Donut the Elf

As I was getting out our Christmas decorations I found the Christmas Elf that was given to us from the Herrera family in a past Christmas.  I decided to get it out so that the kids could name it and have their actions be monitored by the elf to report to Santa.  They named the elf Donut.  At first it mostly creeped them out.  The idea that that it would watch them and move around at night was a little disturbing.  Concerned that it would come into their rooms during the night, they had a hard time falling asleep.  The first morning they were so freaked out not knowing where it would be.  To make things worse, the power had gone out and we couldn't turn on the lights so they were trying to find the elf in the dark. They slowly walked down the stairs huddled together looking all around, as if something was going to jump out at them.  To help the kids get their anxiety under control and be able to go to sleep at night we made a rule that Donut could not go up stairs.  After a few days they got used to it and calmed down.  No longer concerned about waking up to him staring them in the eye, they were excited to see where he was each morning and what he had done during the night.

St. Moritz Reunion

Bailey, Avery, Kylee, Julia, Blake, Jackson, Brayden, Mitchell, and Gavin

The Caraways drove to Austin to spend Christmas with Damen's family.  They had planned to come and spend a night with us in San Antonio. We let the Vaughn's know and invited them over to have a little reunion.  We got a call earlier that day letting us know that their plans had changed.  They had recently discovered that their daughter Sydney had lice (the one Julia's age) and she would be staying in Austin with her grandparents.  They were only going to be able to stay for the evening and not stay the night so that Sydney wouldn't be left out. It was fun to get together and talk about our times in The Villas of St. Moritz.  The kids had a lot of fun playing.

Christmas 2012

In 2012 we stayed in San Antonio for Christmas and enjoyed the holidays with our immediate family.  Sunday before Christmas Pictures

 

Christmas Eve Pajamas and books. 

Christmas morning right before the craziness. 

The kids enjoyed some Christmas Train building and Matt really enjoyed all the Gingerbread Grandma Mindy sent in the mail.  

Nutcracker Recital

The theme for Julia's winter dance recital was The Nutcracker.  She did great in her Dance of China performance.

Letter to the North Pole

Bob Lewis Elementary has a Holiday Night with various activities to celebrate the upcoming winter holidays.  

The kids were especially happy that one of the activities was a chance to write and mail a letter to Santa.  

Blake wrote his own list (I helped him spell the items he wanted).  His list was police handcuffs, little gun, and black/golden armor.  

In Julia's letter she asked for her tooth that had been loose to come out, and for a picture of Rudolf and Santa in a sleigh.  After she put her letter in the mail box she realized she forgot something and wrote another letter that asked for a Santa hat with a bell.

Brayden wrote a letter also, but he didn't really want me to see it.  It said that he wanted an X box.

12-12-12

It was fun to have Julia's 7th birthday land on 12-12-12.  Being a busy time of year, we celebrated as a family on the day of her birthday and planned her party with friends for January.

We had the traditional cinnamon roll for breakfast and I took her Whataburger for lunch at school.

With her birthday being on a Wednesday, she still went to dance class and then she chose to eat as a family for dinner at IHOP afterwards.

Matt did such a great job on Julia's cake that we felt bad eating it.  

piano performances

Kylee and Brayden had their fall piano recital on November 17th.  They gave a great performance.   

 

On December 8th they both were a part of the SAMTA Winter Festival and played Christmas songs at the Rolling Oaks Mall.  

Since we were already at the mall, Kylee asked if she could get her ears pierced again.  She had them done when she was 8, but they were too much work for her to keep up with them.

Thanksgiving with Family

Grandma Mindy and the Morris Family came on Saturday, November 17th to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday in San Antonio.  We took pictures of our family on our back porch after church.

On Monday we spent the day at Sea World.  It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed it. The weather was perfect and the lines were not too bad.  Megan rode the Steel Eel 8 times and Zach and Brayden were trying to break their own record of riding the Shamu Express.  They ended up riding somewhere between 30-50 times.  All the riding made it difficult for them to count correctly.

On Tuesday we let the kids play and hang out in the morning and then we tried to go to the Children's Museum.  It is free on Tuesday  afternoons and so that made it way too full and crazy.  Luckily there were some neat places to explore near by.

So, we went with plan #2 and rode the Brackenridge Train

and walked around the Japanese Tea Gardens. 

On Wednesday we went to walk around the Temple in the morning and had Rudy's for lunch.

We painfully tried to take pictures of all the kids at the temple.  We took about 20 pictures of this one pose. If one was cooperating the other wasn't.  They were closing their eyes, or putting their hands up, or looking away.  Matt had to get Blake to sit down a few times. 

In the afternoon we did the downtown sights.  We explored Hemasfair Park

We caught Jaxon trying trying to give Blake a nudge into the water.

Then on to the Riverwalk

and the Alamo

Other activities in the week:  Wii dance, playing outside, cartoon drawing, painting rocks, and hand games.

On Thursday we had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner for which Uncle Carlos joined us.

Artwork for Thanksgiving.  A turkey Julia made and a turkey that Blake had to disguise so it wouldn't get eaten.

Blake and Julia practiced having a Thanksgiving feast earlier in the month.  They even used a turkey puppet as their main course.  

On Friday we decided against the Dickens on Maine in Boerne and hung out at home and the Morris' packed up.  We took pictures at the Del Webb entrance and celebrated Brayden's birthday.