Christmas

Ryan invited the whole family to spend Christmas at his house on the mountain.  At first the thought of a two day 22 hour drive was a little daunting, and flying with four kids, winter clothes, and Christmas presents was even less appealing.  But after thinking it over we were very excited to see everyone and spend a Christmas with some real snow.

We drove to El Paso with Grandma Mindy on the Monday after the weekend of Brayden's baptism.  We spent the rest of the day in El Paso doing a little last minute Christmas shopping.  Knowing the second leg of the trip would be about 14 hours with a winter storm forecast, and not wanting to arrive on iced Utah roads late at night, I went to sleep early in the evening so that we could start our drive at about three in the morning.  There was snow on the ground when we arrived the next afternoon, but the roads ended up being OK.

Ryan and Nathan were there when we arrived.  Ben had planned to be there, but work scheduling issues ended up keeping him flying with Southwest the whole time we were there.  The Morris's also didn't end up being able to make it down from Idaho, but it didn't put a damper on the vacation. There were several inches of wet snow on the ground and the kids spent a few hours working on snowmen, but were happy to come inside before long.  

Ryan's house was a great vacation spot.  I had wondered how exactly a family Christmas would work at an executive bachelor pad without a toy room, but it ended up being perfect.  Ryan's roommates were all gone for the holidays and we had the run of the house.  The house is huge and and we had the basement to ourselves.  In the basement, we took one large room, Grandma Mindy another (with Kylee and Brayden on the floor of the big walk-in-closet), Nathan lived in the third, and a fourth went unused.

Christmas Eve we continued our family tradition of opening pajamas and the kids made cookies for Santa.

Christmas Day

playing intense Kinect

dress up

lots of lego building

Christmas day we all drove up to Salt Lake for a soup dinner with Grandma Mindy's cousin Cathy where we got to catch up with David Waldrop and the Walkers among others.

Nathan's Birthday

We all had a good time exploring, especially after Ryan showed the kids some of the house secrets.

We flew remote controlled helicopters in the large open living room and the kids watched a big screen movie on the twenty foot high living room wall with the new sound system Ryan had just replaced.

We got to catch up with Grandpa Caldwell and Nana in Las Cruces on our way back to San Antonio. 

caraway visit

The Caraways came for a short day visit at the end of the Christmas vacation.  It is always fun to see them  and our 3 older kids match up pretty well in age. 

Family Fiesta at Fiesta Texas

We had a lot of family in town for Brayden's baptism, so afterwards, on Saturday, we celebrated at Fiesta Texas with family.  It was pretty chilly for San Antonio, but that didn't stop the fun.

The non-roller coaster riders entertained themselves by playing snake air guitar.

We enjoyed the Christmas lights.  

The cousin party continued before and after at our house.  

Brayden's Baptism

On December 18, 2010 Brayden Matthew Caldwell was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  With the day falling on the first weekend of the Christmas Holidays Brayden was able to have quite a few family members attend.  The Gaspar de Alba family drove from El Paso and the Kenitzer's came from Dallas.  The Whetten Grandparents and GraMindy were also there to support Brayden. 

The Sunday before Matt took Brayden to the chapel for his Bishop's interview he quizzed him along the way about baptism and confirmation and was happy to learn that he had been listening in FHE and his church classes and he understood the covenant he would be making.  

Brayden was happy to have so many family members attend and it helped him understand the importance of the day.  

Since we were the only baptism for our ward we were in charge of the program.  Brayden had Grandpa Whetten give a talk on Baptism and Grandma Mindy give a talk on the Holy Ghost.

left - Brayden with Mamaquel and Grandpa Whetten  

right - Brayden with Grandma Mindy 

A Leaf Navidad

Julia loves to dance.  Her dance teacher is Megan Barrick.  They had a Christmas performance on December 17, 2010 and danced to Feliz Navidad.  It was fun to watch her sing the song "a leaf navidad" as she practiced her dance at home.  

This is her class from L-R: Ryan, Hailey, Rebecca, Hannah, Autumn, Sheri, and Julia

Some of the girls waiting backstage before their performance.

