Deacon Dave's on a Rainy Night

We finally made it to see the lights up close. First try, the line was too long.

We're spoiled living so close and can just come another night.

But then, we returned just after the rain stopped this evening,

and got to see the "Christmas through the Eyes of a Child" theme.

Always a fun time! And we only got sprinkled on a little bit, mostly on the walk home.

Local Celebrations

This weekend kicked off the holiday season for Livermore. Friday night was Deacon Dave's opening night--complete with a small parade, speech by the mayor, and Deacon Dave throwing Holy water at the crowd. It all feels a little weird, but also so fun to have this quirky night. We didn't actually go through  the display because of the crowds, but we'll be back.

On Saturday, Peanut spent a chunk of the day working on the 4-H float in preparation for the Lights and Sounds parade downtown.

Then he got to ride on the float that night and wave at the crowds.

It was a really nice night--made for some fun parade watching. We've only been one other time, our first year here, and it was SO cold that night. But Daddy-o and I walked around and got some pizza after we dropped Peanut off and then joined some friends to watch all of the entries. Both high school marching bands and color guard were there, along with local businesses, and clubs and scout troops. 

And now the month of Christmas has begun!

Light Walk

Nighttime light walks are a favorite in our family. 

Last year, these were a regular occurrence. 

We walked every street in our neighborhood, and other neighborhoods, too. 

This year, life has gone back to its normal busyness and the walks just haven't happened.

BUT, school is out and we have two weeks of family time ahead of us 🎉. First night walk-- ✔️!

December Adventures

It's been a month of hiking (and catching a beautiful sunset at Del Valle).

Sometimes it's just the kids and I, but we love it when Daddy-o gets to come with us.

Peanut and I continued our Christmas Carol study with a chalk pastel of some symbols that represent the story. Peanut was very taken with this book and has loved all the different versions of the story.

We've taken a LOT of walks to see the lights around our neighborhood, and to get those 1000 hours outside.

I can't always convince anyone else to do a chalk pastel lesson, and this is one I wanted to do last winter and never got around to, so I sat down one evening with Nana from You Are an Artist and did this one on my own. I love little birds.

Our city put together a geocache style hunt that took us around the city, including a couple new spots that we hadn't visited before. It also has gotten us out for a really long walk one evening and a bike ride another.

Peanut and I made "snow" from baking soda and shaving cream and had fun playing with our artic animals.

We haven't baked quite as much as we usually do, and haven't done any marathon baking days, but I almost like this better. I made snickerdoodles one day. A few days later, Daddy-o and Peanut made Mexican wedding cookies, and then the kids had a gingerbread man baking zoom call with friends one day. It's meant that we've had a pretty steady stream of cookies all month.

Bean was with them most of the call, but then she had to go.

I love how the cookies turned out. We usually make buttercream frosting because I think it tastes better, but royal icing is the way to go for pretty cookies. 

There have been a lot of games played, many outdoors. Really, in order to get those outside hours, we've been taking everything we can outside. Peanut had fun learning how to play chess.

Peanut and I collected sticks to make these fun decorations.

Peanut and I had a surprise visit with the Grinch when we were dropping off a food donation.

The kids and I also had a fun winter picnic in the backyard--hot chocolate with all the fixings, cookies, a nutcracker picture book. 

We even made some fun shrinky dinks while we were out there.

An outdoor dinner on one of the warmish evenings. And notice the tent in the background--the boys slept outside for 3 nights in a row in order to make a dent in those hours they needed. They were the three warmest nights of the month, but it was still a little chilly.

We went hiking near Berkeley one Saturday, grabbed dinner at a Jewish deli, and then stopped by the Oakland Temple on the way home to see the lights.

If I had to pick, I'd say lights and outdoors are our theme for the month. We have been on every street in our neighborhood, as well as a couple other neighborhoods as well. We went to visit another spot one evening to do a decoration scavenger hunt (we had to go somewhere that none of us were familiar with, or the boys and I who had done the most neighborhood walks would have had an advantage.) We had so much fun running around for 45 minutes seeing what we could find. Daddy-o and Bean found a couple more items than the boys and I did, but they were a couple minutes late getting back to the car, so we're calling it a tie (and excited for a re-match next year!)

It's been a pretty fabulous month.

The Longest Night of the Year

I think I've found my new favorite way to celebrate Winter Solstice--fire outside under the Christmas lights, hot dogs and marshmallows, neighbors and friends stopping by (okay, so that had nothing to do with solstice, and everything to do with the fact that we live across the street from a light extravaganza and the kids were selling hot chocolate at the other end of the driveway.)

It was a beautiful evening and we had fun hanging out outside, and loved sharing our fire with the cold Deacon Dave goers/workers. And now I'm just excited that the days will be getting longer from here on.

Deacon Dave's Time

The lights have returned to our street. The team at Deacon Dave's started working on this year's display in August--it gets a little bigger every year.

And that meant that December 1 started the kids' hot chocolate stand.

We were better prepared this year. They made a new sign. We stocked up on cups and cocoa making supplies. And they scheduled which nights they'd be open to maximize their sales.

