My First Christmas!

The fastest follow up post in GrowingUpCadel history!

Last Friday Cadel celebrated his first Christmas. It was a complete afair with a large full tree nicely decorated with ornaments and lights as well as four stockings hung over the fireplace. One stocking for each of us (dog included).

Cadel loved the tree. Mostly for the lights but he was all about playing with the ornaments. If you left him on the floor he would crawl right over to the tree and stare at it. It was also a great way to get him to quite down a little. If he was a little fusy just take him over to the Christmas tree with the lights on and presto! Quite baby.

Christmas actually started on Wednesday night for Cadel when Grandpa was nice enough to drive up to our house from La Honda. We had a very nice visit and dinner together. Cadel received a great present he was allowed to open that night since Grandpa came all that way to see him. Cadel loves the gift and has played with it everday since then.
Everyone opened their presents on Christmas morning. Cadel received a lot of presents. A few too many in my opinion but it was his first Christmas so whatever. Cadel got two nice presents from Uncle Nate and Sunny, a present from Uncle Greg and Lisset and several from Mom and Dad. His favorite present....playing with all the paper and boxes. Of course. What could be better. We played the rest of the day before heading over to uncle Mike and Melissa's house in Oakland for a Christmas night dinner complete with gift exchange. Cadel held up well for a while but then was lights out. Mom was nice enough (and patient enough) to put him to sleep while everyone else ate and drank in the livingroom.

Once the gift exchange started the claws came out. Grandmonthers and Great Grandmothers were having their gifts stole, alliances were forming, scheming was taking place. It was like an episode of Surivor. So I'm exagerating slightly. Erin and I end up with a Tea gift set and a cheese cake made at home by a trained pastry chef who was at the gift exchange. Delicious! Luckly our neighbors were nice enough to take some of the cake off of our hands (and waists). Next year we'll be back with a vengence at the gift exchange. More strategy is necessary for sure.

Thanks to Grandpa Ken, Mike, Melissa, Shauna, Zach, GG (great grandma Dorothy), Nate, Sunny, Greg, Lisset and everyone else who helped Cadel celebrate his first Christmas.

This is most likely the last post of 2009. See you in the new year. Here comes Cadel 2010. I hope you are ready.

My First Hannukah (and trip to Redding)

And..... we are finally back to updating the blog. Again Dad is falling off the pace here. The holidays are busy. Give me a break in the holiday spirit :).

As many of you know Cadel is a lucky little one as he gets to celebrate Hannukah and Christmas. We'll go over Hannukah first then Christmas.

For Cadel's first Hannukah he and Dad drove up to Redding with Scarlett (the dog). Both Cadel and Scarlett were very good on the long rainy drive. We stopped once for each which was just fine. When he wasn't sleeping Cadel was happy to watch the countryside roll on by. Such a good kid.
Mom was not with us because a couple days before hand she left for Bend Oregon and Cyclocross Nationals. She joined us in Redding after racing on Friday December 12th in the Masters 30-35 catagory. Impressive enough that she was racing six months after having a child. But if you add that the race course was covered in snow and it was about 12 degrees outside at race time you realize what a tough cookie Cadel has for a Mommy.

Back to Redding. We arrived at Savta and Dave's house in the late afternoon just before the cold and dark started to settle in. It was nice to get inside the warm house at that piont. Sun down the day we arrived was the first night of Hannukah (the picture above). Savta, Cadel and I lit candels in the same menorah Savta and I used to lite candels in when I was a little boy. Very cool I think.
The next day Savta wanted to drive around and show off her grandson. Who wouldn't? We made three stops and Cadel was great the whole time. Soon after we got home we left again to pick up Mom. She headed back from National a day early to spend more time with the family. That night another family joined us for Hannukah dinner complete with latkes and kugel. Very tasty.

A very nice visit to Redding. Even Scarlett had a great time as she played endlessly with Bubba (their dog) in the front yard all weekend.

Next is the Christmas post!

My First Thanksgiving

I know I'm very late with this post but better late than never.

Mom, Dad and Cadel were lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving in Healdsburg this year at the home of Stephen and Zoe Schwartz. A big thank you to Steve and Zoe for their hospitality again this year. There were about 15 people present at dinner this year including Cadel's cousins Zach and Shauna.
The Schwartz were even nice enough to let us bring along the dog. Scarlett was very happy to not be stuck at home this year.
Dinner was very nice and Cadel was great. He even had some butter nut squash with Dad at the table. He is turning into a great little eater. We still can't figure out how he doesn't put on more weight. He now eats 'real food' twice a day and has milk for the rest of his meals. Butter nut squash is quickly gaining on apple sauce as Cadel's favorite food.

Aside from Thanksgiving the other big news is that Cadel is on the move. There is no more just letting him roll around on floor. He can now army crawl from one side of the den to the other in no time. The baby proofing of the house has now began and Mom and Dad really really have to keep an eye on him. The dog is even keeping an eye on him too. She is more concerned about Cadel getting a handful of fur than where he is going. In fact she would rather him find other items in the house more interesting than her but I don't think that is going to happen. Scarlett definitely is better than any toy Cadel has.

We are currently in Redding visiting Savta and Dave. We'll have another post soon. I'm serious this time. No more than a week from now.