Reward Lost Rat

This is the poster that Matt helped Julia make to aid in her search for a beloved rat.  It has been posted on our refrigerator and every time she sees it she lets out a little cry and says that she misses him.

Randy on vacation

Randy (Julia's stuffed animal rat) has been missing for a couple of weeks. At first Julia wasn't concerned because she explained to us that Randy sometimes goes invisible and travels.  He will  leave the house and go on trips and then come back.  The past couple of days Julia has started to get worried and has begun to say prayers asking Randy to come home.

It is not uncommon for Randy to go missing for a couple of days, and this is not the first time for him to take off for more than a couple weeks.  The first time he was lost was January 2009 when Julia was 3.  He was found in between the bed frame and mattress.

The second time was August 2009 at the Morris cousins house.  We had to leave without him.  They found him wrapped in a cloth on a doll stroller.

This time we are pretty sure he is somewhere in the house, but certainly hiding well.  To be continued...

Interests

Can you guess what each of the kids are interested in right now?

Kylee has turned into a voracious reader.  Once she finds a book that interests her she will read non-stop until she has finished.  When I go to pick her up at school she is always reading while she waits, then she will come home and read for a couple of hours.  She recently discovered she liked Harry Potter and then finished all 7 books in less than a month.  It would have been even faster if not for the days she plead to go to the library to get the next book in the lineup.  The picture of the books are some that she has read this school year.

Brayden is a Lego maniac.  He plays with legos, reads his lego magazines, plays lego games on the computer, and he makes lists of the legos he wants to buy.

Julia still lives in a pretend dress up world of princesses, fairies, and mermaids.  She had a really hard time for the month of January because her dresses were bagged up for precautionary measures so that we would not get some unwanted little visitors.  She was so excited to get them back.  She loves to lay out the different dresses on her bed and then she takes turns wearing each of them as she goes through the different scenes of Beauty and the Beast or another story.

Blake keeps adding to his stuffed animal collection.  He wants to have all his animals with him when he goes to bed at night.  In the morning he will get out of bed and try carrying all of them in his arms.  He usually loses a few along the way.

Busy Blake

Blakes personality is blossoming as he gets older.  We are enjoying getting to know our little guy better.  Here is a little of what he has been up to the last few months:

• he likes playing with water in the bathroom and kitchen sink.
• his favorite phrase is "No, I want do it."
• he is addicted to milk.
• he is speaking in more complete sentences and he likes to talk.
• he will put things behind his back to hide them and thinks we can't see them even as he is walking away with his back to us.  He is already developing his sneaky side.
• when we are in the car he always asks "where going?"  He  will ask every time we get back in the car and several times in the same ride.
• he gets more stubborn as each day goes by.
• he sucks on and bites his shirts so he goes through 2-3 in a day.  I wash about 10 shirts to every 3 pairs of pants.

• he enjoys watching Curious George, Cat in the Hat, and Word World.
• he recently has taken an interest in what he looks like and wants to comb his hair

I cherish when he comes up to me and he says "I luvs you" and gives me a hug.

Blake likes to get into my make up drawer and play with my brushes.  One day he got into my mascara and was so proud of himself that he put it on.  He did not want me to take it off him.

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