More on the Christmas theme...

What's Christmas without a letter to Santa?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Trimming the tree ... visit with Santa ... posing with new holiday dress (she's very fond of this one) ... Nutcracker: Daughter is there, fourth from the left (the otherwise terrific little Canon SD800 struggles with low-light situations like this :-)

       

Me Joyful!

I think it actually happened during baking time on another day, but Daughter was in a very good mood and piped up, in her "little girl" voice (and grammer), "Me joyful!"

We're joyful too, to have you and your brother in our lives.

 

Newest Christmas Tradition

This marks the third year of making a Christmas Gingerbread House, so I think it now qualifies as a Tradition. This year Sydney wanted to help with the "main" section, but also wanted one to do by herself.

   

Haircut

Daughter decides it's time to try short hair:

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with lots of family from far parts of the globe. My photo-journalism skills need some work, but you'll get the idea. Aunt outdid herself with a wonderful feast (well, she had plenty of enthousiastic contributers!) and Uncle laid out a beautiful table from his ample supply of dinner- and flatware.

More Disneyland

Yes, it's after Halloween, but I didn't check my camera battery. Fortunately we were with some folks who were better prepared than I, but I don't have the pictures yet. So I'm taking the opportunity to share some more Disneylanb pictures! Because, why not?

The castle:

Autopia was a big hit with both kids. Just this last weekend Daughter opined that she'll do better with real driving because there won't be that pesky center rail to keep banging the car around.

We bought them a trinket or two at the park, and this hat was Son's pick:




















It's kinda like Fair Food, but there's something special about dining in the Park. I'm undecided whether it's good or not, but it's undeniably special:

Disneyland 3

This was in Mickey's house, through which one goes to get to the photo op with Mickey. Since son is still not exactly talkative, it's often hard to know what "stories" are going through his head, but not in this case!



Small World was a Big Hit with both kids, we did it both days. Some people say of Disneyland that when you go with kids you see it through their eyes, and this was the closest I came to understanding that ... they really were fascinated with all the puppets, and responded to each new "country" (or area) as they came up.

Second Disneyland Post ...

Yikes! I haven't delivered on my promise to get more Disneyland pictures up, and Halloween pictures are just around the corner!

Daughter, expounding on something very important:



Son loved the characters, collecting photos with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. He even elected to go back again on the second day:



Will try to get a couple more pics up tomorrow ....

Disneyland!

We managed to spend 11 hours (!) at Disneyland on Thursday and it went well enough that we were willing to go back on Saturday and spend another 11 hours there ... and again it went pretty well, despite rather higher heat and crowds. Our exceptional parenting skills, or Disney's exceptional park design and operation, or just plain luck?

Here we are fresh and excited on Saturday morning just after park opening. I'll have some more pics soon but I had to get something up today.

"family"

Son produced this artwork, rendered in graphite on purple-dyed cellulose, declaring "I love my family!" Notice that all the family members are smiling broadly! His lettering continues to improve. We are proud to accept this wonderful addition to our growing art collection.

Teeth!

Sydney's always very excited when each tooth comes out. I think here she's trying to show here "grown up" teeth coming in:
 

Isaac lounging:
 

Italian Fair

Sydney, complete with face painting, prepares a pizza. Isaac gets a lesson in tossing the dough!

Ashland

We had a brief weekend trip to Ashland, where they have a lovely park along the creek. In this part is this terrific ... what do you call it? Climbing thing. We're going to try to duplicate this in our back yard!

County Fair

Shave ice and motorcycles at the County Fair. Hard to beat!

An August Family Reunion

Food, Family and Fun at the 2009 Chalupsky Family Reunion!

Hot Day

This was a wonderful park on a super-hot day. The water jets shoot up semi-randomly, to squeals of delight from the kids. There's a Noah's Bagels nearby, too ....

Slip-n-Slide!

I had to be very careful how I landed or you get these giant bruises. The kids sure enjoyed it a lot! Sadly, construction quality is not what I remember it, and the first one broke in the first hour (probably due to my taking a slide or two on it). Fred Meyers gave us a refund, no questions asked. We did get another one, and it's gotten some use.

FIshing, Sailboats and Shoes

Sydney is quite enamored of the idea of fishing. I don't know how she'll feel about it if she ever catches one! We don't give her hooks yet, so we're safe for a while.

This is what drew me to the lake this day: an informal gathering of small boat sailors. There were a dozen or so, but limited as we were to a canoe, we didn't actually mingle much.

And the Art segment of today's post, a self-portrait by Sydney. That's Daddy in the background.

Wolf Sighted!

We went up to Great Wolf Lodge (and yes, this goes a ways back too, I thought I was caught up but I obviously neglected this set). GWL is a chain of "western lodge" theme hotels, lots of fake giant timbers, and of course Wolves. This guy with Isaac is apparently not a mouse, but a wolf. Anyway, Isaac thought he was pretty cool!

As we checked in, we were offered a free upgrade to a Wolf Den room, which we accepted. Sydney was pretty excited at first, but at bedtime she had a lot of trepidation about sleeping with the wolves. She did though, and did pretty well. In the morning we congratulated her on it.

The big draw to GWL of course is the water park. Admission comes with (and only with) the accommodations. I'm not a connoisseur of water parks, of course, but the kids loved it. Last time Isaac wasn't too into it, but this time he had a lot more fun. Once he conquered this slide, he spent hours on it!

Sydney spent quite a bit of time in the wave pool here. She had a blast trying out body surfing. And taking off and putting back on the lifejacket. Off and on, off and on, off and on ....

It was a nice weekend.