Peanut

Matt finally gave into Kylee's constant pleadings for a pet.  He decided that a dwarf hamster would be an easy pet to care for.  For Christmas Matt gave Kylee a gift card to Pets Mart and some books about how to care for hamsters.  On New Years day they went and picked out a hamster to bring home.  She soon came to the realization that a pet was a lot of work.  Peanut didn't have to be taken for walks, but did need its cage cleaned every week.  Kylee has used some creative methods to get it done.

River Walk Weekend

Every January for the past six years the International Military Refractive Surgery Symposium has been held in San Antonio, and on the river walk for the past several years.  It is a good meeting of air force, army, and navy refractive surgeons from across the country as well as from a number of other countries.  Despite my having returned from Afghanistan 10 months prior, Kristel and I had still not taken our planned vacation alone.  As the first half of the symposium week is blocked for the meeting, it seemed like an opportune time to take advantage of the remainder of the week and weekend to spend some time together.  Grandma Mindy was able to fly down to stay with the kids while we headed downtown.

Thursday afternoon we said goodbye to the kids and headed up to the temple for a session before heading downtown to the river.  We had spent a couple nights on the riverwalk a few years before and stayed at the Hotel Valencia.  This time we stayed at the Hotel Contessa, which is conveniently located on a quiet area of the river.  It was a somewhat cold and intermittently rainy weekend so there were relatively few tourists out.  Friday night we went to a show at the Majestic Theater which combined the symphony with a Cirque du Soleil performance.  For our first meal Thursday night I took Kristel to eat at Boudros, a restaurant I had discovered during the symposium.  Kristel liked it so much that we ate there two more times before leaving Saturday afternoon, and it is our new favorite place to eat.

Julia's birthday x2

On December 12, 2010 Julia turned 5 years old.  With her birthday landing on a busy time of year we decided to postpone the party with friends until after the holidays.  

We had a more quiet celebration with Uncle Carlos and the Resch family.

Matt made a castle cake that the kids took over and decorated. It turned out quite colorful.

Celebration #2 was on January 8, 2011

I had a fun time planning a princess party.  Julia invited 7 little girls.  The party started with the girls decorating the felt crowns I made.  They found jewels in pouches hidden around the house and arranged them on their crowns.  

 After decorating the crowns the girls played some games.  

Here are the girls and Blake before they played the mermaid race.  It was cute to listen to their conversations as I was wrapping their legs with green streamers.  Clearly they thought they were going to be real mermaids.   Some of them may have been a little disappointed that it didn't happen.

The cute girls waiting to hit the princess castle pinata. 

We decided to go simple with the dessert and we made cupcakes with a crown on top. 

Here are some things about Julia
*Julia loves to go to pre-K and has learned a lot this year.
*She loves to sing songs from school around the house.
*She is so excited when it is Wednesday because that means dance class
*She is a happy, positive person
*She is forgiving
*She moves at her own pace which is usually not very fast
*She loves to dress-up
*She is a good playmate for Blake
*She is a dreamer and has a great imagination
*She lives most the time in a princess fantasy