Yesterday was my first day back at work, and though only a half day, I found myself exhausted!

So, now I’m feeling a little lazy, and figured a post of photos from my iPhone was the least tiring type of post

New Year’s Eve countdown with Marco

Marco and his aunt Chloe are silly geese

My beautiful, sweet friends Adrian and Micaela visited me last week to cheer me up, keep me company, and fatten me up a little, LOL. In addition to the Gott’s lunch we had (complete with milkshakes!), Adrian brought Timmy and I dinner – a tasty lasagna! Her recipe is HERE

Flowers from my bosses and coworkers

The best way to wake up in the morning!

I love my flats! – REPORT ‘Foley’ 

Dinner at home – black bean ‘burger’ in pita bread, with spicy hummus, yellow bell pepper,tomato and fat-free feta

My pretty girl, Roux

Creepy kitty… ha ha poor Stabler

Tim and I had stayed up after we returned from Christmas Eve dinner to finish setting up Marco’s presents. I wanted everything to be perfect for the kiddo to run out and see his gifts!

Christmas morning dawned, and still the Dicksons snored. Marco woke up at 8am, not exactly happy with life. He insisted that Daddy hold him on his chest. The three of us stayed in bed and passed out for an additional 45 minutes. Then, we decided to have breakfast before Marco discovered his treasures.

Marco loves his eggs

Look at his excited face – and his adorable holiday jammies!

After breakfast, we let Marco run out to the living room to discover what was there. He was SO excited to see his tunnel tent!

There was even a special note from Old St Nick

Tim had piled Marco’s gifts into the tent so we could all hang out with Marco in his new digs.

I gave Tim two sets of cuff links (one that is reminiscent of a circuit!), and a cool book by Brian Cox, and the accompanying BluRay documentary. I also gave him a few silly things for his stocking, like binoculars, candies filled with Sambuca, and such.

After a pleasant morning and early afternoon lazing around, we got ready for our Christmas dinner with the Dicksons.

 Marco looked so handsome! Vest, tie, slim fit jeans and Converse.

I made my special baked Brie for an appetizer (by special request), and it went fast! I was only able to get a few bites before it disappeared. We had a delicious dinner, and I spent a lot of time talking with Dad and Tim about photography.

My body wasn’t thrilled with me that day, and I was losing the battle to stay awake and comfortable., so we left around 9 so I could get home to bed.  Overall, a very good and quiet Christmas.

Happy New Year!!

I know I’m kind of behind on the holiday posting! It’s already 2012. Whoops.  I felt so disconnected from the holidays this year, because of how much pain I was in, how tired I was, blah blah blah. Anyway, Marco had a wonderful holiday, which is the most important thing! It felt good to be able to bring such smiles to his face.

The Friday before Christmas, my amazing best friend Micaela came up to stay the night and keep me sane. We sipped a little bubbly (delicious Lucien Albrecht Cremant d’Alsace Brut Rose – YUM) and discussed life in general, exchanged gifts (I’ve held onto her gift for several months, I was DYING for her to finally open it! I found this beautiful vintage locket in the shape of a book; the cover had a cameo on it. It was part of an estate sale that ended up in a shop near my house; the clerk estimated 1950s). Micaela gave me a beautiful raspberry colored scarf/shawl, and an awesome crafting book full of neat ideas that I feel like I can actually do! It’s like Pinterest, in book form

After the fun present part, Micaela helped me chop pistachios and candy canes so I could make chocolate bark:

Dark chocolate with pure orange oil and pistachios

Milk chocolate with almonds (my grandma’s favorite, I made it especially for her)

Dark chocolate, white chocolate and smashed bits of candy canes (micaela took a meat tenderizer to the super-size candy cane)

I also baked some cookies, molasses and ginger snaps, and dark chocolate and mint cookies:

The next morning, Christmas Eve, we enjoyed coffee and conversation, and Marco engaged Micaela in a few rounds of tag and hide-n-seek.

Tim, Marco and I headed to the Gomers for our usual Christmas Eve lunch (2009 & 2010). Marco was really excited to visit and open his gifts:

Woo hoo! Marco loves racing cars around the house, and this one is his new favorite.

Marco and Belle decided to take their mid-day siestas, so the grown ups lounged around. We exchanged our gifts (I’m excited to start reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami ! Timmy got a Wii golf game – at least he doesn’t have to wear the weird plaid to play lol!), and I tried to feel less tired.

When Marco woke up, we made the trek to San Jose for my family’s dinner at my uncle’s house. It was good to see everyone, and I was happy to see my grandmother in good spirits. She’s been so frail for so long, it was a relief to see her smiling and laughing again. Marco was free with hugs, and my cousin Tony made an appearance (I haven’t seen him in several years). Overall, a good night. We couldn’t stay very late, because we had to drive back up to Napa. The drive home was difficult for me; I couldn’t get comfortable and the Motrin wasn’t doing anything for the pain.Poor Timmy was exhausted too, so we were relieved to finally make it home.

Christmas morning and day to come in the next post!

