Christmas 2009 - Part II

In the afternoon on Christmas Day, we went over to my parents house for the 2nd part of Christmas.

We had a great time spending the afternoon with them. Santa brought Cyanne a pretty nifty tricycle!... The afternoon ended with a gorgeous sunset.
We then drove home and had a fantastic dinner with Tom's family - as well as my parents who joined us for dinner at our house.

This photo makes me laugh - they were tending to a crying Maritt but - the thing that's funny is that my Mom and Cyanne have this tendency to end up wearing the same thing. Here, brown pants and a red shirt. The day before, they both had on black pants and a pink shirt. It's rather funny because it's totally unplanned.



Trying out the new tricycle on the deck!





Mommy & Maritt





Beautiful Christmas sunset



Christmas Dinner at the Ranch - Blabey & Vogel Families:



It's always nice to have a reason to pull out our wedding china, silver and crystal:



The Blabeys ended up cooking a fantastic dinner of turkey, stuffing, sides, Richard's amazing cranberry sauce that I could eat every day..., pies/tarts by Mart & Ryan, baked brie and much more. Everyone helped out and added in something delicious! It turned out to be a wonderful, fun, festive and wonderful Christmas surrounded by loving family. We could not have asked for a single thing more.









Cyanne snuggling before bed with milk and some of her Christmas presents - Big Bird and many new versions of "puppy" in case something happens to him... which, hopefully, it won't! One of these is for Maritt but she was just breaking it in for her.

Christmas 2009 - Part I

We were so, so thrilled to have all of Tom's family visiting for Christmas. We loved having a full house, were so excited to spend lots of time with his sisters Mart and Anna, Ryan (we missed Aaron!), his Mom and Pop, and of course, were also thrilled to have so many fantastic people around to hold little Maritt and entertain Cyanne!

Here are some photos from the holiday:

Christmas Eve - First Presbyterian Church:



Yes, Tom & I played Mary & Joseph and Maritt was the Baby Jesus. Maritt did a fantastic job. She slept the entire time... =) Funny though, numerous people thought she was a doll and were very surprised to see afterward that she was a real baby!



Richard spending some quality time with Maritt:





Daddy & his girls on the deck:



Kisses for Maritt:



All bundled up:



Opening stockings on Christmas morning:







Santa brought Cyanne a HUGE stuffed tiger while Maritt got an elephant. Here's to hoping she likes elephants!



Breakfast - Christmas morning:





Anna and Maritt:

Sleeping Beauty

Sweet, precious little Maritt. A little over a month old...





Taking a little nap on a pillow on the couch. So peaceful.

Cyanne + Starbucks + Vanilla Steamer + Happy Child

Cyanne was introduced to Starbucks today... Quite a day, really.

She had her first (sugar free) Vanilla Steamer for kids. Smaller cup. Sugar free vanilla syrup. Warm, not hot, milk...





Cyanne was very, very excited and happy with her drink.

Boy did she feel like a big girl.



Making sure to see if Max wanted to share her drink:



And now we hear "steamer" over and over - said with an entertaining New York-ish accent "Steeemah peease" =)

Purple Hat

Cyanne loves her purple hat from Nanna. Anne bought it from a woman in Cooperstown who hand knits items.



Cyanne loves it! It's pretty darn cute, too...

Cyanne says, "NO SANTA!"

Ah, Cyanne has yet to fully embrace or understand the wonders of Santa Claus. We went to La Cumbre Plaza in hopes of having a visit with Santa. Apparently, due to "the poor economy" and "budget constraints" the mall nixed the Santa's House and instead, hired some guy to walk up and down the mall, asking kids of they wanted their photo taken with him.

On the one hand, my cynical, jaded side thought this was weird... an older guy dressed up, walking up to kids asking if they want to sit next to him and take their photo together?

But, happy, faith in the world side of me said hey, what's not to like? Here's a nice old guy who is trying to help make Christmas a little bit better for these kids and appease parents so they get a photo of their kid with Santa.

Well, Cyanne and Santa were not a good mix. Cyanne kept saying - at varying volume levels - NO SANTA! NO SANTA!!!!!!
And so, our attempts at a photo were rather unsuccessful but highly entertainng for us:

This is her frozen with fear look:



Get away from me Santa!!! I don't want anything to do with you!!
(he was trying very hard: "what's your favorite color?" "Do you like Elmo?" but alas...)



We even saw him again in the restaurant - still, no dice.
"Mommy, NO SANTA!!!!!!"



And so, all the way home and I do mean ALL the way home, we heard "No SANTA! NO SANTA!"...

Santa Barbara Marathon

The SB Marathon went right by our house. We were up early - go figure... - and saw the first wave of runners go by about 7 AM.
Then, Cyanne had a good time checking out the runners on their 2nd pass an hour or so later.








She got a nice shout-out from her pediatrician, Dr. Brennan, who, as he was running up the hill in front of our house said "Hi Cyanne!!" We were really impressed he 1) recognized her as he was running by and 2) had the energy to say hi! We have an awesome pediatrician =).

Santa Barbara Christmas Parade

Tom, Cyanne, Maritt & I went down to the Santa Barbara Christmas Parade to see the lighting of the tree on State Street. We got our tasty Starbucks eggnog lattes and stood along the route on State Street.



It was quite festive!



A shot of the Arlington theater and the newly lit Christmas tree at State & Victoria.

Maritt's First Bath & Bathtime with Cyanne

Maritt had her first bath tonight.
Cyanne insisted on taking a bath with her sister: "Baby bath!"
Cyanne helped wash Maritt and showed (and shared with!) her all of her fun bath toys. She would give Maritt her dinosaur or fish toy to play with or she would read her bath books to her.
Very cute! And very gentle =)

Here are a few photos of their bath-time:

Look who is coming to join you in the bath!:



We got no photos of Maritt actually IN the bath as both Tom and I were either holding and/or washing her.

Post-Bath:





That was fun!



Post-bath coziness: