Cold Day at BlackHawk Plaza

We like to take a trip to San Francisco during this time of year...to see the Christmas decorations and do a little shopping. With two little guys, this just wasn't going to happen. Jessica came up with the idea to go to the Blackhawk Plaza...we could shop, feed the ducks, and grab a bite to eat. It was sunny but VERY cold..I was not bundled up properly and was freezing with the wind and all. Our first stop was Starbucks where I discovered that my 2 year old grandson knows how to order steamed milk...there's something terribly wrong with this...I blame his parents. Then it was off to feed the ducks.

I'm not wild about photos of me...funny because I'm always taking photos of others. I'm learning to include photos, even if I don't like them, just to prove that I was really there

G.Pa is still a super hero in the eyes of Ezra. It's a heavy burden for G.Pa. I'm learning this because all of a sudden he's started asking for me...which is really odd because he wouldn't even say "Grandma", he just grunted for me.

Lovely Mama Jessica with sweet baby Theo

The ducks got fed

Park time....G.Ma did have to chase off Evan, the resident bully

We didn't stay for dinner because we were all cold. Jessica and Theo were dropped off at home and we took Ezra back to the house to spend the night. We watched Toy Story, the original, for the first time...it is scary! But we all were able to fall asleep before 8 pm...grandparenting is exhausting!

Our Gift for Ezra

After much research, we bought Ezra a Harley Davidson Big Wheel. We were thinking about an electric one, but it was recommended that we keep him exercising....plus the electric one didn't have sound effects and Dave said that is not acceptable. I was a little concerned about the volume level on the one we bought...the reviews all mentioned how loud it was....but after Auntie Donna & Uncle Bret's gifts, we figured we could handle anything.

This combines Ezra love for motorcycles and bicycles

Dave was so relieved that the assembly was easy...nothing compared to the horror of assembling the Cozy Coupe...thank you

Edie put the decals on...not as easy as it looks

It's a HIT!!!!

Jessica can not believe we're letting him ride in the house

So Dave took him outside. He likes to go to the high spot of the driveway and go fast down the hill. Dave told him to bring his helmet next time...the thing isn't that stable.

I can hardly wait to see what we do next!!!!!

Ezra turns TWO!!!!!

I can't believe it....Ezra is now TWO YEARS OLD!!!! Wow, this has gone by so quickly. We just can't remember life before he arrived. We're really not in to big birthday bashes for little guys (can you say over stimulated?), but we had planned on a party to introduce Theo to family and friends, and well...that just didn't happen. So we decided to combine the whole thing. Since we are the "Swenson Annex", taking care of overflow or when they just need a little more room, we ended up being party central. Jessica did all the work...we just cleaned up.

You know it's important when all the Grandma's show up.....

Dave's mom and both of Edie's moms :)

Jessica set up a simple and elegant display. She used an Exacto knife and a stencil for each letter. I told her I owned a Cricut, for next time

The cupcakes were delicious and William used his skills to frost them

Teresa snagged Theo and Annette is ready for her turn

Auntie Rhonda got some snuggle time

Granny is loving baby Theo

Auntie Donna is a natural

Michelle brought Scott so we could all meet him...we approve

Ezra approves of the cupcakes

Ezra LOVES the remote control car (the big guys like it too)....another great gift from Auntie Donna & Uncle Bret (and not nearly as loud as prior gifts)

The motorcycle and car had races on the coffee table for HOURS! Yep, Dave is correct....we're not getting new furniture while our grandchildren are around.

A good time was had by all! The late arrivals missed out on Theo, he insisted on napping. We were all totally exhausted but content....the way life should be for everyone.

Christmas Birthday Party 2011

Simple, cute, and everyone gets to take home the water glass and snow globe...such a deal! LOVE the chargers....I might even buy those!

Here's a December tradition {three years and it can be a tradition, right?} that I really look forward to each year. A local church has a huge, amazing Women's Christmas Dinner. It happens during the first week of December, which is also my birthday week. And what do I want most for my birthday? To spend some time with friends.

The way this works is each table has a hostess, so I I'm the hostess. The church provides a table, chairs, tablecloth, packets of sugar and cream, lemon for your glass, water, and/or coffee. The hostess must set the table and then clean up the area at the end {which can be a little yucky, but we have this down now and we're finished in no time}. Oh, and Scott's Seafood caters the buffet dinner, which is always VERY delicious.

I try to come up with a theme. I rarely stick with the traditional Christmas theme. Or with the green and red. One year it was blue and white and circles, one year it was the Grinch with bright green and brown. Very cool.

