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Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was filled with lots of fun and family. I just love this time of year! Here are a few pictures from Christmas eve - spent with Eric's parents, aunt, uncle and brother, at his parents house.





Christmas morning was so fun with Darby. She was so excited about EVERYTHING. We had to help her open her presents because she would be so excited about what was just opened that she couldn't possibly concentrate on something new!


Now we are packing up and heading to Big Bear for our annual trip to celebrate New Years with friends! I can't wait to take Darby sledding and playing out in the SNOW!

Sending ALL of you warm wishes for a blessed and happy New Year!

Christmas before Christmas!

This year my parents are traveling to Atlanta for Christmas to visit my Sister, Brother in law and Luisa - most of you know they are in the process of adopting her from Columbia and she is visiting for the holidays. Since they will be gone, we celebrated Christmas early with them on Saturday! I have to admit, even though it was early, it was wonderful! Christmas is SUCH a hectic holiday for us. It was nice not to already be wiped out from the marathon Christmas usually is! Of course even though it was a week early, Redondo Beach Santa still stopped by the house before we got there. Darby was spoiled of course, by Santa AND her Cookie Grammy and Surfer Dude Grandpa.

Christmas definitely wont feel the same this year. It will be the first Christmas I will spend without seeing my parents, and Darby's first without seeing her Cookie Grammy and Surfer Dude Grandpa (even though she only has one under her belt and I have 28, we are in the same boat!) I will miss my Sister and Brother in Law, and Brother and Sister in law, and my 3 silly nephews. It is hard being so spread out from one end of the country to the other.

On the other hand, even though Christmas will be missing my immediate family (which is sad, no way around it!), I am so lucky to have married into a wonderful family and extended family, who all live close by. So Christmas will still be filled with family, and that is the important part!

Thank you Mom and Dad (and Santa!) for the great Christmas before Christmas! We will miss you!

Potty Time

Darby has had a busy week on the potty! Since last Saturday she has gone on the potty a grand total of 6 times (5 #1s and 1 #2!). One of those times was because she said she had to go (#2), the rest were just routine potty breaks after nap or before bed. Whenever she has a successful potty break, to reward her I blow bubbles in the bathroom while she is still sitting on the potty. The potty plays music when she goes, so that's my signal to bring out the bubbles! Here are a few pictures from today -

Now, I do realize Darby will probably hate me later on for publicly blogging about her potty training. But I don't care. I am just so proud of her and until I can post about all the other successes she will have in life - potty training it is!!

Santa!

On Sunday we took Darby to sit on Santa's lap. A LOT of other people had the same idea as we did (imagine that!) so there was a long line for us to wait in. Darby was so excited to see Santa (she says Santa, and it is SO cute. I'll have to get a video of it). While we waited, we took turns walking around with her. Southcoast Plaza has so many beautiful Christmas decorations up this time of year. Darby loved the "choo choo" and big tree.

We finally made it to the front of the line in Santa's house and of course her excitement turned to shyness and we couldn't even get her to crack a smile. But I'm not complaining, she didn't cry and I still think the picture is just perfect!!

AND Santa even gave her a candy cane!

Sitting on the Potty

Saturday night was the same as most. Before putting on her jammies, Darby sat on her potty. We had a few friends over and Darby had a cheering squad. I don't think she was too impressed with the crowd around her in such a vulnerable state!

BUT, all of a sudden the potty started playing music which meant....

SUCCESS!!!!!!

Our little Darby is growing so fast! We are so proud of her first pee-pee in her big girl potty!

I decided to try to potty training now just because she talks about it all the time. Sometimes she even tells us when she is going in her diaper. Of course, it could still take quite awhile, but we are letting her call the shots. If it works this early, great! If not, that's ok too!

No matter what, we are so proud of Darby's first pee-pee in her potty! Stay tuned for video!

Family Pictures ... FINALLY!

Something I had been wanting to get taken for awhile were professional family photos. We didn't have any really good family pictures, and barely any pictures of me along with Eric and/or Darby! I guess that's what I get for always being the one snapping all the pictures. Even so, I wanted to make sure we had a really good picture for our Christmas cards this year, so my dream of professional pictures came true!

We heard about a photographer named Joe Martinez through a friend and arranged a shoot for the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Joe met us at beautiful Heritage Park in Cerritos and we had a great time playing around the park and posing for pictures. Darby LOVED chasing the ducks and swinging at the playground! We are so excited about our pictures! Joe created a slide show for us and you can check it out by clicking on this link -

http://www.joeshotme.com/showit/murray

I think I cry just about every time I watch it. The song we chose is "our song", hope you enjoy it!