Christmas Morning 2010

Finn woke up later then normal, and was only into doing what he wanted, which in the beginning, was not opening gifts. He had stayed up late playing with his cousins the night before and it was showing.  All he wanted was to eat an apple and chase McCovey around the house.  He could really care less about the huge pile of presents that cascaded around the Christmas tree...We SLOWLY, throughout the morning, opened all the gifts.  He was excited to get lots of Thomas the Train toys and by the end of the morning, he'd played so much he fell asleep sitting up... 

Christmas Eve 2010 at Bachan and Gechan's House

We were grounded this Christmas, so we stayed in Santa Cruz for the first time in many years.  We had Christmas eve at my parents house in Capitola with both sides of the family.  Finn had too much fun playing with Benjamin, who is such a sweet and wonderful big cousin!  They played with toys, Benjamin pushed him around in his new trike, and they mostly made each other laugh by being silly! 

Finn has become obsessed with my dad's ipad... he calls it "Mimi" and can be in a room full of total chaos and hardly blink... We're in the process bringing down his mimi time...

 Marisa and uncle Barry

 Finn quickly discovered the dessert table... and would somehow, without anyone seeing, sneak over to the table and steal a cookie... I think he eat 1/2 a dozen "goco's" as he calls them.

 Great Auntie aka Bachon holding Lily 

getting the perfect picture...

As you can see from the pics below... it takes a lot of attempts to get the "one" picture.  McCovey is a perfect model and a good sport, he loves the camera :-) Finnly, on the other hand, needs some work with looking at the camera... and focus in general...I guess that's all part of being one and a half :-) We had too much fun taking these, hope you enjoy and get your cards soon :-) 

Fort building

It has rained each of the last 3 weekends... making Erik, Finn and McCovey a little restless.  So, Erik decided to build Finn's first pillow fort.

 McCovey got really excited about what the boys were up to... and joined in the fort :-) 

Christmas tree time!

Erik woke up Friday morning with a fire underneath him... ready to get a Christmas tree, decorate the house and put the outdoor lights up!  SO, we bundled up and headed up the mountains in search of the perfect tree.  We usually go to a pre-cut tree farm in Watsonville... but this year I thought Finn would like to see a real Christmas farm.  I wanted to go to a farm in boulder creek.. just about the furthest farm away from our house because I read it was cute for kids... and it was.  There was a general store, farm animals, cookies, hot cider and hay rides.  What I didn't read was the type of tree I wanted doesn't grow in Santa Cruz :-) Poor Erik and Finn walked around the whole farm so excited to cut a tree down... but we never found one.  Instead I found the Noble Fir in the pre-cut tree section imported from Oregon State.  Not too green of me, but it's a beautiful little tree! Erik was excited that he didn't have to drag a tree down the mountain to our car ;-) Finn didn't even realize where it came from... all he cared about was the "coco" (cookie) he got at the general store...

getting Finn to wear a hat...

For the past few months, Finnly has decided that he doesn't like hats, helmets and hoods... and is leaning towards not liking clothes in general...  So we're trying all methods to get him ready for winter and hat wearing time. Anything dad likes, Finn likes...!  

trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I've been wanting to take Finn to the Aquarium for some time... but was waiting until he was a little older and would enjoy it... and it was worth the wait.  We went down with a few of his buddies and he LOVED it.  The hits were; the two story fish tank, turtles and sea otters!  We spent so much time in the kids area, we didn't make it through the whole museum... for another day.