I head over to Pleasanton Rentals for inspiration. This year was really tough because I went during November and all I saw was Thanksgiving stuff. My brain was clogged with autumn, harvest, and turkeys. After much texting with photos to my go to foo foo friend, Margaret,....and eventually I just had to call her. She's very good at getting me focused. Then I went to the Grand Affair in San Ramon....nice shop, great linens, but VERY limited on everything else {NO napkin rings!!!}. At about this time Margaret was leaving Anthropologie with her daughter. They had found snow globes {which were WAY too expensive, but they made them and they were so cute}. So excited, this was our inspiration!

So back to Pleasanton Rentals. Cherie helped me pick out everything and I put it on hold. Margaret made the centerpiece and snow globes {along with her very artsy daughter}. The water glasses were ordered from Amazon (and they do not hold HOT liquids!) and I spent time on Saturday making tags for the glasses, cleaning them, packing them. Oh, and I picked up the glass jars on Friday at Michael's.

Monday I loaded up the car, picked up all the stuff at Pleasanton Rentals and headed to the church. After lugging in a couple of loads on a cart, I spent a touch over an hour to decorate. Now this is challenging for me. I don't do this often......well, once a year! And I had such a time getting the darn table lines even. After I had the table set part way, I noticed the tablecloth was so uneven, I undid the whole thing and started all over again. One of the ladies at the next table helped me determine some of the centerpiece arrangements, very kind, she showed mercy.

The event begins at 6, I wasn't sure of the traffic so I arrived almost 30 minutes early! D would be so proud of me, shocked, but proud too. I had to get in to start up the battery operated lights and light the candles. I fussed with the candles for 30 minutes!!!!! When you see a candle floated in water in a jar without the wide mouth, be VERY IMPRESSED! I burnt a few fingers, used a knife to carve around the wick, prayed.....it looked good, but not a fan of this.

We had an hour to walk around to look at all the tables. I'm not sure how many ladies attend, and this was the second of two nights, but I'm pretty sure there were at least 70 tables of 8 over the two nights.

Mom and Daughter. This is really odd because Mom had on flats and Daughter had on VERY high heels.....there's a much bigger height difference. This looks really good.

This is another table, not mine

Here we are, having a GREAT time!

There was a musician that played the keyboard and sang. We were the percussion for the Little Drummer Boy. I wanted to stomp our feet since that's the way we sing it with E.
The main speaker was Patsy Clairmont and she's wonderful. She's hilarious and profound. Big take away is that Feelings do NOT have Reason...or something like that....should have taken notes....but I was just in the moment and enjoying the evening. And she was hilarious when she explained what it's like when she has to zip her lip.....all her words are swirling in her body wanting out...like a game of Scrabble in her throat! I know how she feels! She totally makes her point hit your heart and your head.
I can hardly wait until next year! Not the birthday part, just the fun time with friends.

Agua

Ezra loves to have "Agua". This means that G-Pa takes him in the master bathroom, sets him up on the counter, and puts water in his hair and then styles his hair with hair putty. G-Pa started doing this when Ezra's hair was so long that it got in his eyes. G-Ma tries to do the same thing, but Ezra prefers G-Pa. It seems that G-Pa knows how to do it correctly. And oh yeah, there's that hero worship of G-Pa going on too.

You might notice that E has his new tooth brush in his hand. G-Ma bought this for him and it's kept in the brush holder with G-Pa and G-Ma's brushes. I really think that mostly E likes to turn the water on and play in it.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why it's "Agua"......E says WaWa and it was suggested to say agua and introduce some Spanish words. E can say agua just fine. Of course it did throw his parents off....but we translated for them.

Is it Raining Yet?????

If you want the short version, RDV (Readers' Digest Version), then go down to the photos. For those of you in for the long version.....

I'm always up for a change in hair dressers. My last long-term stylist left a few years ago for Carmel. I tried to follow him, but since I go every five weeks, well, that wasn't going to last for long. So I've been on a search for the new one.....who I would stay with. I've been through a few, and then last year I was strongly referred to Vicky....she's really young, keeps me current, very good with color (if I should ever need that :)) and cut.

Vicky was located in Danville. Now for those who know me, I do not like to travel out of my Pleasanton, Main Street radius, so Danville is way out there. Then she moved to the Blackhawk Plaza.....that really set me off...I may have even whined about it. But then, the shop owners didn't pay their rents (for over $300K!!!)and she had to move at a moments' notice . She ended up at Tribez, in Danville, which is much closer to me. Funny how all of a sudden south Danville now seemed close.

