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

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