Christmas morning

OK, so I'm a slacker and I haven't gotten around to creating a viable Christmas entry yet.  But we've been quite busy with the holidays, and then traveling around New Years (more photos to come) plus house projects, and Brie going back to work, and then each of us getting sick at different times, so it can be hard to blog.  But we had a great Christmas, the kids got a lot of quality goodies, and we spent a good amount of time relaxing.  Here are some Christmas pictures:

Griffin's the first one in to the living room Christmas morning.  He's just at that age when the anticipation builds each day and the morning excitement is overwhelming

If the tree seems small that's because it is.  Neither of us like a fake tree, and any real tree you buy around here is shipped down from Oregon or someplace, and is absurdly priced and wasteful.  So be bought a real Desert Pine tree from a garden center, repotted it, and decorated it.  Now it's living happily outside.  If it gets too big for the pot we'll put it in the ground, if not we'll use it again next year.  Believe it or not this was a less expensive option than either a dead tree or a plastic tree.

Matilda is not quite at the anticipation age, but she does relish tearing into a package:

This is a cool light-up WallE shirt from Grandma Joyce and Grandpa Spike, he also got an awesome magnetic set from Denise and Andrew:

This was perhaps Griffins favorite present (at least the one he never put down all day) It's a joke camera that shoots water, we bought it on a whim, and he kept chasing us around with it all day yelling "say cheese!"

A new hat and a new action figure, you can never have too many of either.

So as a resolution I'm going to try to do more regular entries, they will of course be shorter, and will have less pictures, but they should offer greater variety.  The drawback is they may be boring or humdrum, but for all I know nobody reads every part anyway.  Other blogs I've read have a lot more regular entries, and some may be just writing.

Winterhaven

So this is super cheesy, but I thought I'd share the pictures.  We have a neighborhood called "Winterhaven" not very far away.  It's a long-running tradition to have the most extensive Christmas lights display in the city.  It used to be mandated by the homeowner's association, but they've since relaxed those rules.  Still about 90% of the houses participate, and many of them go way over the top.  Excessive, but fun for the kids.  It's actually nice to walk around, there are plenty of families, people giving away cocoa and cider, horse-drawn carriages, and more Santa.  We brought the wagon:

What's most fun is all the themes.  You see Disney themes, Harry Potter, all kinds of stuff.  Here is a Christmas Story theme.  See the leg lamp in the window, and the boy with his tongue stuck to the pole:

The Nutcracker:

Some Horses:

These next three are all one display:

More Horses:

This is one of our favorites, a display all built around the 12 Days of Christmas.  What's cool about it is they kept adding one more piece each year, this year they got to 12 drummers drumming, so it is finished.  Not too many pictures but what's funny is the creative interpretations.  Four calling birds were crushed into a phone booth making calls, Seven swans swimming were jumping off a diving board on the roof, Eight maids-a-milking were moms and babies breastfeeding, Ten lords-of leaping were parachuters jumping out of a train, and the pipers piping were all plumbers laying pipe (complete with plumbers crack!)  Very funny:

Here's Santa and Mrs. talking to the kids.  Santa tried climbing into our wagon:

This is a cool gingerbread house:

Beach theme, with tiki torches, surfboards, and sand covering the entire lawn:

Underwater theme:

The Grinch and Santa in an old west showdown.  The had the Ennio Morricone theme music from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly playing:

This is extravagant:

This guys has the most popular display.  He has a fountain that shoots water along with music and lights to the beat of music, which changes every year, but all the lights in the trees and the house go along with the music too.  It's like something you would see at Epcot Center:

I told you.  Cheesy right?

Jumping castle

For some reason in Arizona those big inflatable jumping castles are all the rage.  Maybe it's like that all over the country and I never noticed until I became a parent, but now it seems like you can't escape them.  They had a bunch set up at the pro baseball field, Brie's school has had a few events that featured a jumping castle, and now we're starting to see them more at kid's birthday parties.  Griffin loves them of course, he's the perfect age.  Here are a few pictures from one of his friends 4th birthday party.  The boy he's wrestling with is a good buddy of his from pre-school.

Botanical Gardens

The Tucson Botanical Gardens has an annual holiday event with lighted pathways, live music, spiced cider, tamales, chili, and Santa with no lines.  Griffin was very excited.  He ran up to Santa, said "I remember you from last year!  Are you going to give me a candy cane again?"  It was very cute.  Here are some pictures from the evening.

Black Friday hike

While most other people are busy shopping the day after Thanksgiving we took a hike.  These are all pictures from that day, except the first which is Matilda in a basket