It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

This weekend was filled with holiday events. On Saturday, we went to the 04 LM holiday party. Nana was visiting this weekend so she came with us and let Vic have a quiet evening at home. The night before, I had helped a little bit to decorate the room. I let Gina stay at her afterschool care for an evening of pizza and a movie, not thinking that it would only give me a little more than an hour to help with setup. The other moms did a great job with hanging snowflakes from the ceiling, blue and white balloons on all the tables, and lights strung around the room.

The kids had a lot of fun at the party, though I was reluctant to put Dylan on the ground with so many people. Nana and I took turns holding him all evening. One of the dads dressed up as Santa and for the entertainment, we had Andy Z, the kid's favorite musician. One of the moms took a great picture of Gina with Andy, he seemed thrilled to see her (He used to teach music at her preschool). Andrew was more taken by the pile of presents on one of the tables, and stood by the table the whole time Andy was playing. They each got a very nice book at the end of the party.

Today we got to go see the Nutcracker ballet. I've been waiting five years to take Gina to see the Nutcracker. I have very fond memories of going to San Francisco with my Grandma every year to see it at the Opera House. I think she first took me when I was three and I think I fell asleep that first time. So for their first Nutcracker experience, I decided to go with a 1 hr children's matinee performed by the Ballet San Jose, especially since Andrew wanted to go as well. We got there early and had a chance to see some of the performers outside. Both kids were a little unsure about seeing the Nutcracker and Mouse king up close. Inside, they had singers and lots of little Christmas trees. Of course, the kids also wanted a snack so I shelled out $6 for 2 bags of M&Ms.

During the performance, the kids did very well. Andrew was a little squirmy and spent part of the time sitting in my lap and part of the time sitting on the floor. They were both scared by the BOOM from the canon (Gina said she wanted to leave) but they enjoyed the rest of the performance. I miss seeing all the dances in the second part but for the kids this year, sitting through the first half of the ballet was plenty.


Since the ballet was so short, we had time to pickup Dylan after his nap and drive over to Andrew's preschool for some snow play. By the time we got there, a lot of the snow had melted but there was still plenty to make snowballs. Gina and Andrew had a lot of fun throwing snow balls and slipping and sliding on the icy snow. Gina's preschool friend Alexandra was also there and they had fun playing together. Dylan liked hanging out in the snow, I'm sure he was wondering what all this cold stuff was.

After a day full of activity (and no grocery shopping) I took the kids to a local restaurant for dinner with the promise that we would go see some houses with Christmas lights afterwards. I guess it was the right incentive, they were great for dinner and so we headed over to see the display. Several houses are covered in lights and they have music playing, with the lights synchronized to the music. It really is amazing with all the lights. We watched from the sidewalk for awhile. Andrew was mesmerized by a moving text display near the ground. He left only with the promise that we would return for another visit.

After a long day, the kids fell asleep pretty quickly with little fuss.