Been sick a lot this past week, plus have had many errands to take care of (Christmas and non-Christmas related), so my posting has become more sporadic. I’m tired all the time, my back is killing me, I am having trouble sleeping, I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in… any working mom knows the breaks. Tim helps me so much – I have more help with taking care of Marco than pretty much any mom I know; but I have a difficult time delegating much else. My patience has worn so thin that I feel like I don’t say anything at home without the word ‘no’, or with a threat of ‘time-out’ attached to it.

I received a promotion at work a few weeks ago, which is great news, but it’s definitely keeping my brain so full that I forget more things at home, and then when I finally do remember, it is 11:30 at night. I want to be super-mom, super-employee, super-wife, super-friend, super-model. I am not any of these things.

ok

Sorry for the downer beginning. Here’s some of recent pics to get everyone off the bummer train:

fairy lights

Christmas card display – twine and clothespins – simple but it works

Santa and I are in cahoots! Muahh haa haa haa….

And this guy is getting majorly spoiled by both myself and St Nick.

I have three random things to post. I hope it’s okay?

First is this song that I’ve been listening to quite often the past week:

Gotye feat Kimbra ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’

Agenda item #2

I feel pretty in these pictures, so I wanted to share them with you.

When you need a good photo of yourself for Christmas cards and it’s too windy for the tripod, the only thing to do is set your camera to the correct f-stop, figure out the spot your husband needs to stand in (and the amount of squat to get the right angle), and tell him exactly when to click the shutter and hope that he doesn’t screw up the focus.  It works pretty well, as long as your hubby takes direction and won’t mess with the white balance.

Thanks, darling!

And the third item…

I recently purchased this book for Marco:

It’s a counting board book with characters and themes from Romeo & Juliet! LOVE.

And there, folks, is a random post for Thursday.

I love Christmas. But, it has to be said that I can’t get merry until it’s actually the Christmas season…in other words, stop trying to force it down my throat the week PRIOR to Thanksgiving! I was not ready for Jingle Bells yet! Don’t despair that I’ve turned into a Grinch – I LOVE it – I am just not ready for it so early!

Anyway, now that I AM ready for decking my halls with boughs of holly (and glitter), I have to share some photos from our adventures at the Christmas Tree farm! Marco was so excited and happy, and we found a lovely tree.  We went to the farm with our neighbors, their daughter, and their new baby son (soo tiny!!), and the Gomers. It was great to share the fun with other families.

He’s such a big boy. Look how tiny he was last year at the farm (click link)

Belle was too busy to take pictures

My hubby

He should be a model.

Our tree!!

it was very windy that afternoon, hence my bad hair.

All gussied up

One of my favorite ornaments

 butterflies

wine grapes, of course!

The owl ornament Marco picked out himself

I can’t wait to put presents under the tree! I’ve been plotting my baking and crafts (yep, I think I’m getting a little crafty this year), and have purchased some presents that need to be wrapped. Our cards are ready to be addressed and mailed, and nail polish has been selected for the fun times ahead…

OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Aire

So, I might have bought some most of the OPI nail polishes from the Muppets collection… Tim, Marco and I saw the Muppets movie the day after Thanksgiving, and we LOVED it! We’re huge Muppets fans, and it was so awesome to share it with Marco. He laughed, giggled, and danced in his seat the whole time.

Our tree is decorated, and it is officially the holiday season (and Santa Claus has got a toy for every good girl and good little boy…)

Bring on the peppermint mochas peppermint schnapps.

Good morning!

Yup.

And I made it myself – though you’d think with an IT husband he’d be more help…LOL s’okay. I GOT THIS. 

M-o-u-s-eeeeee!

It’s Monday. Sigh. Instead of dwelling on the negative, let’s think on happy things! For example: Disneyland! Returning to work last week was tough after such a fun vacation. Marco was tall enough to go on a lot of rides, and his excitement at meeting Winnie the Pooh bear was infectious.

Some highlights of our trip:

I can’t wait to go back because I miss the Churros.

 I know, I know – so many Halloween posts in the blog world!  Seems like this year was bigger than ever. Lots of good times out there.

Last year, my boy was Darth Vader for Halloween (he was only 5 months old):

This year…

You tell me where you’ve ever seen a cuter Yoda and I’ll call you a liar.

In the afternoon, Marco’s toddler class came to trick-or-treat at my office (they’re within walking distance), and I got to show off a handsome Jedi to coworkers.

In the evening, the two of us trick-or-treated conned our neighbors into giving us candy. He actually hugged a few people after they gave him a candy bar!

So happy after a piece of KitKat bar!

Finally ready for bed…

Tim was out of town for a business trip, and missed the Halloween festivities; we missed him!!

Last week was quiet around here, mostly because our little family was super busy – IN THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!! Disneyland post coming soon…

It isn’t the official start of fall until the trip to the Stanly Lane pumpkin patch occurs!! (Here’s last year’s post 2010) Marco and Belle had a lot of fun picking pumpkins and running around the hay.

I took some family pictures for the Gomers during our visit, and am quite pleased with the results! Of course, I snapped a few of my gorgeous boy…can you blame me?? The camera loves him. <3

I can’t wait to carve our pumpkins!!