Christmas Eve & Christmas Day in LA

Since we were checking out of the Hotel in Coronado, we headed up to LA where Sean & Rachel's new house. Before we left Coronado, we managed to get a picture with Santa and JD was so excited to see him. We kept getting him excited to see Santa and we practiced what he was going to ask Santa for Christmas. When he got up there, Santa asked JD what he wanted for Christmas, and he said "Cars," just like we had rehearsed. The picture with Santa turned out so cute and we were very happy with the picture.

 It was a good thing we took the picture with Santa before we left because it was a long drive up to LA and the perfect time for JD to take a nap. We learned early on in the trip if you wake JD up from his nap, he is very cranky, and I don't know that we would've gotten the same cute picture with Santa if we disturbed the peace.

We made it to Sean and Rachel's home and the chaos began of Christmas began. Christmas Eve dinner was delicious, and the kids got to eat their dinner in the living room and watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." They were all so well behaved. Afterwards the kids got to open a present before bed time, which were their Christmas pj's from Grammy, and then read the Polar Express. They also got to have hot chocolate, which JD refused to drink for some reason (and he's a huge fan of Chocolate milk). The kids ran around and played all night until it was time for us to leave for the Hotel and go to bed.

Christmas morning we "hurried" out of our hotel rooms and went back to Sean and Rachel's to open gifts from Santa, and the rest of the stash under the Christmas tree. The first thing the kids did was dump out the gifts in their stockings. JD was happy with what he had in his stocking that he didn't really care about opening any of the other presents. It took a little while to convince him to open up some other presents. After a couple of presents he got more and more excited to open presents that he'd come over and help me open mine. There were times when he'd stop and admire his new toy for a while and wanted to open the new toy more than he wanted to open another present. His big gift that we got him was a LeapPad, since he loves playing on our phones and iPads. So far he is loving it, and has been pretty helpful in car rides and trips to stores.

After opening the presents, we had breakfast burritos that were also very delicious, and gorilla bread that was amazing! We left at noon since it was around JD's nap time and we wanted to get home early, especially since Justin hadn't been home yet. We loved our Christmas trip this year, and I was especially grateful that the baby didn't come anytime during the trip.