Christmas 2008

Sydney's first Christmas was full of fun and happy memories. We went to Sacramento to visit my family. We stayed with my mom, and my dad and Tish stayed with Dianne and her family. One of Garret's favorite places to visit is San Francisco, so that was a must-see on our vacation. We also decided to visit Muir Woods, which is a National Forest maybe 45 minutes away from San Francisco. Dianne and her family, dad & Tish, and Garret, Syd, & I ended up going. The Northern Pacific Redwoods are one of the most beautiful places on earth, in my opinion.

Since Dianne's daughter Alivia, and Sydney are 6 weeks apart (Alivia- Nov. 07, and Sydney- Jan 08), we decided to have a first birthday party together for them while we were visiting. Dianne came up with the theme of "woodland fairies" for the girls (maybe the idea came from our Muir woods visit!). Dianne is an amazing baker. She made a "Bouche De Noel" birthday cake for them. It was a chocolate cake that looked like a wood log, with sugary-merengue mushrooms sprinkled with cocoa on top. it was almost too pretty to eat- really. We got matching pink dresses for them. Then, Tish, Dianne, and I made them tutus and flowered wreaths for their "fairy" outfits. It turned out so cute and we all had a lot of fun!

We were also able to visit my Grandma, affectionately called "Grr" by us grandkids. We had pizza and got to catch up a bit. It was Sydney's first visit to Grr's. It's good to know Grr is still as spunky as ever!