Christmas Blogger: Drew!

I know my fans are dying to hear about my Christmas, so I decided to put together the ultimate post filling you in on my week up in Northern California (sorry if it’s been a while since my parents updated the site, but as you’ll see we were very busy). For those of you who don’t want to read the whole story you can just look at the pictures – that’s what I do when I read books – but for the rest of you, my Christmas story is below. You can also view and order photos from my Christmas album on Flickr here.

Poinsettia Farm: My parents drove me to Turlock the weekend before Christmas. Dad had to go to work in the Bay Area for a few days so I hung out with mom. One of the days we went to the poinsettia farm. In the Valley you can get poinsettias – and fruits and vegetables – right form where they grow a huge greenhouse filled with poinsettias. Grandma says there is a lot more if you go earlier in the month, but it was still fun.

Walk! I also got to go on walks while visiting. It’s super cold up there so my mom bought me a special blanket. You might think I look like a geek, but this I stayed warm so I don’t care.

Chistmas Eve! After a week of hanging out, Christmas eve came and I got to see mom’s side of the family. It was lots of fun and they all brought me presents! I had never opened a present before but I knew just what to do. Even though it was past my bed time I stayed up and ripped open all the presents from my relatives and even played with them for a while before my parents finally made me go to bed.

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Climber: Later that night, I climbed all the way up the stairs. This was a first for me. Dad told Gramdma Jo that he should have been watching me more closely. He was kidding, but she didn’t think it was funny.

Christmas!: When I woke up on Christmas Santa had come! I was a little overwhelmed (especially by the giant King Kong stuffed animal), but I managed to open all my presents. It was fun!

Once I finished opening all my presents my grandma read me a story. I was so tired I fell asleep right there while my mom and dad packed up the car.

Christmas! (part 2): Later Christmas morning I headed to Grandma and Grandpa Nelson’s house. Just about everyone was there, including my cousins, aunts and uncle, and my great grandma and grandpa (my cousins from Washington DC couldn’t come this year because it’s too far…maybe I’ll see them later this year). I was in a pretty bad mood when I go there because I hadn’t had a real nap, but I managed to open another whole round of Christmas presents! It was madness with all the people, I was practically lost in all the presents, paper and people.

After presents and short afternoon naps, I went wild with my cousins. We played all day until we had to go to bed again. Both Nicholas and Serafina are pretty good walkers so I had to work pretty hard to keep up.

The day after: The next day we were all pretty tired but we still had energy to play most of the day at Grandma Nelson’s. My cousins are pretty lazy sleepers and don’t wake up until after 7, so I had time to hang out with grandma in the morning before we started playing.

Here’s Nick and me looking out the window at Amber. We love dogs!

Go Bears!: The grandparents bought us all matching Cal Bear sweatsuits, which we of course wore the next day. here’s a pic of me with my grandpa.

Bath Time: After a super long week, I was tired and ready to head home. Before leaving though I had a bath. Baths are so fun!

Today Drew is 9 months!!!! His top two front teeth are coming in and he is still working on his walking skills! He’ll be walking before we know it! He gets into everything, I call him Curious George!
Happy 9 months Drew!

Drew and I went for a walk at the college today which is just up the hill from where we live. We stopped for a break on one of the athletic fileds where there was a pick-up soccer game going on. He crawled around for a while until he discovered a soccer ball. He started playing with it, and then screaming at the top of his lungs. He was having so much fun that some of the soccer players stopped and started laughing at how much noise he was making. Video and a few pics below. -Brian

We took Drew to the Marina Del Rey holiday boat parade tonight at the marina. Seemed like an odd concept when we first heard about it , but it was a lot of fun. All of the boats were decorated with lights and decorations, and most played music (everything from Madonna to live jazz). Plus, there were fireworks. We didn’t bring the good camera, but here are some blurry pics.

A few pictures we took of Drew recently with the cell phone.

Today I went and saw Santa at the Manhattan Beach Mall. At first I didn’t know what to think of him but then I started crying! My mom said it was ok.

Today I also had my first mini hair cut. My hair was a little over my ears and getting long in the back so my mom cut some of it off. She did pretty good with me trying to help.
Tonight I have my first non-relative babysitter! My mom and dad are going to dads work holiday party at the Viceroy in Santa Monica. My babysitter is Lauren, she is the daughter of a teacher my mom taught with last year in Sunnyvale. I promised not to give her a hard time.
I also had gym class today! It has been a busy day! Well look for my Santa pic (I was lucky and he was awake for my picture, he kept falling asleep for some of the other kids pictures!!) Happy Holidays!

Here is my frist Christmas Tree. Mom and I worked hard on it while dad watched the UCLA/USC game. No success for UCLA but I did in decorating the tree:> Happy Holidays!

Monday is my Pappy Ed’s Birthday! Happy Birthday Pappy! I love you!

I had fun on Saturday picking out my first Christmas Tree. Mom and Dad said this is an “LA Christmas”. It was a little over 70 degrees when picking out the tree, the trees were WAY over priced and already starting to dry out. But that didn’t stop us! I had fun and sported my Santa hat. I have been told that this Santa guy will bring me presents if I am good. I am working on it:> I think this week I am going to try to track him down at a local mall and get my picture taken with him:>

Easton came over today, we had fun playing together. But we both didn’t take a nap in the morning so by 1:00 we both had had it! Mom tried putting in Christmas Baby Einstein but we were too tired to enjoy it. I won’t see Easton for awhile, he is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow and will be back in a week! But I get to check in with his cats while they are gone, watch out, here I come. I love tails!!!!
Well aloha to Easton and off to get some rest for tomorrow, I am getting my first Christmas tree!