Holiday Traditions in the South Bay

 This past weekend we celebrated the Christmas season with good friends. We attended the 1st ANNUAL Christmas party at the Smarts on Saturday night (it's a tradition now, right?!) and got to see Santa drive down their street too. We had yummy goodies, played with the kids and enjoyed the 80 degree December weather.

The creative group shot. 

Dave and Levi sneaking snacks over the kitchen counter.

Moms & Babies
And yes, it's in height order, thanks for pointing that out Becky! Next time I'm wearing my heels!

The Lockridge family with Santa (Take 2)

We're still trying to get that group shot of the three kids...

Festive Levi with his hands in his mouth. (What's new?)

We also went down the Manhattan Beach pier to watch their annual Christmas fireworks show. For the first time in our 5 years of trekking through the madness down to the sand, the weather was actually pleasant and we didn't even need to bundle up. I LOVE December in the Southbay! We had lots of fun celebrating here with friends before we prepare to head up North for holidays with the families. Our first Christmas as a family of 3 is getting closer! Yay!

A Special Visitor

As we were giving Levi a bath last night we heard a major commotion outside. There were sirens and police lights and a person yelling through a police bullhorn. While we do live around a lot of people we're not used to those kinds of noises so I asked Dave to run downstairs and check it out. 

This is what he saw. Police cars, Fire trucks, lights and people galore.

Then he figured out what was really going on. It wasn't our crazy neighbors across the street again, it was SANTA CLAUS!

So Dave ran back upstairs and told us to hurry. We grabbed our naked boy from his tub, threw on his cutest Christmas pajamas (thanks again Rhonda & Rene!) and ran outside so we wouldn't miss seeing Santa drive by. But then the coolest thing happened... Santa stopped right in the middle of the street and waited to take pictures with all the boys and girls in the neighborhood!  Apparently this is something that the city of Redondo Beach does every year through every neighborhood as a fundraiser for the RB police and fire departments. So they had a professional photographer taking pictures and gave us a card that we could go online and purchase the photos, all for a great cause. So here is Levi's first visit with Santa Claus and we didn't even have to go to the mall!

Happy 1st Christmas Levi!!

 

Thanks Redondo Beach Police & Fire departments for giving us a fun surprise for our Saturday night!

4 Months

We had our check up and two more shots on Tuesday of this week and he's doing great. He weighs 16 lbs. 10 oz. and is wearing mostly 9 months clothes. He's about ready to grow out of his infant car seat so it looks like he's getting a big boy car seat for Christmas! He seems like such a big boy that sometimes I feel like he should be up and walking already and we have to remind ourselves that he's still little. Recently he's really enjoyed using the exersaucer and fell in LOVE with his bear (thanks Rhonda & Rene!). He's getting pretty good at sitting with our assistance and can even go a few seconds on his own before he topples over. He loves to stand and if we're holding him he wants to be facing out because he wants to see the action. He's super social and has a smile for anyone who gives him some attention. We're so in love with this little guy and he brings so much joy into our home. Can't believe he's been here for 4 months already! 

Usually he's a pretty happy guy but we've had a couple of rough weeks. He hasn't been eating as well, which means he's eating more often, which means he's not sleeping very well, which means that his mommy is TIRED! :) The doctor seems to think that he might be dealing with some reflux issues and put him on a prescription. It's been a few days now and I haven't really noticed an improvement so we might have to go back in and see if there's something else going on. He's just not acting like himself which leads me to believe that he's not feeling great. We'll figure it out but we're still new at this whole parent thing so it might take us a few tries. 

He constantly has those two fingers in his mouth right now so his new nickname is Levi Two-Fingers. :)

Other than that life is good and we're loving being parents. We had a great week at home getting to spend time with family and letting them love on Levi too and we can't wait for all the fun and firsts this next month as we get to spend Christmas as a family of 3!

Levi's 1st Thanksgiving

It's so nice that both of our families live close together so we don't have to split up our holidays. Instead we're able to spend time with both sides every holiday and we get to have the best of both worlds! We started our Thanksgiving celebrations in Atwater with Dave's family on Wednesday night. We had the usual big turkey dinner and enjoyed warming up by the cozy fire. It was also fun to be there for Charlie & Christina's first Thanksgiving as a married couple. I've said it before but we're so glad that Charlie picked her and we're so glad that they're back in California! 

Trying to get more laughs with Uncle Charlie.

Staring at beautiful Auntie Christina.

Captivated by the fire place with Daddy.

Then we drove up to Modesto early Thursday morning to run (ok, walk) in the annual Modesto Turkey Trot. It's officially a new Harden Family Tradition! :)

Getting ready for the race!
Alison, Bryan, Sarah, Brad, Lindsey, Megan & Dad

Sibling Love

Grandpa taking baby duty. (Levi almost slept through his 1st 5K!)

And a follow up breakfast to celebrate our run. (Do I sense another tradition??)

Thanksgiving was a blast and Levi did great through two major dinners and lots of people all around. He's so social that he really enjoys all the attention and cuddles and it's so fun to get to take him home and share him with all of our favorites. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for!

Levi Laughing

We had a few laughs before this but weren't able to capture any on camera. Uncle Charlie wins as the one to elicit the first laughs while trying to be funny. Way to go Uncle Charlie! :)

Playing Catch Up

We went home for 10 days to see everyone for Thanksgiving and had so much fun! It used to be that we could pack our stuff, load the car and make the drive pretty quickly but now everything seems to take longer. (And gives me a greater respect for my own parents with 3 kids to get places!) But we made it and saw lots of people and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Now we're back home with lots of dirty laundry, a fussy baby and a doctors appointment, a sleep schedule to get back on track, Christmas decorations and shopping that need to get done and I'm playing catch up... I have a ton of great pictures from the week and a video that I'm so excited to share but it might take a couple of posts which just might take a couple of days... :)

Right before we left Dave gave Levi his first little hair cut! He had a little bit of a monk hair-do going on with this dark baby hair fuzz so Dave trimmed that up with his brand new hair cutters. Levi did great in his Bumbo seat and now he's looking good! 

Grandpa strapped him in the front seat after church in Modesto while Dave was buckling in the car seat. He looked so big and ready to go with his regular seat belt on! (I promise we didn't drive any where like this, it was just a joke!)

A big THANK YOU to cousin ("Auntie") Julie for letting us borrow some great baby gear when we go to Modesto. It is so helpful to have the swing and a bumbo and lots of other goodies that we don't have to bring with us. This time Levi was able to use her exersaucer for the first time and LOVED it! 

When Mom and Aunties and Grandma are away this is what the boys do.
Uncle Bryan's quote was "Apparently riding the dog like a horse is frowned upon in this establishment!" just like the eTrade commercial with the talking baby. And no, Levi doesn't have any stock tips for you. 

We also went to Fresno to hang out with Uncle Charlie and Auntie Christina. Uncle Charlie introduced Levi to his enormous fish tank and kept him entertained for the entire time we were at their house. He also did something else that was mighty funny that you'll have to wait to see the video of later...

This was just some of the excitement leading up to our awesome Thanksgiving. More on that later!