Julia and her best friend Jenna.  She is in her pre-K class and Julia talks about her a lot.  Julia always wants to take her lunch to school so she can sit next Jenna at lunch.  

Christmas Pictures 2010

We convinced Carlos to be our photographer for our Christmas card family pictures.  Photos can be like pulling  teeth for our kids and apparently it is physically very painful for them to sit still and smile all at the same time.  Still, we managed to get a few good photos. 

Sea World Christmas

Living next to Sea World we have gotten several season passes in our 6 years of living in this house.  We can see the Sea World fireworks, go for a short 2 hour play time and come back home.  It has a pretty good water park that they have expanded to include new rides and a lazy river.  In the recent years they have added shows specific to the time of year or season it is.

The kids have been there plenty of times and the excitement has waned.  Recently we planned to go for an evening to do the Christmas holiday shows.  The oldest two kids complained enough about having to go that we decided to stay home.  Julia was sad about the cancellation so I decided to spend a few one-on-one evening hours at Sea World with her.

It was fun to go with her and she was so happy and pleasant about everything we did.  She loved it.    There was no complaining about "my feet hurt I can't walk", "we have to see that show again", or "I want to go home".  She had so much fun and I got to take some cute pictures of her.

Julia's highlight of the evening was meeting Santa.

The big 8

On November 26, 2010, the day after Thanksgiving, Brayden finally turned the big 8.   Just about since he could speak Brayden has talked about having a robot... to do chores, to do his homework, and I guess just to hang out with.   We decided a robot theme would be appropriate.

The process of the robot cake.

Since we already had a birthday party in October, we celebrated his birthday as a family by eating at the Rainforest Cafe on the River Walk.

Here are a few notes about Brayden

*He loves to play with Legos.

*He is a good big brother and room mate to Blake.

*He is great at math.

*He has a great imagination

*He likes to draw and make things out of paper.

*He loves candy.

*He loves to tease his siblings and is quite skilled at it.

Update on kids

Here is a little bit about what the kids have been up to:
Kylee started piano this fall and is learning quickly.  I think she has a natural talent even composing her own little songs.  Kylee is crafty and has wanted to learn how to sew for a while.  We were able to find someone that teaches sewing lessons and Kylee so far has learned how to make an apron and a trick or treat bag.  Kylee has been quite the reader lately.  Being in fourth grade provided the opportunity for Kylee to be in the school choir called the Lyrical Leopards.

   Brayden also started piano this fall but it has been a little bit difficult to get him to practice.  He usually acts like he is about to die when he starts practicing.  Brayden enjoys drawing detailed action scenes usually including a number of knights, ninjas, pirates, and robots.  It is fun to listen to him relate in detail the elaborate story that goes along with his pictures.  I love finding his pictures around the house.  He recently made more remotes and an x-box game with paper and was "playing games" with Julia.  He will be starting basketball in a few weeks.

Julia started pre-K this fall and loves it.  She sings the songs from school every day. Some of her songs are 5 fat turkeys are we, number rock, days of the week, and months of the year.  She is learning things quickly.  She loves to ride the bus to school.  Julia is a good sister to Blake.  She is pretty patient with him when they play.  She is dancing again and gets so excited when it is Wednesday and she gets to go to her dance class.

Blake  has experienced a lot of changes recently.   In October he went off the pacifier and then moved into a big bed just a few days later.  It actually went a whole lot better than I expected.  Matt cut the pacifier and gave it to Blake.  He looked at it and then asked for the other one that was downstairs in the kitchen cabinet.  Matt cut the other pacifier and then brought it to Blake.  He showed him both the cut pacifiers and Blake examined them. He stuck in his fingers and saw that they were broken.  He didn't even try to put it in his mouth, he just handed them to me and went off to bed.  He never asked for them again.  I thought he would be the worst because he was the most addicted.  Blake had a harder time adjusting to when Julia first started going to school.  He would get upset when she got on the bus and would throw a little fit when we got back home and she wasn't there.  It took him a few months to get used to her being gone for half the day. He soon became my buddy and enjoyed hanging out with me at home.  Taking him to stores is a different story.