Christmastime is here!

Our annual Christmas trip to Froggy's was the weekend before last. The boys were overwhelmed and didn't know where to look first when we walked in.

We let them buy one toy each, and usually buy at least one more family Christmas gift.

Joel fell in love with this bouncy horse, but it was just too expensive. Gabriel couldn't make up his mind. After spending over an hour in the store, we ended up with a car for Joel and a school bus for Gabriel. Sigh. It doesn't really matter what you end up with, though, it's more about getting to play with and look at every toy you could possibly think of.

The four of us outside of Harry's Hot Dog. We didn't eat there, but a nice woman offered to take our picture. Why she didn't get the whole hot dog in the picture is beyond me. But oh well.

We went to Chuy's for dinner after Froggy's. Yum!

After driving back to FW we drove all around our neighborhood looking at lights. It was a super fun day!

Then last week we took a trip to downtown Fort Worth to see the big Christmas tree. The wind had picked up just before we left the house, and those streets downtown were like standing in wind tunnels! Too cold.

We decided to eat downtown too. We picked out a burger joint called Jake's. It ended up being more like a Hooter's but the food was really good. No really, it was! I just felt sorry for the scantily clad girl working the front door every time that cold air gusted in!

The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful! Fun times.

Another birthday party

For JoJo! Yeah!

My brother and his two cute and wonderful kids.

We put up the ping pong table even though it was a bit chilly. Tita took advantage of some sunny moments.

Getting some soccer tips from Tia.

I decided to invite my cousin, Kristen and her husband, Vinnie, and their two girls (Rianna, 16 and Kalyn, 12). Even though they live in Lake Worth, we had not seen them in several years and they had never met Joel. We reconnected through Facebook and have been keeping up with each other again. It was SO good to have them. Their girls have grown so much, and both look like models. I forgot to get a picture of them, dang it. We will not let so much time go by without seeing them next time.

Gabriel and his sweet Tito.

Our dear neighbor and friend, Helen.

My uncle Dennis. He is married to my aunt Anita (my Dad's sister), who is in a nursing home. It had been awhile since we had him at any family events, and were so glad he decided to come.

The birthday boy, with his poor little runny nose.

Nothing a fistful of cake can't cure!

Cade spent the night before the party with us, and helped me more than I can say with all kinds of things. Macy stayed the night with us after everyone else went home. She was so proud to get to help Joel open his gifts.

Piggy back!

The handsome big brother.

Joel is changing by leaps and bounds. His sentences are getting easier to understand. He loves to count things, and sat at the piano today for 20 minutes playing. Not banging, playing. What two-year-old does that? The one who sees his big brother do it all the time, that's who. His favorite things to shout out are, "happy, happy, happy, happy", "ready to eat Mama!", "I did it Mama!" and "There's a monster truck" which he says about any truck of any size. We hope you had a happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, JoJo!

Annie Lennox - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

I absolutely love this. It's Pagan tradition meets Christian belief. The music, that drum, the mystery, and her voice make this something I want to hear again and again at Christmas time.

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Halloween

It's hard to tell what this is, but it's the house in our neighborhood that goes even crazier than us when decorating for Halloween. They had three Frankensteins, mummies, gravestones and all sorts of scary.

We decided that Gabriel should have two costumes this year. His school frowns upon scary costumes because of the smaller kids, and I just wasn't sure about his Frankenstein. So we dug into the dress up box, borrowed from Mommy's closet and bought a couple of things for this clown outfit. Oh, and used lots of hair gel!

In the parking lot after Boo at the (FW) Zoo with our neighborhood Moms group. Which we will never be going to again. What a gigantic rip off. Lines to get in, even for members, and then paying an extra $3 apiece to get into the Boo area. Only to stand in more lines to do ANYTHING. All games, candy handouts, crafts, etc... Line after line after line. We stood in one for Gabriel to play a game and Mommy made an Executive Decision to head out of there and back to the animals. And started having much more fun!

I did Gabriel's, oops I mean Frankenstein's, face. I'm pretty proud of it since I have no face-painting experience other than Halloweens of yore. Joel tolerated his costume only because it was Elmo. It was really too warm to keep that thing on for very long.

This picture cracks me up since you can't see Joel and it really looks like Elmo is glancing into Frankie's candy sack.

Can you tell my mother-in-law never really grew up?

Gabriel loves Halloweens so much that even after it's over he tries to tell us stories about haunted houses or pretend visits to the Scary Guy store for weeks afterwards.

Joel is 2!

Loves to give hugs from behind. Plays with my hair constantly. Dances and sings ALL THE TIME. Reads books like a mad man. Asks for his brother as soon as he wakes up in the morning. Jumps, with both feet off the ground, for an entire song on Barney. Has more energy than a nuclear power plant. Smiles as big as Dallas when his Daddy comes home from work. Is fearless and wreckless which is making me age faster than I should be. Climbs anything. Has a full, deep voice that is lower than his brother's. Squeals at an ear-splitting level just to make me mad. In the grocery store. Talks in full sentences, some of which we understand. Knows how to work the cuteness when he wants something - already. Will knock me over with a full body shot when playing tickle on the floor. Has a temper that scares us more than his brother's, but we don't see it as often. Would rather be outside. All the time. Totally rocked my world two years ago today, and I've loved every second I've spent with him.

