A Merry Christmas...

We had a great Christmas in the Thornton house. I had the whole week off work, what a splendid treat. We filled out time with relaxation, time with friends, and lots of holiday activities. It just went by too fast. Here were some pictures I captured over the week...

We went to look at Christmas Lights, I can't find the pictures I took. It was a lot of fun, we went to this community in San Ramon where everyone does the lights. Darrian stayed awake this year and really enjoyed all the lights, and the cars parked in the drive ways lol. He loves cars. We also went to a playdate hosted by one of "Mom" friends :). Darrian had a great time playing with all the trains, her house is like toysrus for toddlers. A slice of heaven for Darrian.

Christmas Eve we went to Julie & Chris house. Location changed, but we were with them again on Christmas Eve and that is all that mattered to us. Although there seem to be some fall outs with other relationships this past year, they have been there for everything and I am thankful for them. We all are. Darrian had a big crush on Roni, and really attached to her. I felt kind of bad for Roni since he was dragging her all over the house. At one point she left to go wrap gifts and I had to tell Darrian she was in the potty because he wanted me to go find her. Does it really start this early? At least he has good taste.

Darrian checking out the poly pockets to see what all the hype is about.

Awh giving a hug to Ivy.

Ju-JU and cutie Lily.

The kids playing and Darrian with Roni.

When we got home Christmas Eve Darrian opened one gift (his new PJs) and we set out cookies and Milk for Santa. Darrian kept telling me they were HIS cookies and proceeded to eat them. But only the middle out of them, that is his favorite part the rest he left for Santa. After he was in bed we brought the bike out, I mean Santa delivered the bike, filled the stockings, and put the gifts under the tree.

Christmas Morning Darrian slept in till about 7:30 am, his normal time. Wonder when the days of him getting up at 5am for Santa will start? He came out and saw the bike, so cute. I got it on video I will upload it this week sometime. He loved all the gifts he got from everyone, and was very spoiled. Auntie Devyn stopped by to visit and brought Darrian some fun gifts, all my friend's got Darrian a great gifts. So generous. That night I made a great Christmas dinner if I do say so myself :) and we relaxed. Saturday Sofia came by to visit and bring Darrian some gifts, very sweet of her. Santa treated me pretty good too, OK so Mom is still my Santa Lol. Got some new shoes and gift cards all that I love. Hope you all had a great Christmas week... now ready for the new year ? Oy.

opening a cool train Grandma got him
and another ..

taking a spin on his new bike :)

We are ready for Christmas...

Last week Grandma, Darrian, and I all went to pick out a Christmas tree. No pictures because my battery died right as we pulled up :( . Darrian did not love that it was dark, I he waited in the lighted area and I went and picked out two trees and Grandma and Darrian picked the one that went home with us. It worked out well, and I love the tree we got. We got it decorated, and the stockings hung by the fire. I think we are all set for Santa now, and for Christmas :)

Darrian's Driving!!

Darrian loves cars, we all know this. As I am typing this he is laying on his tummy playing with his cars. A while back Keith and I took him to pixie playland so he could "drive" the cars. I remember going to Disneyland when I was a little girl and going on the Toad ride where you drive and I really thought I was driving! I think he thought the same thing. :) We tried to get him on other rides and he was not having it, the train and the cars was about as far as we got. He did ride on the cars about 5 times.

Some videos ..

I have not been using my flip like I need too. Mainly because the minute I turn it on, Darrian wants it. He stops doing whatever is cute and focuses on getting the camera.
I was looking back and I have some videos from Mexico I wanted to share. One from when we all went out to eat in downtown Cabo. Darrian was tired, but funny how he would go from fussy to dancing :). Also the famous Mexican Coffee's we all fell in love with, I don't even like Coffee and I loved them.







If you can't see these in the emails go to here.

Choosing his own outfits

Darrian insisted wearing this outfit, and was pretty proud of dressing skills. He also has a dimple now on his cheek, as if he could any more kissable right?!

Baking Cookies

Auntie Devyn came over to bake cookies with us this weekend. I had been telling Darrian about it all day, so he was really excited when Devyn showed up. He also hears us talk about Auntie Devyn and our nephew Devan a lot so he was REALLY excited for her to come over. It was fun to hang out with Devyn, I have to say I don't think our cookie making was as successful as our gingerbread house we did in High school. It was fun none the less, and felt feel festive. Darrian didn't want Devyn to leave, he loves visitors and asked for her the next morning. Although he calls her "seven".