Of course, we had plenty of time to go visit ourselves, many times, with friends and family.

Uncle C. even came from Utah for his annual visit (for work, but it's also his second year getting to go see the lights, too.)

This year's theme was an international christmas party.

The Most Exciting Day of the Year

Christmas morning. . . the height of anticipation! The kids were under strict orders to not get up before 7:30. Even that was way too early for a couple of us who had only been asleep for a few hours, but Bean, who we have trouble waking up at 9 every other day of the year, was awake at 6:30, just waiting.

Santa came through with a new bike for this girl who had outgrown her old one months ago.

Dinosaurs AND Legos--how can it get better than this?! Bug was ecstatic.

And a new kitchen for Peanut! We got rid of the toy kitchen in Charlotte, thinking (correctly) that we wouldn't have a lot of room here, and that the kids were aging out of it, but Peanut hasn't stopped talking about it ever since. It was all he wanted for Christmas (well, besides a sign from Santa with a colored-in letter T--why? I have no idea? But Santa came through.), and Santa decided to make a little boy's wish come true. He can get back to cooking (as soon as I figure out which box his little pots and pans ended up in).

The kids were really excited to give out the gifts they got/made for each other, and they really did a good job thinking of what everyone would like. It almost makes the tears and last minute frantic finishing of "one last thing" worth it. . . almost. Their love of giving gifts ends up torturing me, but it's the thought that counts, right? (Next year, I am setting a mandatory end to all gift making before Christmas Eve. I say this almost every year, but I'm holding everyone to it in 2017.)

Once the gifts were all opened and the cinnamon rolls eaten, we headed outside for a few minutes so Bean could try out the new bike. It was a beautiful morning and pretty warm in the sunshine (although I don't think it was quite short-sleeve weather). 

Then, we went to church for the special Christmas service.  Our church doesn't have a service on Christmas or Christmas Eve, unless it's on a Sunday, which means on those years that we do, it's a little hard on the kids since they are used to spending Christmas day in their PJs, I was actually looking forward to it, and the choir in this congregation is pretty good, but of course it didn't play out to be the peaceful hour I was hoping for. Peanut was kind of a mess and I had to take him out twice and missed about half the service, while Daddy-o kept falling asleep in the corner of our pew, haha. Oh well. By the next time we have Christmas Day service, the kids will be a lot older and we can probably enjoy it.

Daddy-o's parents, brother, Isaac, and family came over for dinner, and this was the only picture I took, but it's a pretty cute one. Baby N loved the lights over at Deacon Dave's, and we loved being able to see family on Christmas. It's good for us to be building some memories in Livermore and starting to make this feel like home. And overall, Christmas day was a great day. 

And that's a wrap. Merry Christmas!

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

We thought it would be fun to take the kids over to San Francisco to see some of the big Christmas trees and decorations over there on Saturday. Parts of it were fun; parts of it were not so fun. Going anywhere crowded with three kids is always a little stressful, and Union Square a week before Christmas is packed. Plus there was the getting there, which should have been easy because we decided to ride BART in, but a (false-alarm) emergency bathroom stop in the not-so-great part of Oakland that cost us $10 made it a little less fun. 

We eventually made it to the city and to the big tree in Union Square. I used to come here with high-school friends the Friday after Thanksgiving to Christmas shop--in fact, we did that the first Thanksgiving Daddy-o and I spent together, just before we got engaged. I think we have a picture just like this of the two of us.

(This kid is either all sweet, or totally sour--not a lot of in between.)

Kids liked the windows at Macy's. 

And the Neiman Marcus tree.

This was the point that we realized how long it had been since we'd been here. We really wanted to take the kids to F.A.O. Schwartz, but when we looked it up, we found out it had closed in 2003!

There were quite a few street performers out. This one totally freaked Peanut out. He isn't a fan of people in costumes, and he didn't even realize this was an actual person at first, and then was very startled when he began to move.

The bagpiper was a little more his style.

We found this fun fountain by Ruth Asawa that depicts scenes from around the city. The kids recognized a couple from our trip to the Legion of Honor last week.

Lombard Street--we haven't ever done this on our trips to SF, but we'll have to some time. I just remember the lines being crazy long.

Next stop--Chinatown!

Our own little "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

Such a fun city-in-a-city.

Bean was loving how all the buildings have such a different look, and loving all the souvenir shops. We made it out with just postcards, but they were all pretty tempted.

Then, we climbed a REALLY steep hill to get to the Fairmont.

It was worth the climb to see their beautiful decorations (and hotel.) Apparently a lot of other people thought so too. I'm not sure I would want to stay somewhere like this at the holidays when there are so many people coming through constantly.

The big draw is this 28 foot tall gingerbread house that you can walk through. 7700 gingerbread peices, 1500 pounds of royal icing, and 700 pounds of candy.

The other decorations around the hotel were beautiful, too. 

We got dinner at a cute 50's diner, and then headed back to Bart with a stop at Macy's for a few minutes of shopping (once we found the Christmas and toy department, the kids didn't think it was a long enough stop and we had to drag them out.)

Beautiful city, beautiful Christmas, but glad we don't live around quite so many people!