San Francisco

Going to San Francisco was my most anticipated "tourist day" of the trip. It is one of my all time favorite cities and I hadn't been back since Tim and I were married. It was superbly cold, but everyone handled it really well! It was just busy enough to be exciting without having to worry too much about the kids.
In front of the Huge Tree and the head of Pier 39

I love you Grandma! Grant had such a great time with Dianne over the holidays. She took such great care of him many times while Tim and I took the kids places and they formed such a sweet bond! Here they're waiting while L and S are on the carousel.

Pier 39 carousel. Lillie had been telling Samuel about this since she rode it in June and they were both excited to ride. And luckily the 2nd level was open this time!

Lillie giving a dollar to the street perfomer. She was pretty nervous to do this so I was proud of her for getting up her nerve.

Samuel, now done with his street vendor corndog (best corndog ever! I swear!) delighted the birds with some of daddy's sourdough bread bowl.
Samuel with one of the MUNI cars. These were really awesome restored cable cars and even better, they were free. This was the best picture I could get of Samuel since he was in a somewhat grumpy mood at this point in the day. He had fun riding though!

Everyone, miuns me! at Pier 39.

Where did all the Sea Lions go? A few days after Thanksgiving the famous SF sea lions took off in droves. No one knows where they went or if they'll be back. Dissapointing, yes. But there were three that we were able to look at. And luckily SF holds all sorts of other awesome stuff for us to do.

Ghiradelli square, yum! We had promised the kids chocolate and they happened to be giving out free samples of peppermint bark... somehow the kids were satisfied with that and didn't seem to expect anything else... I love it when that happens!

Grant with some great SF background. He spent practically his whole day in the stroller and barely complained...what a sweetie!

Who doesn't want ice-cream when it's 30 degrees and windy?

Best Mother-in-Law ever!

Good Night. Grant finally crashed around 4pm when Grandma and Grandpa (who were on baby duty) bought him an SF hoodie to cuddle with. Nice and toasty!

Christmas in the Park ~ San Jose, CA

We went to San Jose for the day to their Christmas in the park with Grandma and Grandpa. We rode the light rail down which appeased Samuel for a time who had been begging to ride the CalTrain. While there, they also had a street fair so we bought wrist bands for the kids and I (Samuel couldn't go on anything by himself) and they had a blast!

Here's G with hid favorite person in the whole entire world! He and Tim just love each other so much! They are so much fun to watch.

G-ma, G-pa, Lillie, and Grant on Christmas tree lane.

This was one of Lillie's favorite rides and I think she rode it three times! I took Samuel once, and it was fun I'll admit, but I coudln't handle it more than once!

Yeah, I tried standing next to them on the merry-go-round, until it actually started.... that thing went so fast it was all I could do to slip and stummble my way to a horse before I fell off. And the horses went up and down quickly too! I'm glad Tim was not inspired to take a picture of me as I fell off twice before I finally got up there!

This was Samuel's favorite "ride" It was this huge series of steps, ramps, suspension bridges, and obstacle course type things as you wound your way up to the Super Duper Slide. It was the first thing that he saw that he wanted to do and I think we did this one about 5 times. Okay, it was fun for me too....

Tim snagged some pics of me with what he termed my "new boyfriend" Ha. Ha. This was the last ride the kids were on and Bubba here started talking to me immediately. I found out EVERYTHING about his personal life. And the ride was so dang long! He kept talking and I kept thinking "can you pay attention your job and turn the ride off? I think the kids are getting kind of bored since they've been riding around in circles for 10 minutes now...."

Peek-a-boo I see you! This is Grant's new game which he is very good at. Grandma and Grandpa did a great job keeping him occupied with it while we waited for the light rail.

I just thouht this was such a sweet picture! And Grant looks exactly like Tim's baby pictures so I thought it was a cool time warp kind of picture.

What a great day!