My first visit at the new location was just before Thanksgiving. I'm usually her first appointment, but not this time, and she was running a little behind. I had a half hour to kill. First I went to the consignment store that's just below the salon...what a rip! The prices were so high. Then I saw McCaulous' right across the driveway. My manicurist (yeah, I know, I'm high maintenance) always finds great deals here. So I walk over, open the door, and step right in to the children's department...it was a sign.

First off, J and I had been talking about rain boots for E that day....and there's an awesome selection of great boots. I see the flames, and we all know how E LOVeS motorcycles, so I must buy them! And they have his size! The flames are really firemen, but still, I MUST buy. Then I talk with two GREAT sales clerks. Then I buy an umbrella!!! I go for Thomas the Train, which I don't really know what that is, but I'm sure I'm about to learn all about. Oh, and they had "unders" on sale, that's E's word for big boy underwear. So of course I had to buy a couple of packages. They had Cars too, E loves his pull-up Cars diapers.

Now I really haven't bought that much for E. He's so young, J finds awesome deals on stuff, plus he has tons of hand me downs. But all of a sudden, I'm buying tons. And now that we have two grandsons, I know I'll get lots of use out of stuff.

Finally I gave E his boots, umbrella, and unders. He LOVES them. His boots went right on. He loved the train on the handle and played with that as though it were a toy train. Then he went outside, looking for rain. The forecast is clear for days. Poor J.....she's going to be hearing about this for some time.

Oh, and he was so busy playing that he did not use the potty, so he got to wear a pair of his new unders.......it's a process.

Napa Weekend

Dave received a very generous gift card for his birthday to the Carneros Inn in Napa. We booked Friday and Saturday night and were determined to have a very relaxing weekend, our last chance before the busy holidays and the upcoming tax season......especially since we didn't get our trip to Europe or Hawaii this year.

Our cottage

Beautiful grounds

Nice scenery

Let me back up to the prior weekend. We attended a wonderful wedding of the daughter of a long-time dear friend. That could be a post all alone, but I know how you all LOVE photos and I did not take my camera. Sometimes when I have my camera, I get so involved with taking photos that I don't enjoy and experience the moment, so I decided to enjoy the wedding and left the camera at home. Anyway.....the couple are very in to wine and served three different wines at the dinner. I had a friend of theirs sitting next to me and he claimed to have introduced them to wines, and told me the story of each winery. Since we knew we were headed to Napa the next weekend, I took notes and decided we'd visit those wineries. We seem to go to the usual and familiar and rarely wander off to try something new.

On our way up on Friday, we stopped at one of the "wedding wineries", HDV. We had to make reservations. I thought the small boutique wineries require reservations because, well....I was wrong. It seems that a reservation is required by the local zoning laws. They want to keep the traffic down on the agricultural/rural roads. This makes sense. Oh, and the wineries are so small that they would be overloaded with large groups, to say nothing if a bus stopped by.

The host at HDV is really in to wines, he's studying to be a sommelier. This is not a place to stop if you're a casual wine drinker. They're known for their chardonnay, which is spectacular...and expensive. We ended up spending a couple of hours in this itty bitty winery, tasting and visiting....the KMA limo owners were a hoot. But it was time to check in, so off we went.

At the Carneros Inn, our little cottage was wonderful. We especially LOVED the radiant heated floors in the bathroom. The shower had a door on to the deck, just in cast we wanted to shower outdoors. The days were very warm and sunny, but the mornings and evenings were really cold. We had a couples massage on Saturday, laid around and read, and ate both evenings at The Farm. Dave had the BEST oysters ever and I had the BEST lobster risotto ever. The food was SPECTACULAR!!!!!

On our way home Sunday, we stopped at another "wedding winery", Elyse winery. This is a very cozy place. The tasting room is behind a house. The pourers was friendly, knowledgeable, and very fun....oh, and the wines were good too! We didn't make it to the third "wedding winery", we're saving that for our next visit.

New Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving is my absolutely most favorite holiday. I LOVE preparing the meal, having people over, eating left overs for weeks, and even the clean up....maybe not so much the clean up. So it was a HUGE sacrifice for me to "let" the kids travel to SoCal to be with SIL's family. We ended up having dinner at the Club with MIL. I wasn't expecting much, buffet and all, but I was very happy.

