Christmas Time in America! California - Part 2

Christmas morning at my parents house was pretty much focused on Piper since we all did our gift exchanges while celebrating with my brother and Rachael in Phoenix the week before. As usual, she loved to open the gifts, and help others with theirs! She is such a helpful little girl :)

We tried to take a Xmas morning family picture...this is what we got! Piper was not interested in "another picture mama?!!!"

The weather in Santa Cruz was pretty awesome while we were there (I think it was warmer on this trip home, in December, than it was when I was home in JULY). We decided to take a Christmas afternoon trip to the beach. Turns out a lot of Santa Cruz had that same idea! It was fun to see lots of the campers decorated for christmas and lots of people out and about in santa hats (although, bad photographer, I have no photographic evidence of any of that!).

This was Piper's first real visit to the beach. She wasn't too sure how to walk in the sand, but she sure had fun playing with it!

And last picture of our time in California over the holidays...The picture on the left is of me, in 1976, at 14 months old in a christmas outfit my mom made me. Turns out she kept it (for 37 years!) just so I could put Piper in it when she was 14 months old. How she knew I'd have a little girl with a birthday 7 days after mine is beyond me. So in the pictures below, Piper and I are pretty much the exact same age. We didn't have the white ruffle shirt or the awesome brown boots, but I still think Piper looks pretty darn cute in her mama's outfit, don't you?!