acacia park

on christmas eve day we went on a family outing to a little park. it was so warm and sunny that day, i loved it!

i love these next few pics of penny with my dad. so cute.

i LOVE this picture of my parents. could it be any more perfect?

hi max!

leaves!

what a perfect way to spend the day before christmas. so many people were out walking and saying "merry christmas!" to each other, there was just a happy feeling in the air, i loved it.

merry christmas!

our tinsel-drenched tree.

opening stockings...

paul with the ira glass tickets i got for him.

derek and brian with their toilet mugs, courtesy of older brother jordan.
penny LOVED this blanket my mom crocheted for her so much that i had to show a picture despite my no-makeup face. that's love.

how derek and brian tagged penny's present. (sorry it's kinda blurry...)

we had a great time in california this year with my side of the family. we only visit my hometown once or twice a year and it's always so nice. the weather was great (the rain stopped once we got there), i even got to wear flip-flops! penny loved playing with her cousin max and i loved just relaxing, hanging with the fam and watching movies. hope you all had a great holiday!

this would've been our christmas card photo if i wasn't so lazy and actually sent one out...

and some outtakes:

hope you all have a happy holidays!

new york...continued!

it's a christmas miracle!

remember this post when i uploaded new operating software and *accidentally* erased everything on our laptop? well, i was poking through some old files and voila! this darling little laptop decided to miraculously save all of our new york pictures from this summer and store them in a random, dark corner of our files. i was so excited i think i peed a little. just kidding...maybe.

without any further ado, here's the rest of our trip in new york this summer:

the new york city temple, where nate and claire attended church on sundays.

we had heard that gray's papaya was THE place to get a new york hot dog. (i don't know if paul enjoyed his very much...he took one bite and got pooped on by a pigeon haha.)

central park! i didn't realize how huge it was. there were entertainers and food carts everywhere, it was like a mini amusement park. everything was so green and pretty.

radio city music hall!

rockefeller center! we went on a tour through nbc studios and i loved it! we got to go inside the SNL studio and i'm a total SNL junkie so that was very cool. that place is tiny! there's only 3 little stages that they perform skits on, including the main one where the hosts come out to do their monologue. we saw some other studios, too and i was amazed at how small they were and how much larger they appear on camera.

in front of the prometheus statue at rockefeller center. it was summertime so the ice skating rink was covered up with tables and stuff.

the t-rex in the museum of natural history! (yes, i put my hands on my hips in every picture...i don't know what else to do for poses.)

at the shake shack! we heard this was another place in new york that we had to try and it was very tasty indeed. this was our last night before we flew home in the morning and it was a great way to end the trip.

that's all folks!

the wheels on the bus...

"ALLL TRU...DA TOWN!"

is it weird that i think her tone deaf-ness is cute? she LOVES singing this song - in the car, when she's getting dressed, in her crib...all the time. there are times when we go through like twenty animals and she just copies every animal sound i make, it's so cute. in fact, she loves singing period - 5 little monkeys jumpin' on the bed, the yo gabba theme song, popcorn popping on the apricot tree, or just random tuneless songs. i love it.

(i think she's a little distracted by the tree at the end...haha.)