December Fun

As usual, December was a very busy time of year, filled with holiday related activities at school, preschool, and on weekends. 

Daddy's Birthday:

We kicked off the month with Daddy's birthday! We went to Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay where I rediscovered clam chowder and steamed mussels. I liked it so much that I said I want to spend every birthday celebration here from now on.

The Nutcracker:

I went to watch my friend Shaifali perform in her dance school's presentation of The Nutcracker. It was a full-length version and she was only in two numbers, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Coincidentally, it was in the same theater where we saw the Kidz Bop concert and we happened to have the exact same assigned seats!

School Celebrations:

On the last day of school before winter break, our class took a field trip to a senior housing facility where we sang for the residents. We performed four songs. It probably took us longer to walk to the residence than our actual performance, but it was a fun experience. At the end of the day we had a class party. 

Colin had a little party at preschool too, where they drank hot chocolate and decorated cookies (which eventually just meant him shoving M&M's into his mouth).

Visits with Santa:

We went to a holiday party hosted by BMC and they were smart enough to put a sleigh next to Santa for those kids afraid to sit on his lap. It worked out really well for Colin!

Colin also had a Christmas party at day care. This time Mommy prepped him beforehand and told him that Santa gives gifts, and if he wanted one he had to sit on Santa's lap and give a nice smile. It worked! In fact, Mommy was told that he was the only one out of all the kids that didn't cry! Funny story: when Santa asked Colin what he wanted for Christmas, he randomly answered "Batman." Coincidentally, he unwrapped his gift and there was a Batman toy!

Zoo Lights:

We took advantage of our membership and headed to the SF Zoo after hours. They had this special event where various parts of the zoo were decorated with Christmas lights and figures. There was also real live reindeer, fake snow, and holiday train ride. It was cold! Colin and I had fun, but Mommy's not sure it would be worth going to again, especially since most of the animals were sleeping. 

Gingerbread House:

This year's theme: Trolls!

San Jose Children's Discovery Museum:
A fun place to visit when it's too cold outside.

Colin explores food coloring and a block of ice.

They made this entire play structure out of packing tape!

Children's Creativity Museum:
After Christmas we had two weeks of winter break. Colin still had a bunch of unused days for backup daycare (a great benefit at Daddy's work) so we took advantage of that. Not that we didn't want to spend quality time with him, but there were some outings that were much easier to go without him (sorry Colin!). So while he was at "special" daycare in the city, Mommy took me to the Children's Creativity Museum. I had been wanting to come back here to create another stop animation movie, and it's the first thing I did when we got there. We spent over an hour creating clay figures and filming our movie. I was very pleased with the result!

We also made a shorter film using paper cutouts.

And I made another music video. This time I chose Cheap Thrills by Shakira. For some reason they never sent us the video though. 

Ice Skating in Union Square:

Colin spent one more day at backup daycare and we went into the city for some holiday festivities. We went ice skating in Union Square, saw the puppies and kittens in the Macy's store window, and met up with Daddy for lunch.

It was a nice way to end the year and that was just the beginning of winter break! We had a whole other week of fun ahead of us.