El Paso Christmas

 Warning:  This post contains lots of pictures.

Put in especially for Matt.

Christmas Eve activities

gingerbread house

hot chocolate

program at Mamaquel's and Grandpa Whetten's

Uncle Carlos read Luke 2

the grandkids sang songs

Christmas Eve pajamas

they were especially excited about the underwear

Favorites for the kids were:

creating with her bendaroos

building legos he got 5 different sets

playing with her princess figurines while wearing dress up and a princess towel

riding her princess scooter

                           

riding around Gramindy's kitchen in his new car

with my brother Carlos and  my parents

sister Cynthia and her family with our parents

with GraMindy at church

The kids enjoyed having Uncle Ryan come and visit.

They were all craving attention from him.  I think he reminded them of their Dad.

They had fun playing solitaire, watching Star Wars, and wrestling.

A few days after Christmas, while staying with Grandma Mindy in El Paso, we were reorganizing the sleeping arrangements to help our sleep challenged Blake sleep through the night.  That meant putting him in his own room and kicking the other 3 children out to the living room.  We were discussing who was going to sleep on the couch and the floor, and scooted Julia's mattress close to the fireplace to make room for Brayden.  This upset Julia and she said, "I don't want Santa to come down the chimney and say (now in a gruff Santa voice), 'Hey that looks like a good place to sit.'"  She was worried that Santa would come and sit on her if she slept close to the chimney.  We had to break the news that Santa was not going to visit again this season.

Other Christmas quotes for Julia this year are "A leaf Navidad" (Feliz Navidad) and "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Ear"

work in the war

The night we got to El Paso Brayden was checking out Gramindy's house and saw a picture of Matt on the wall with 2 of his brothers.  He was telling Gramindy about his Dad (her son) and letting her know what he does, "My Dad works at the war and he works on eyes.  Do they (pointing to Matt's brothers) work at the war?"

Matt sent these shirts to the boys for Christmas.  It says "My Dad is over there" with a picture of Afghanistan.

Sea World Christmas

I was lucky to have my mother-in-law fly to San Antonio to help me drive to El Paso.  (I am a wimp about traveling by myself).  We spent a few days in San Antonio before we headed out.  With perfect weaather we decided to enjoy the Christmas shows at Sea World.

Waiting for the Sesame Street show

Getting ready for the 4-D Polar Express movie

Gramindy was convinced by the kids to go on the Texas Splashdown twice

Sea World was a fun way to start the Christmas vacation.

creative toys

Blake enjoying some non traditional toys.  He found a new way to play with the salad bowl.  He sat on it and scooted around the kitchen.

He also enjoyed this box we picked up for a package to Matt.  It has provided many hours of entertainment.

There was a cute video of Blake scooting around on the salad bowl, but I couldn't get it to load and my computer guy is currently out of the country.

Julia's bday

Julia's 4th birthday landed on a Saturday.  With Matt gone we had a low key birthday.  She started her celebration the day before by taking cupcakes to her dance class to share with her friends.  On Saturday morning we had our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast.  Julia decided to go to Chick-fil-a for dinner.  Then we came home to have a tasty store bought cake with some of her princess's on top for decoration (our cake decorator was in Afghanistan).

Julia is dressed up in her new dance outfit from Mamaquel.

Julia lives in a magical musical world of princesses, mermaids, and fairies.  She loves to dress up, which she does every day, usually multiple outfits a day.  She loves to sing and makes up the words as she goes.  Julia enjoys going to preschool and her dance class.  She happily helps around the house.
In stark contrast to the other kids, Julia enjoys to go shopping and try on clothes. She is actually upset if she doesn't have anything to try on and the others do.

Little Helper

Blake has been a pretty good helper around the house lately.  When he sees his siblings doing chores he likes to join in.  Some of the things he likes to do are:  unloading the dishwasher and putting dishes all over the counter tops in random places, creative table setting, unloading the clothes dryer, dusting, sweeping, vacuuming with the play vacuum, throwing away his diapers,  and helps to put clothes away in random drawers.  I better take advantage and start him on the chore chart early so I can get some years out of him before he gets Braydenitis and is incapable of moving when asked to do something.

She is Rapunzel no more

It was a pretty mellow Saturday, with Blake taking a nap Kylee and I were organizing her room and Brayden and Julia were playing quietly.

I went to throw something away in the kitchen trash and I saw this and there was a lot of it.

My heart dropped and I immediately thought Julia.  I called her down to see what the damage was.    Before she got there Brayden came and told me of an encounter he had with Julia an hour earlier.  He said he went downstairs to turn off the TV.  He then went into the kitchen and saw Julia looking at scissors.  Brayden asked her, "what are you doing?"  She responded, "NOT CUTTING MY HAIR."  Hmmm I wonder what she was doing.

