Hey Cowboy, be careful of the babies fingers.

 I spent a couple of days in Simi Valley with my sister Barbara to help her care for Natalie's children why she went to Washington DC to visit her husband.  What a blast we had.  The two older kids spent most of their time with their other grandma but we had the baby and the 2 1/2 year old. 

Liam, the 2 1/2 year is an interesting little person.  He talks just about all the time but his pronunciation isn't very clear yet.  He looks very serious when he talks to you and expects you to respond.  His love this weekend was the rocking horse.  Pajamas and yellow rain boots are the attire of the morning.  We really had to keep a close eye on the baby when Liam was riding the horse because Liam wanted to crawl under the horse.

The baby, Grayson, 10 mons.  is a laid back cuddly baby.  He is also very verbal but just makes noise and really enjoys hearing himself.  He smiles all the time and loves to be talked to.   Doing the army crawl all over the house is what he likes to do. The condo in Simi is small and he can go around and around and around.  He is starting to get up on his hands and knees and rock but hasn't quite mastered the crawling on all fours.

Today was a monumental day for Gray.  He discovered he can climb the stairs.  He's just figuring it out but managed to get up as far as the 3rd step.

Once he got to the 3rd step he would slide back down and turn and give us this big smile.  He knew he had accomplished something.  We sent pictures to his mom and dad and her response was "oh great, I leave for a couple of days and he learns a new trick".  Yup mom, that's what happens, their little life is just constantly learning new things.




Saturday we celebrated Jackson's 7th birthday.  We had dinner then cake and then, the best part for Jack. . .

 PRESENTS

It was really fun for met to spend this time with the kids and my sister.   Barb and I even had a little time to do some shopping.  Yea for us.

Time with these little kids was such a special time.

Christmas It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

This year Christmas was celebrated on Christmas Eve with our kids, Matt. Jen and our delightful little Zoe Luna.

Aunt Honda (Sonja) sent Zoe a large gingerbread man that was to be decorated.  While Jen and I fixed dinner and waited for Matt to get home from work, Grandpa and Zoe decorated the Gingerbread Man.

Putting on her new Gingerbread girl apron was the first task.  She wasn't excited about wearing it.

A cookie with sprinkles on it, that she made earlier with her mom, was on standby in case she needed some nourishment of sprinkles during the decorating process.

Yummmm... some sprinkles to get the process started while Grandpa mushes the icing around in the bag so it's nice and soft.