Flashback friday

3 months..

15 months...

Favorite Gifts...

I was thinking about gifts the other day. Christmas was a bunch of fun when you just sat back and waited for Santa to arrive huh? I do love shopping, and I love giving fun gifts. The stress of trying to do it all at once can be stressful. I think I like birthday's for this reason because it more about that person only, from a shopping sense. I do love this season though. I especially love having Darrian to shop for because I could get the simplest thing and he would be excited. I was thinking about some of my best gifts, and of course my camera and my camera lenses top that list. At Christmas it was always fun to open all the toys and cloths we got. I remember there being a MOUNTAIN of wrapping paper from the ripping fest.

Two other favorite gifts that I have are my journals from Keith and my best friend Devyn. They are sort of these fill in memory books. I love them. I still go back and look at them all the time. I still fill them up with cards and letters I get from them. I thought to myself what makes them so special, the answer is really easy. There is a lot of love that went into these gifts. I won't sit here and say I don't love the commercial (camera) electronic stuff, I do. I just love the well thought out one's too.

This is the one that Devyn got me in Highschool. You fill in spaces that it prompts you for questions for.

Inside is 15 years of friendship, cards and letters, invites to graduations.. prom pictures. I cherish Devyn and I cherish this gift. If there was a fire this would be one of the things I grabbed for sure.

This is the one that Keith gave me when we were dating, and 11 years ago. It has movie tickets over the years, the first letter he ever sent to me, cards, pictures of us. A record book of us.

Holiday's are upon us, party time :)

I don't think I am going to get around to throwing a holiday party this year :(. Time is just going to fast, bummer since this is the best time of year to throw a party. So many great ideas, and cute themes. Christmas is lacking at the moment in our house, got to get to decorating this weekend. I have been drooling over all the fun party ideas on blogs this month, thought I would share some in case you had the time to have a fun party :).

This is my favorite one! How fun is this idea?

I love open houses, it is casual and so easy for people to come and go and lends to a easy flow party in my opinion.

You can find all the details about these parties here.

Boat Parade

This weekend was a fun one! On Saturday we went to Kim's house on the water and watched a boat parade! Kim lives RIGHT on the water, and was gracious enough to have several people over to hang out, drink brandy and egg nogg and watch the parade. After we ended up at the most eclectic bar I have ever been to, EVER.

Lots of laughs that night, and a good time by all.

Winter Wonderland..

A winter wonderland in the bay area? Yup. The City of Martinez brought in 200 tons of snow over the weekend. I found the event in the activity guide and couldn't wait to go check it out. They were going to have different craft stops like gingerbread house, hot chocolate with frosty, ornament making, and most of all SNOW. Keith, Grandma, Darrian, and I all went to check out the activities. I have to say we didn't really make it pass the snow. I wish we would have walked over to the other crafts, oh well next year. Darrian liked the snow, and had a lot of fun playing in it. he did pretty good on the slide too. We met up with some of our friends there also, it was fun seeing the kids in the snow.

Darrian did make this cookie with Grandma's help

And got his face painted

Darrian would come over to Daddy so that he could warm his hand and then say "ALLL Better" and run back off again. so cute.

The response we get to "Darrian 5 more minutes"

Advent Calendar

I grew up with the advent calendars that have the chocolate in them, they were lots of fun and I think we had two so my brother had one and I had one. I got them even after I moved out, before we were married, and before we had kids. I would come home to find two weeks of the count down cleared out, in the first few days :(. Keith didn't quite get the whole "only one day at a time". This year now that Darrian sort of knows what is going on, I knew I was not going to be able to get him to see that he could only have one piece of chocolate at a time. Also Daddy may have the calendar cleared out the second day. So I went on a hunt, but a bit late. I really liked some of the one's I saw on Etsy , but I started the search a bit late so needed something local. I also saw this blog where she wrapped a book for each day, that they would unwrap and read with hot cocoa. It would be pretty expensive to try and create it on short notice though.
Mom and I headed down to Glad Tidings in Pleasanton with Darrian and found one I really loved. It has the same book idea in mind. It opens up to 25 small books, each with a small bible story or song ! You can then hang them on the tree !

Here are some pictures of the one we choose, I love reading the book each night with Darrian.