Holiday Get Togethers

Uncle Pete and Auntie Ali hosted a Secret Santa gift exchange for the kids.  The kids sat in line from the oldest to the youngest waiting patiently for their gifts.

One of the most popular gifts was Courtney's coloring pages.  The kids sat quietly coloring. It was really nice of Courtney to share her gift and the activity became a team effort!

The girls also got together with James, Luke and Kalina to exchange gifts. The kids showed off all the goodies they got.  They all loved their presents!

Daddy, Mommy and Bella stopped off at Katelyn's winter Kindergarten performance before heading to work and preschool.  The kindergartens sang Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, Oh Hanukkah and We wish you a Merry Christmas.

Katelyn, Po Po and Mommy watched Trolls during winter break while Bella had school.   There were some parts of the movie that was scary and Katelyn sat on Mommy's lap.

It was not the best idea for the girls to wait until the last minute to see Santa and visit him on a weekend!  Mommy waited in line for an hour while Daddy took the girls to walk around the mall.  The wait was worth it for these pictures!  Bella was not afraid of Santa this year.  Santa told the girls- they were on his good list and they couldn't stop beaming after seeing him!

Parties, Drive-Ins & Ice-Skating

Auntie Stef rented out a pizza joint for Preston's first birthday.  The theme of his party was the hungry caterpillar.  He looked so cute in his birthday outfit.

Katelyn and Bella blew bubbles and played with Harper at the party.  The 3 girls had nice smiles and cute bows in their hairs.

Later that evening, they met up with Courtney and Natalie to watch their first drive-in movie, Moana.

It rained the first 15 minutes when they arrived.  It started off with all the kids eating mac and cheese, sandwiches and snacks in the back of Daddy's van.

 Here's Bella's winter school picture.

Lately these two have been setting up their stuff and pretending to camp out on the stairs.  They bring their coloring books and snacks.

Katelyn started gymnastics class.  She's been on the wait list for awhile and finally got a spot.  She enjoyed walking on the balance beam during her first class.

The girls tried skating at Central Park in San Mateo last week.  It was Bella's first time on skates.  It was cute to see her step on the ice with her little skates. 

Daddy is not a great skater himself and Mommy can't go without holding onto the wall.   It was difficult to hold Bella while trying to balance himself.  It didn't phase Bella.  Shew was fearless.

Uncle Brian, Auntie Mai and Adam joined us.  Thank goodness for these skating walkers and Auntie Mai and Uncle Brian's skating skills.

Katelyn was pretty competitive on the ice.  She wasn't very graceful, she ran on the ice with the walker.


The 3 kids didn't want to go home. Katelyn was so hot from running around, she had to take off her jacket!

Fun Times

Tristan's birthday last weekend was at an indoor gym.  Natalie and Bella tried to keep up with the big kids, but often held up the line.

We can't believe how fast Tristan is growing up.  Katelyn has been friends with him since she was a newborn.

The girls helped decorate the tree.  They tend to put the ornaments all on one side of the tree.

Katelyn's after school program hosted a performance where the kids sang Christmas songs.

Katelyn likes to pretend she is the teacher.  She taught her students, Daddy and Bella basic math.

Katelyn loves adult coloring books and likes to see what color patterns she can make.

Bella has been learning about different modes of transportation in preschool.  During an activity, she glued popsicles sticks to a paper and called them her train tracks.

Bella and Katelyn took another trip to the Exploratorium.  This time they got a ticket for the drawing board.  In this activity, the girls each picked 4 color markers of their choice.  Next they pushed the platform.  As the platform swung, the pen marked a sheet of paper that is fastened to the platform, creating pretty and repetitive patterns, which grow smaller with each repetition. These colorful designs contained hidden lessons in physics.

This was the final product.  Katelyn was asked to sign her creation.

It's so heart warming to see how close these two are!

The day ended with a stroll checking out the view of the bridge and ice-cream at the Ferry building.