Santa Claus is coming to town...

After a fun filled Christmas Eve with my family, we went home to get some rest before another big day. Apparently, Santa came will Madison was sleeping. Here are a few pictures of her very 1st Christmas.

Someone must have been a good girl this year ;)

I guess she wanted to open that present first.

We decided to start her off with the smallest one instead.

She loves opening presents.

Inspecting one of her many new toys from Santa

Picture with daddy & mommy

Our big girl in her new chair

Daddy & Madison

Madison & Mommy

Twas the night before Christmas...

For Christmas Eve we have a yearly tradition with my family where we go to church at 7pm and have dinner at Tahoe Joe's afterwards. This year we decided to switch it up a bit and have dinner at Umi Sushi here in town. Whenever we don't feel like driving too far for sushi we usually go there to satisfy our craving. As always the food was delish! I think we might have a new Christmas Eve dinner tradition. ;) Anyway, after we finished we all went back to my parents house to open presents since my sister and her family were leaving to visit her in-laws in Texas the next morning. Here are a few pictures I took from that evening. My sister has a majority of them on her camera so I'll have to post those later.

 

Betty Crocker in the making ;)

This year we celebrated Christmas early with my mom's side of the family since my uncle had to work on Christmas day and my sister & her family would be out of town. To change things up a bit my Aunt came up with the idea of having a cookie contest (more on that later). Since I was in the mood to bake the night before our get together I decided to make two kinds of cookies...Andes & Reese's peanut butter cookies. I knew it was going to take some time to make two batches of cookies so I had my little helper join me. =)

Here are a few pictures daddy captured of all the fun we were having. I think we have a baker in the making! ;)

Baking with mommy

Madison is so intrigued by the mixer.

She LOVES baking & her spatula too! hahaha!

The final product...minus the Andes which I baked the following day.

Tis the season...

My little ohana

For months now I have been wanting to take a family portrait for our house but never got around to doing it since our schedules have been so busy. Since we were taking Madison in to have her 5 month pictures I figured what better time than now to finally take our family picture too. It would serve two purposes...the family portrait I've been wanting as well as our very first Christmas card! Every year I've always said I would do one but never got around to it. Now that Madison is here and it's her 1st Christmas I was determined! Here are a few pictures that were taken. Unfortunately, Madison was preoccupied with everything else going on at the picture place (it was super busy that day because of the holidays) that she wasn't paying attention in some of the shots. I think it also had to do with the fact that Jaime & I weren't behind the camera making her laugh like we usually do. The pictures came out ok. There was one really good one which I saved for our Christmas card. I'll post that one later. For now here is my little ohana...I love them!

5 months...not such a baby anymore!

Another month has past and our precious little princess is now 5 months old. I swear time is going by faster & faster every day. Madison has grown & developed so much in the last few weeks. Her little personality is coming out and it's so cute! She LOVES to talk/coo, laugh, & smile. She's such a happy baby & so much fun. We love it! It makes my day when she wakes up in the morning and she has a huge smile on her face when I go in her room to get her. Ahhhh...she melts my heart!

Not only is she so much fun to play with now....she's even starting to sit up on her own. Crazy!!! My baby girl isn't such a baby anymore! Since she only has check up's with her doctor every other month she didn't have one this month. In a way I'm glad she didn't so she wouldn't have to get any shots but on the other hand I wish she did so we knew how much she has grown. Everyone says she is so big for a 5 month old. Everytime I say how old she is no one can believe it. They all think she's much older...I guess because she is so tall. Here is her 5 month picture.

Since it's December we decided to have her wear the Christmas dress given to her by one of my managers. Isn't it ADORABLE?! I love it!!! My manager always picks out the cutest stuff for Madison. I had been looking for a Christmas dress for her for a little while now but couldn't find one I really liked. Thank goodness my search finally ended we she got this dress and to top it off...it fit perfectly! This is my favorite picture of her by far and look...she fits her Juicy shoes now! =)

Just like riding a bike...

What better way to celebrate your 30th birthday than shredding the gnar in Tahoe right?! That is exactly what my cousin's boyfriend decided to do since he loves the snow and we just had a huge storm that dropped tons of fresh powder. Since they were flying up from San Diego we decided to meet them at the Heavenly Ski Resort on the south shore for a day of boarding. We were all super excited to go since...
a) it was the first trip of the season
b) we haven't boarded together in a long time &
c) it just dumped lots of nice FRESH POW!

After gearing up we got on the lift to make our way up the mountain. I have to admit I was very anxious on the way up since this was my first trip back after having Madison. I had missed out all last season since I was pregnant with her. They say snowboarding is like riding a bike where you don't really forget how to do it no matter how long it's been but I was still worried. I didn't want to eat it off the lift or worse...crash really hard and hurt myself. It wasn't so much the pain part of getting hurt I was worried about it was more so if I got hurt how would I take care of Madison? She is my #1 priority so I want to make sure I'm healthy enough to take care of her.

Anyway, as we got closer to the end of the lift I could feel myself "shaking in my boots" hahaha! Sorry guess that's an inside joke. To my surprise I did much better than I expected getting off. We took the first run to the nearest lodge so my cousin could grab a quick snack since she hadn't eaten all morning. I was very nervous going down that first hill but it wasn't so bad after all...I guess snowboarding really is like riding a bike. I took it nice and slow the first couple of runs. That was my first trip to Heavenly and didn't realize how HUMONGOUS it is! Their runs are 4 or 5 times longer than all the other resorts I've gone to. Just to get back to the car from the lodge we had lunch at took us 45 minutes! I was EXHAUSTED by the time we got back and my legs were burning to top it off. Talk about a workout! I think I burned a million calories that day! Hahaha! It was all so worth it though.

Here are a couple pictures from our fun filled day. There aren't many since we were too busy having a good time to stop for a picture but you know we had to get a couple in there. I'm hoping to get back up the mountain again very soon especially since there is so much snow right now. I still can't believe how much snow there was in the beginning of Dec usually we don't see snow like that until atleast Jan or Feb. Who knew this snow season would be so epic! So glad I didn't miss out on this one!

Reunited with my favorite snow bunny! =)

Now I know why they call it HEAVENLY! ;)

Can you tell I was excited to get back up the moutain?! heehee!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Since I had the day off I brought Madison to the mall to have her picture taken with Santa. I wasn't sure how she was going to react but it turns out she loves him! Check out her 1st Christmas pic with Santa...

So I just have to share the funniest story...after Madison finished taking her picture I went to get her from Santa, as I picked her up I noticed she was grabbing his beard. This wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't his REAL beard! Ahhh!!! I felt so bad! I know the strength of those little hands once they get a good grip on something! I apologized several times but he didn't seem to mind. What a nice Santa! =)