Okay, so this pic is separate even though it was taken on the same day b/c it represents a different day. Dianne treated Lillie, Becca, and I to a performance of the Nutracker by the San Jose Ballet on Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful performance and we all loved it! But Lillie was entranced. She had never been to anything like that and I was a little nervous if she would stay interested. I had nothing to fear. She was rapt with attention from the start. She comented constantly about what was happening and she hummed to all the music. Unfortunately it was the only day I didn't bring my camera! She here she is with the giant Nutcracker statue so we can all remember the day. She was really excited when she saw this and waiting all day to get a picture.

Christmas in Cali

This year our family traveled to California for a much anticipated vacation with the Doolittle side of the family. We'd been planning it since July and L and S asked about it every....single.....day. Multiple times. So, we were very glad on many levels when the time actually came! The traveling part went pretty well. There was one hiccup at the airport on the way out where the plane was delayed and we spent 4 hours in the the airport. However, everyone did great. The airport was dead and our gate was directly across from a store so L and S wandered between there, the bathroom, and our seats with no complaining. And poor G was so tired but Dad walked him up and down the terminal for about three hours and that kept him calm. Luckily it was a straight, non-full flight. So L and S watched movies with me and Tim got G to sleep. (Huge miracle!) But we made it. Then we had to encounter the 2 hour time difference, which we anticipated, however, it still majorly sucked. The kids were up at 4:30 every morning for the first week so we were pretty pooped. But they worked the kinks out eventually. We had such a great time with Grandma and Grandpa. And Uncle Brian, Uncle Jason, and Aunt Becca were all able to come too so we had such a great time. (We missed you Barnes Family!) I'm breaking this in to multiple posts b/c there are too many pictures and I don't do smilebox or anything b/c I like to turn these in to blog books. Any way, here goes.....



Here's Lillie spreading the reindeer mix to lure them to our home and keep them occupied whilst Santa delivers the goods....

Lillie again, modeling her new Hello Kitty Christmas Eve pj's....

Good morning and Merry Christmas! It's about 6:45 here. I had been trying to hold them off in their bedrooms with snacks to let everyone sleep until a somewhat decent hour, but apparently I woke Harry when I was getting go-gurts from the kitchen and he barreled through the house and roused everyone out of bed! I thought it was funny, but I was also super glad that he was as excited as I was!

To Samuel: From: Santa - One "Spinning Thomas" This kid was stoked!

To: Lillie From: Santa - Girly Digital Camera - She's really good at taking pictures too!

To:Grant From: Santa - Rolling Animal Train. There are more animals that attach to the back and when you push the parrot it rolls on it's own. Grant loves it!

Uncle Brian gave the kiddos the attachable animals and I just thought this was so funny! He never noticed nor cared that this was attached to him!

Yeah! Treats for the kids! Merry Christmas Becca and Jason!

Thank you for the pj's G-ma and G-pa.... and wake up Uncle Brian, you're missing all the fun!

Light up Little Einstien toy from mom and dad. I love how his attention is so rapt.

Lillie also got makeup and a makeup case from mom and dad. Despite the fact that every present she got she actually asked for and wanted, this was the only thing that she really smiled and was excited about when she opened.
Merry Christmas Grandma and Grandpa! We hope you like the calendar!

Chillin' with Uncle Jason on my first Christmas morning.

I love you Grandpa

This has provided hours of play for Samuel already. It makes a lot of noise and unfortunately it served as a wake up alarm for the back part of the house unbeknownst to Samuel and us.... Sorry guys!

The boys, checking out their Christmas toys.

Grandma and Grandpa put a t.v. in Lillie and Samuel's room which they of course thought was great! Here they are watching either Hero of the Rails, or Barbie and the Christmas Carol.

The whole family enjoying Uncle Jason's new panini maker. Dang! Those were a couple of weeks of great sandwiches!
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that your day was beautiful. We are so blessed to be surrounded by so much love during this wonderful time of year. We were especially grateful to be able to celebrate with Grant this year, it being his 1st Christmas. We are so blessed to have him in our family! I am so grateful for the season each year were it is a little bit easier to feel the Spirit of Christ and meditate on our feelings for the marvelous gift from our Heavenly Father of the Savior of the World.

