Our Stay In California

Since December 20 we have been in California spending the holidays with my family. It has been a very nice trip and a lot of fun with a few not so fun adventures. I don't have any pictures of it yet but I'll post them as soon as we get them off the boys' camera.

Michael has been having the most fun!!!!! His favorite thing to do is torment the poor dog, Sammy. The first few days the were both scared of eachother and Michael did everything he could to not be anywhere near Sammy! That quickly changed. Now Michael spends time running around sammy and chasing him, trying to "honk" his snout (something we tought him to do on our noses, squeeze the nose and say "Honk") It doesn't work as well on Sammy. He also likes to try and ride him, and sometimes he'll take a break and lye on the floor with his back against sammy. I'm sure sammy will be happy when we leave.

Here are some other funny and sweet things Michael has been doing:
1. He gets my twin brothers confused. The other day I noticed this when Michael was on a belly button quest. He ran to me to find my belly button and I told him he should get Bryce's belly button. Bryce was sitting across from me and Michael ran right past him into the kitchen to Bryan. He found his belly button and then, thinking Michael had them confused, we told him to find Bryan's belly button. At that he ran back into the T.V. room to Bryce. Also, while we were getting ready to put Michael to bed, we had him say "night-night" to Bryan, who was right in front of us. Michael looked around trying to find Bryce, and then looked at bryan when we said bryce. Pretty funny.

2. Michael likes to grab our hands and lead us to an activity he wants to do. Just today I told him that we should go play with his Mr. Potato Head (a x-mas gift) and he grabbed my hand and walked into the living room with me. We then sat and played for about 15 minutes, which is pretty good for our VERY active little boy!

3. He has discovered the stairs and is very good at walking up and down them. It can be really scary, but so far we haven't had any disasters.

4. For x-mas my sister and bro. in-law and their little girl came down to visit. that was very fun to visit with them and we had a good time. Michael apparantly also really liked his little cousin Emma (11 months old) because he was sitting with her on the floor on x-mas morning during the present opening. After a few minutes he leaned over and gave her hug. He was a bit rough and she started to fall over but he just kept holding on!!! We pulled him off but he tried about 3 times. By the end I think Emma was getting a little scared and she started to cry. But he enjoyed it!

5. We had a really nice x-mas day but it was a little chaotic opening presents. there was a lot of people and a lot of presents and may have been too much for Michael to handle. But he definitly knew what to do with the presents, and he got quite a few. Nathan and I gave him see and say toy, Bryan and Bryce gave him a few Mr. Potato Heads with a bunch of accessories and a really cute stuffed dog. Grandma and Grandpa gave him some brissle blocks, really cute clothes, block train set, and 3 books. He has been having a lot of fun playing with those.

6. But who needs new toys when you have a brand new kitchen with really cool, never before seen kitchen appliances. For about the last hour, he has been playing with a cheese grater, a sifter, and a 1/2 cup measurer. He also really enjoys opening the drawers and surveying those new treasures and opening the drawer under the stove and getting out all the pots and pans lids. At that point, we all take our ear plugs and prepare for some very loud noise.

We have also had a fun time park hopping here in Grand Terrace, which he loves. It has been a very fun trip and we're definitly wishing we would be able to return to weather like this in Idaho, but unfortunately, we wont be that lucky.