Julia  had been talking to me a few days earlier that she wanted her hair to look like Rapunzel.  She was so sad when she found out that we were going to have to cut her hair to fix it.  Julia has soft and silky hair.  The hair stylist said "oh she has pretty hair" and she felt so bad that we had to cut it off.  She emphasized several times that she would need to cut all the way up to her shoulders (6 inches).

Julia added another activity to our to do list for that Saturday afternoon.  I was OK with spending a little extra money to have the other children entertained with video games, trains, legos, and a movie while we cut her hair.

She looks more like Kylee with the length and color.

My lesson learned - leaving scissors accessible to a 3 year old is not a good idea.

Braydens bday

This year Brayden's birthday landed on Thanksgiving day.  It made for a celebration with lots of family in El Paso. We did our cinnamon roll breakfast with cousins.  

Brayden and his cousin Tatiana were born 13 days apart.  We had a party for both of them on Tuesday, November 24th at the park with plenty of space for the 26 grandchildren to run around.

Tatiana getting ready to start hitting the pinata.   Brayden waiting to go next.

The kids went in order from youngest to oldest after the birthday kids. 

All the kids anxiously awaited for the candy to fall out.

There were 26 of the 31 grandchildren there.

Here are some things that describe Brayden
-constantly reading
-Lego fanatic
-Star Wars guy
-likes to make characters with paper
-friend to everyone
-loves to spend his money
-teaser of his siblings
-can be super lazy or extremely helpful

Thanksgiving Week

 Hanging out in GraMindy's backyard - playing with tickle flowers, opening up pods and pulling out the seeds, and Blake picking the green tomatoes.  

Sunday dinner at Bert and Kara's 

The kids did a talent show.

Thanksgiving Table

Crafts to keep the kids entertained after Thanksgiving dinner

Setting up GraMindy's Christmas Tree

Coupon Update

Brayden continues to have an obsession with coupons.  When we went to go visit family for Thanksgiving Brayden shared his love for coupons with his cousins.  His cousin Dallin was converted and started talking to his Mom about coupons.  Brayden was pretty excited when he discovered that stores have flyers with coupons.  He started collecting them and organizing them into groups for each member of the family. Coupons are on his mind, and hidden in stacks around the house.

Brayden has had some pretty funny quotes about coupons
-We were returning a plate to a family that had given us cookies.  I couldn't return it empty so I put some chocolates on it and Brayden saw.  He said, "Mom I have a great idea.  Why don't we give them some coupons too."

-I went to the store to purchase items for an upcoming preschool activity.  When I picked up some Q-tips Brayden was disappointed.  He said, "Mom you should have told me you were getting those, there was a coupon for them at home."

Good Day, Bad Day

Brayden usually likes to rate his day after school.  He will tell me if it was a good day or bad day.  Today it  was a 2 bad and a 2 good day.  The 2 bad was not finding a pair of shoes to buy and not being able to buy a bakugon toy, the 2 good was getting a balloon and buddy bucks at a grocery store.  Earlier this week I picked him up at school and he told me that it was a good day but there was 1 bad.  He said that a girl at school cut his shirt.

Brayden's after school conversations are pretty funny.  I wish I could tape them.  He says a lot of random things so it is hard to remember it to write down.

Sleep Deprived 3 yr. old

Julia fell asleep right before I had to go pick the older 2 up from school.  I was able to carry her to the car where she continued her nap.  When we got home she wasn't quite done, but had slept enough that she didn't go back to sleep.  I laid her on the couch, but she was already awake. She ended up taking off her slippers, but wanted them off the couch.  Only one made it off the couch and she wanted me to take off the other one.  She wasn't asking she was demanding in a scream.  I told her that she could do it and continued with my laundry.  I went upstairs and she followed me upstairs yelling for me to take off her slipper.  I asked her if her arms worked?  I showed her that they do.  I used her arm to take the slipper off.  She continued to follow me crying saying that she wanted me to go put the slipper back on the couch and then take it off again.  Well that just makes perfect sense.

Neigh

I have mentioned plenty of times before that my children have stuffed animals that keep them company through the night and play with them during the day.  For Julia and Blake their stuffed animals that they snuggle with seem to be multiplying.  Blake has 3 and Julia has 6, at least they are small ones.

Earlier this week I noticed that I hadn't seen Blake's Neigh in a few days.  I couldn't trace back to the last time I had seen him.  I figured it was some time during the weekend.  I knew that Blake had taken him somewhere in the car and couldn't remember if we had brought him home.  I searched through the house for the blue horse and I could not find it.  A couple of nights ago I searched the internet for a replacement.  Luckily it is a recent purchase so it was on various web sites.  Today when I was emptying out the kids laundry basket I found it.  Blake was "helping" me sort the laundry and saw it.  He was  so excited to snuggle Neigh.