Time to start our Christmas music this year with a little rendition of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland". Happy Birthday Jo Jo.

My 5-year-old boy

Gabriel turned 5 in September. This is the only picture I have from his actual birthday day. We decided to wait until after our beach trip to have his party, so we tried to make this day special. He got one present and the CD I made for him (Gabriel's rockin' CD, of course) before we left for school. I hoped that one day I would introduce Gabriel to Green Day, Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin and the like, but I never imagined it would be as early as five! They had his party at school. After school at his Tita and Tito's house, Tita had made him cupcakes and we sang Happy Birthday to him. We stopped at my mom and dad's on the way to soccer practice and they gave him a card and birthday hugs. When the coaches found out it was his birthday, the entire team sang Happy Birthday to him. We left soccer practice early to go eat dinner at Campo Verde, here the food is mediocre at best, but the two trains running constantly around the entire, festive restaurant are a huge draw. He had a great birthday!

We didn't have his party until mid-October, which was really weird. But we had beautiful weather for our Scooby-Doo Bouncy House Extravaganza!

I took advantage of our Halloween decorations already being up and just added a few Scooby Doo things to fit the theme.

The monstrosity in our backyard. I was just praying that they didn't say we had too many trees and needed to put it in the front yard.

Cade and Gabriel bouncing away.

One of Gabriel's new friends, Aidan, who attends our church, was determined to get in on this wagon ride!

Aha, I see your plan, Mommy. Tools to help you cook disguised as a birthday present. I'm on to you!

A happy boy, not just because of the Shaun the Sheep DVD. The party was really fun. I even had time to mingle and play some ping pong, and really enjoyed myself. I can't believe it's been five years since this sweet boy was born. He is so sweet and thoughtful, very caring of his little brother, smart as a whip (starting to read Level 1 readers pretty well), and has a terrific sense of humor. I love him so, so much.

San Antonio

One thing I forgot to write in my Padre post: When Gabriel had just turned one, we took him to Padre for the first time. Halfway through that trip he started walking on his own. This trip, Joel's constant stream of baby babble started turning into actual words. So one kid walking and one kid talking makes for some pretty powerful memories of a place! Joel woke us up the morning we headed to San Antonio with a loud, "APPLE!".

I have to brag about how well these boys did in the car on our trip. We brought Gabriel's practice drum so he could play in the car. He made up countless songs, music and lyrics, from that back seat. All of them Rockin, of course! Joel is so well trained that when he started to get sleepy, he would just quietly hum to himself until he fell asleep. You just can't ask for better kids than that.

Gabriel begged us to stop at the crazy, quirky, giant souvenir place on the highway back to reality. He didn't want to go in, just see the King Kong up close. I love the picture below. The sky is beautiful and it looks like a real dinosaur.

The trip was exhausting. We could see our hotel in San Antonio but couldn't get to it (what is with that crazy highway system?) Went to Chili's for dinner, Target for diapers and then tumbled into bed.

We got up to head to Sea World in the morning. I was surprised at the size of the crowd at that time of year until I realized they were doing their Halloween thing.

Here's Gabriel feeding a seal lion, which is in the picture before this one. We saw the silly show with the otter and the walrus, then made our way over to the Killer Whales.

They take my breath away.

Penguins! Joel had fallen asleep and was getting really banged up in his stroller, so Jav carried him for awhile. I thought it was so cute that when we got to the Penguin house, he sat in a cool (albeit fishy-smelling) corner with his baby asleep on his shoulder, just like a daddy penguin would have.

One complaint I have about Sea World (besides the ridiculous prices for everything) is the food selection is awful. How can a place like that not have anyplace that sells quesadillas or grilled cheese sandwiches? (The only two foods Joel will eat out). We decided to leave to find someplace we could all eat, even though we could have stayed much longer. We detoured through the Sesame Street amusement park on the way out. Jav took Gabriel on his first roller coaster trip. And Joel and I stood in a long line to ride the Elmo merry-go-round. He was sweaty, cranky, and hungry, but still managed to shout out "Melmo!" everytime he saw him.

Two boys who have had enough of Sea World!

That night we went for an early swim before dinner in the hotel swimming pool. It wasn't heated and was REALLY cold. I told Jav that Joel would probably scream bloody murder if we put him in that water. He proceeded to make a liar out of me and splashed and swam around for about 45 minutes. I guess Sea World inspired him to swim like a fish. Gabriel and I had to get out because our teeth wouldn't stop chattering. Wimps!

That night was a big Ranger game, so we ordered pizza to the room and had a pizza picnic on the floor. It was a great ending to our fantastic, memory-making trip.

Now, I have to try to get caught up on everything else that's happened in October and November.