We arrived just as they opened at 1 pm and ended up staying two hours. I love long, slow meals where there's plenty of time to eat and visit. This left us with plenty of time to drop in on two other celebrations. We didn't eat at Donna & Bret's...well I did snack, but who's surprised at that?....but we spent a couple of hours watching football on Bret's BIG screen TV and visiting. Then we were off to Wes & Diane's and their group. Where I did a tad more than snack.....it had been hours since we had our meal at the Club...and there was so much food, I just had to help out.

Then on Friday we were off to Napa for the weekend!

Am I Scared???!!!!!

Is this a guy thing? Tossing small children up to the heavens? I first saw this as a Swenson thing when my SIL and his brother tossed Josiah in the air. Yeah, it's all fun and games, but.......it scares me to death. Here are a few examples.....

Now look at this.....that's some serious air!

This doesn't scare me as much. E is a bit older, but still......

This could be why G.Pa is E's hero...he has him doing all sorts of stuff that he did as a young boy. This tree in our backyard was his tree house/fort. There are still some nails and boards left over in the tree.

I guess with two grandsons (so far) I need to get used to this stuff.....

Christmas Photos 2011

As the years fly by, I feel like I want to make some meaningful traditions for our family. I've probably done this without realizing it, but now I'm ready to make a choice. One thing I have wanted to do, which we had not been doing, was taking a family photo each Christmas. I LOVE family Christmas photos and newsletters when we receive them from others. An annual family photo would show the changes in our family for our photo albums and to family and friends that we don't see often. In the past, I simply tossed in a school photo of our daughter. But then she finally finished school and went on to a life of her own, and I may have even skipped the Christmas cards.

I missed the family photo when J was engaged, and then the next year after they were married, but now I'm on track (probably all about the grandchildren). The first year, J was pregnant. The second year, we had E. And now we have E & T. Who knows who'll be here next year!

Now that our SIL has a traditional, full-time job we found it especially difficult to synchronize our schedules.....not that ANY of us are complaining about that! We figured we had a two hour window, even less when you factor in naps, feedings, attention spans. So here we go........

This is a desperate attempt at getting E happy enough to continue

This was a pathetic attempt at taking sweet brother photos. Do you see the look of fear in the eyes of T? He's smart. E is just about to maul his little brother.

Then there's the uploading of the photos, scouring the over 100 shots for at least one to print. Here's J and the photographer (my OLDER sister, Rhonda). Rhonda has been doing this for us each year.

I am very happy to report that we were able to find one photo that we could agree on. Oh, and I'm trying something new this year, I'm ordering cards from Apple. We'll all see how that works out...could be a new tradition. Perhaps that's my tradition.....I keep changing :)

Ezra's New Toy

Once again G.Pa is the most awesome guy around, Ezra's favorite. While baking with G.Ma, one of the lights went out (which could be an entire post..... my anguish and disgust with the six different lights we have, because of the ridiculous ordinances and greenies). Replacing the light bulb requires a ladder. Dave has this six foot wooden ladder that belonged to his dad. He brought it in from the garage to replace the bulb. So that was it for the baking.

Ezra watched Dave complete the task and then had to get on that ladder. He climbed up and down that wobbly ladder for over 30 minutes! He was copying Dave and acting as though he was changing the light bulb. Ezra was so sad when the ladder went back to the garage.

For Ezra, the garage is a magical wonderland of everything he loves......motorcycle, helmets, gloves, crazy coupe, brooms and buckets, and now the ladder!

Baking with Ezra

Please note the adorable dinosaur apron on my sweet little grandson. Much to the chagrin of his G.Pa it is not the camo apron.

We tried out some new cookie recipes. We made chocolate chocolate-chip cookies that were really good. Then we made pumpkin spice chip cookies that weren't so great. We did this over two separate days.

Things Ezra learned: when a pan comes out of the over it is too hot to touch; when the cookies are on the pan, fresh out of the oven, it is too hot to eat; when you turn the mixer on maximum to begin, everything will be flung all over the kitchen; it's really fun to lick the beater, spoon, fingers, hands, etc.; G.Pa is a big hero for bringing in the step stool (it was formerly used by his mama).

Things G.Ma learned: Ezra is really only interested in the mixer (much like a power tool); Ezra is totally bored with the whole baking part because he only likes the mixer; if Ezra pulls the tablecloth the mixer will slide off the table too (not to worry, G.Ma caught the mixer before it crushed her beloved #1 grandson).

In my past life, I did bake with Jessica each year, even inviting her older cousins to join us. Perhaps I should have gone back to look at those photos so I would have been better prepared to do this with my grandson. But my memory is refreshed and I'm all set to go.