Family Christmas Fun

Here is one of my all time favorite things to see:

These are Samuel's sweet little hands helping me bake in the kitchen. I can never bake alone and I don't mind. Samuel is always there to help me and he's good at it! I just love to see his little hands press down the pie crust.

Of course one of our family's main Christmas traditions is to pay a visit to Santa Claus. And let me tell you, we met the real deal this year. St. Nick's eyes even twinkled! I was pleased because for the first year in TX Doolittle history, none of our kiddos were afraid to sit in Santa's lap! Wooooo Hooooo! Props to Grant who was so tired for being a trooper and letting mom get a pic of you with the Big Guy. We headed down to Bass Pro Shops again this year for free pictures! with our good friends the Zufelts. All the kids always have a ton of fun together. Here is all of them waiting in my car while Ashley ran in to Sam's Club. (Sometimes I feel like a crazy lady walking in to the store with all these kids and only Ashley and myself to man them) We did get a nice compliment though from an elderly couple as we rode up and down....and up and down....and up and down in the elevator. Something to the effect of bravery, and adventure on our part. Ain't that the truth! It was a fun afternoon and I'm glad our family has such great friends!

Lillie had her first ballet recital 2 days before we left for CA. I'm really glad that she didn't miss it. She was excited to have her hair done and be able to wear so much make-up. And I was surprised by how nostalgic it made me.... since performing was such a large part of my life growing up. It was really neat to be able to get her all thickly make-up'd and gorgeous to be able to go on stage... cool to share the same thing with her like that. No pics of the dance b/c we weren't allowed flash photography but here are some before and afters:

Lillie and her teacher Ms. Cindy.

And here she is holding a Twix. I think by the time it was all over the candy was her favorite part of the whole thing! And I don't have any pics of the complete outfit. The skirt was a rental and they had the girls give them back before we came on stage to pick them up.

And of course the kiddos on the Sunday before Christmas dressed in their Holiday ware. I had to take about 75 pics I think to get this one. Fun times.
Somewhere we have a picture of Samuel putting the star in the tree. It was his first year doing it and he had a lot of fun. This was a great first Christmas season for Grant. He slept through a lot but that's pretty typical!

School Christmas Celebrations

So, December holds a lot of fun things to do, but some of the most exciting for Lillie and Samuel are at school. On the last day of pre-school Samuel's school performed their anual Christmas program where the oldest children re-enact the nativity scene. Samuel performed as a Star with the other 3 -yr-old classes singing the song "Behold That Star". When I talked to him about it he didn't seem to know what I was talking about but on the day that he perfomes he was shyly excited about it. And they had obviously practiced because he did know the song (which I had never heard before so I wasn't able to help him practice). Here he is performing. Mommy, Daddy, and Grant were so proud!


Samuel and his teacher Ms. Michelle

Samuel and his fans!

On the same day Lillie had p.j. day at school which she thought was AwEsOMe!!!! She got to wear her p.j.'s all day and change in to her slippers once she got to school. Then they got to watch the Polar Express. She's leaving for school here, and weirdly she did not want me to take a picture...this is the best one that I got!

After she came home she told Samuel all about it and under Lillie's direction they strategically re-enacted her day at school...p.j,'s, Polar Express, and chairs just like they were sitting in her classroom... I love it when they do cute stuff like this!

So the next day was Lillie's last day of school and the kids and I came early to help at her Christmas (winter) Party. Lillie seemed to really enjoy showing Grant off and Samuel was ecstatic to be able to play with the big kid's toys and eat their food!
Lillie with her table mates. I'm pretty sure the girls L to R are Julissa, Megan, Jasmine, and Lillie. These are her best friends at school.

Mrs. Gonzales' Kindergarten Class

Lillie and Mrs. Gonzales