Julia has been sleeping with all 6 of the stuffed animals at night.  Julia is starting to remember her dreams and commented on having scary dreams.  The other night Julia prayed that her animals wouldn't make her bad dreams.  I guess that they did not listen.  During the night she cried in her sleep 3 separate times.

The other evening Julia got out of bed and told me that she was trying to sleep when Randy pulled her hair.  (Randy is her stuffed animal rat)

backyard

Matt always talks about how he loves hanging out in the backyard.  He usually goes out and spends time with the kids while I make dinner.  Lately with me on my own I have discovered the great backyard.  Even though it has more weeds than grass, the backyard has been great.  We have been enjoying the beautiful evening weather.  My sanity has been to have the kids go outside and play when I am making dinner.  I have seen some glimpses of a perfect family with my kids playing nicely.  They are pushing each other on the swings and jumping on the trampoline laughing together.   Then there are times when there is screaming, yelling, hitting, fighting, and crying.  Those are the times when I am brought back to reality.

double birthday

The day before Matt left for Afghanistan we had an early birthday celebration for Brayden and Julia.  We played and ate pizza at Chucke Cheese and then came home to have the cakes that Matt made.  Brayden had been requesting a storm trooper cake and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it.  

Brayden is pretty intense with his Chucke Cheese games.  He stationed himself at the Whack a Mole and pounded away, until he discovered that there were other games that handed out more tickets with less effort.  

This is our family picture the day that Matt left.  

Braydenitis

Julia has been getting Brayden's disease. When asked to do certain chores her leg is broken or she just can't walk. She will throw herself on the floor and be incapable of moving. She does not go to the extent of dragging herself, but all the other symptons are there. Did she learn it from Brayden or does it come with the age?

Some on the list of ailments when she can't do anything... my leg hurts, I am sick, my arm hurts, my leg is broken, I am gonna throw up, I can only crawl like Blake

Does anyone have a cure?  I want my sweet little helpful girl back.

Coupon Mania

The day before Halloween Kylee was stuffing a garbage bag full of newspapers making a ghost. Brayden discovered that Kylee was also using the coupons to stuff. Brayden was so excited when he discovered the coupons and all the things that could be bought with them. He was making great plans for these coupons and thought it would be great to share them with the poor. He wants to get the newspaper every week so that he can collect his coupons. He was freaking out when he saw that Kylee was continuing to put them in the bag. He took matters into his own hands and hid them, which I found later on in the week stashed under Blake's crib.

Lazy Halloween

This year we were a little lazy in the costume department and we actually bought all our kids costumes. With Matt getting ready for deployment I thought that I shouldn't force him to stay up Halloween Eve spraying gold paint on a sleeper, stapling purple foam petals to a flower head piece, sewing spider arms to a shirt, gluing sponge spikes to a dragon, cutting out bone shapes for a skeleton, dyeing green peter pan tights, or piecing together R2D2 parts.

We trick or treated our neighborhood streets with Cleopatra, Boba Fet, Minnie Mouse, and the cutest little candy obsessed monkey. This Halloween season we learned a few things. Blake may be our craziest candy freak yet. He was given a lollipop at our ward trunk or treat and it was all down hill from there. He can't hold on to enough lollipops in his tiny little hands. He freaks out every time he sees candy. We had the other children eat their candy in secret. We also learned that Brayden comes in a close second with candy fever. He was picking up any dropped candy off the sidewalks and streets. Our homemade costumes will be back next year. We already have some picked out.

A few of our other Halloween festivities were carving pumpkins and making a Haunted Halloween Candy House. If some of the pictures look foggy its because they are. Matt went all out this year and got a fog machine and green light for the front porch. Testing it out the morning of Halloween in our house left things foggy for pictures.

Robots

Brayden got in the car from picking him up at school and he said, "I wish I had a robot to help me eat." Then, he showed me his hands with band aids. He has been enjoying the monkey bars at school and beat up hands were the result.

For Brayden everything seems to always go back to robots... he is constantly collecting parts to build his robot. He has dreams of a robot to fulfill his every command.

Guinness Book of World Records

I taught Kylee some basic origami and she has gotten pretty good at making cranes. We have found cranes of all sizes all over the house. Recently at school she made a very tiny one, and for the last few days she has been asking me how to get ahold of the World Record people so she can get her name in the book. Finally this evening we logged on to the Guinness Book of World Records Site and created an account for Kylee, only to learn that tiny origami doesn't meet the criteria for records they track. Kylee was crestfallen, but we are still super impressed.