooklyn got everything out for me. |
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| Finally we decorated that tree. Brooklyn LOVED the lights, she watch dad put them up. |
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| Then when Ashley got home from school she helped us finish. |
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Finally it was done.
Below is Ms. Brookie opening a present, two weeks before Christmas. Before I took this picture I struggled to keep her away from the, and finally gave up. |
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| A couple days before Christmas we wanted to go to the Tuacahn. We had heard about the different activities they offer. The live Nativity was great, but I wouldn't recommend that trolley ride. It was so cold outside, but we were all together. |
On Christmas Eve we found out that Ashley and Penelope were both sick with the flu. It was so sad, we went out to eat and played games but Ash and Penelope stayed home. Then I had a really bad cold, but I was able to still function.
That night we went to look at lights. Here is Brooklyn in her Christmas Eve jammies before we left. The Minnie Mouse chair was her Christmas present from Aunt Paola and Uncle Bubba, she is obsessed with Minnie lately and adores it.
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| Christmas morning and Santa came. When Brooklyn saw the princess tent she would just point at it and say "oooooo". Please ignore my tree, by Christmas morning all the decorations were half off. |
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| Brooklyn got her very first toothbrush and toothpaste in her stocking. |
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| Poor Ash tried to sit away from us. She came down and opened presents but went right back to bed. She was sick for a couple more days, and we didn't even see Penelope for a few days. Thank goodness it's over. |
