Early Christmas in Visalia

Olivia, Icky and I spent some time in Visalia a few days before Christmas.

Olivia was so excited that there were more people for her to show off for...

...and she made sure she spent her time wisely!

Icky was just happy to have other dogs to play with. It has been pretty wet at our house, so he was tired of being stuck in the house all day.

Aunt Jessica and her new puppy, Hopkins, came up from LA to visit (don't worry there are pictures of Hopkins further down!). Kerry brought Baby Elle over to visit and we all took turns holding her!

Even Olivia got to hold "Baby." She wasn't very good at it, so mommy helped.

She was so proud of herself!


Since Amanda and Jessica wouldn't be with us on Christmas Day, we opened presents early. Amanda made Olivia this wonderful box of dress up clothes!

To clarify, she made the box, not the clothes.

Inside, there are scarves...

...Hats...

...and even some fancy gold shoes.

Just in case you are worried that I dressed Olivia in this red dress and owl pajama pants, I want to tell you that I did not. She found the pants in the suitcase and insisted that we put them on her and she didn't take them off for the rest of the day.

Olivia helped everyone open their stockings.

Grandma got a yoga outfit from Jessica.

Aunt Amanda got a sweater from her Aunt Janis, an a necklace and an aebleskiver pan from her mom.

I had Chris's name in the gift exchange. This is a computer sleeve that he had been wanting!

Aunt Jessica got slippers!

Grandpa got a book about Led Zeppelin.

As promised, Here is Hopkins. He's about 4 months old...

...and very cute!

Icky was so happy to meet his cousin!

They wasted no time before they started wrestling.

Having 5 dogs at that house (Icky and Hopkins, plus Molly, Little Ann and Amanda' training dog Naoka) was an adventure. We had to rotate who got to come in the house and who had to go outside to rest.

Even though we would have liked to be with our whole family on Christmas, we were happy to be able to be with everyone a few days early. Olivia, Icky and I came home on the 23rd, just in time to get everything for Grandma and Grandpa to come to our house on Christmas Eve!