Bella Vs. "The Bug"

Ok for all you Zerlang/Board people out there. We did it. We went and bought one of the Bugs. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, this is what it is.

So my cousin, Jonathan, got a few of these for Christmas. Naturally, Nathan and I immediately wondered what Bella would do with one of those. Once we got home from vacation, we promptly bought one and the following videos are the result of her reaction to them. I just have to apologize for the shakey video--its really hard to keep the camera still when your laughing so hard your whole body is shaking, and in my case, tears are streaming down my face!! Oh Bella...

This One is for Troy

Yes, I told him I would do it--I warned him! So Nathan's sister's husband is Troy (did ya follow that?) Troy loves to sing. Nathan took video of Troy singing (secretly)--this is why the video is bouncy is because 1) nathan is holding the camera down at the side of his leg and 2) Nathan (along with the rest of us) is laughing hysterically!

Justin Timberlake was on TV singing his song "senorita" which Troy decided to back him up on. Here is the result:

Makaela Videos

Here are a bunch of Video's of Makaela from Christmas. She had fun playing with the various toys that came out of bags and boxes, but she loved the paper and crinkly tissue paper!! Of course :)
She spent lots of time (and still does) rocking back and forth while on all fours. Its so funny to us because that is what she (and other babies) do before they learn how to crawl--but she still loves to do it. It's her signature dance move also!! But here are some videos:

Makaela LOVES the camera! It is tricky to get pictures of her because as soon as she sees it she crawls up to it so fast that its hard to get a good shot!

Disneyland

Nathan and I got to spend one whole day together--baby free--at Disneyland! A sweet man from our church had some tickets that he wasn't able to use so he passed them along to us so we could use them while we were down there! I hadn't been to Disneyland since I was 8 or 9 years old! Can you believe it?? Nathan had been more recently than I, but it had still been quite a while for both of us! Nathan's sister watched Makaela for the day and we got to enjoy some time to ourselves. We of course picked the busiest week as well as the rainiest day to go! But we still had fun and as it turned out, the rain dried up after the first 20 minutes or so we were there.

We were able to hit most of the major rides since we didn't have Makaela with us. The day went as follows:
Drive Thru Starbucks on the way down (a necessity I tell you!!)
Early lunch (first thing we did there after buying umbrellas :))
Ride, Ride, Ride, Ride, Etc.
Head over to California Adventure
Early Dinner
Ride, Ride. Yes, only 2 rides at California Adventure. The lines were VERY long, but we had a blast standing in line. We did some people watching, had a lot of laughs, and had some really really great conversations. Man oh man do I ever love my sweet husband!

Here are some pictures from the day. Thanks to Eric Horton for the tickets! We had a blast!

Christmas Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Christmas. I was not diligent at all with our camera, and I was even less diligent as our trip went on. :(

Christmas

Christmas was an extra special time for us for several reasons--it was our first one with Makaela! It was also an extended vacation for us (12 whole days!!) and it had been quite some time since we had a vacation. As a side note, in the process of moving up to Washington, there was no break for Nathan/us. His last sunday at Wayside was July 25th, and his first sunday at CRCC was August 1st, so we used that week in the middle to move up and jump right in. Needless to say, after the craziness of the fall, we were so excited about our upcoming vacation!!

All of our flights went off without a hitch! Makaela did great! It always ends up being a long day for her as there are several hours of time at the airport/in the plane when she can't be crawling around, followed by several hours in the car to get up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. But we made it, and she was extremely excited to have the freedom to crawl around everywhere! We spent the first 4 or so days with my family in Visalia. We had a great time together. Christmas Eve Day was filled with preparations for our big mexican meal we do every Christmas Eve with our cousins/aunts/uncles etc. This year we all got together at my parents house and had a great time together! We've started an annual gift exchange which always prooves to be a blast and hysterical! It's similar to a white elephant exchange in its rules, however, the gifts are not white elephant gifts. This year there were 17 of us and we are all grown (except for the grandbabies) so we have tons of fun! Christmas Day was a low key morning in which we opened stockings, had a nice big breakfast, got ready for the day etc. We read the Christmas story together from Luke 2 followed by the opening of presents! My mother was a busy little elf this fall preparing lots of fun things for everyone! I think she was the most excited about present time because she was so excited about giving! We got some wonderful things and Makaela was spoiled!!!

Early the following week we headed down to the Lancaster area where we spent several days with Nathan's family. We stayed with some friends in Rosamond, but we were at his sister's house every day. Tuesday evening we spent with Nathan's dad and brother. It was good to have some face time with them as we hadn't seen them since we moved. Wednesday will be in a different post because we went to Disneyland!! Thursday, Friday, Saturday we spent with Nathan's sister. We also got to see a few friends at different times on those days. We are so thankful for the time we go to have with them down there.
New Years Eve Eve we did Christmas with Nathan's family. As it turned out, it was just Nathan's mom, sister, brother in law, the kids an us. We had decided to do gifts for the kids only and they had a blast playing with some new toys!! We enjoyed some more mexican food (Thanks Troy!!) and played a few games.

Our time down there was extremely precious to us and we were so blessed to be able to take such a long vacation. We treasured our time with our family and it seemed to go so very fast. I'm sure that our time with family will always go by quickly.

Moving right along--before the computer screen goes crazy--

Long Time Gone

Hello all! It has bee quite a while since I've blogged--but I really have a good reason this time! Our computer screen hasn't been working, and still doesn't the majority of the time, however, I turned the computer on last nigt (screen not working) and came in to see it working this morning. So I thought I'd try to sneak in some blog posts before it decides to go crazy on me!!
I just took a look at our blog and realized the last post I did. My goodness, I feel like I don't even know where to start!

Before Christmas, I got to enjoy a quick last minute visit from my best friend, Emily Walter. It happened to be that she was in Portland and she extended her trip a few days so she could come up and see us. We had such a wonderful time together! Unfortunately for her she kinda as drug along with us for all of our normal activities/routines but it was so fun to have her along for those things! This was the weekend of the 18th/19th so it was right before we were leaving to head down to Cali for Christmas.
I spent the rest of that week preparing ourselves to leave--trying to pack accordingly and under all the weight requirements etc. As it turned out, we were able to travel down with 2 suitcases (1 of them we carried on) and Makaela's car seat. I had my purse and Nathan had a backpack so our traveling was quite light. We were thankful for that as everything is always a little trickier with a baby in tow.

At this point, I'm just going to hop over to a new post about Christmas as a whole :)