Announcing......

Pictures, pictures and MORE pictures! Why?? Because my darling husband got me an awesome camera for Christmas. Just LOOK at how the volume of photos of my kids has increased just since December 25th!

We started the day at our house with a nice breakfast. We made eggs, and I had prepped some sausage balls with (hidden) spinach (sneaky mommy!) Then we went to Alex's sister's house to open gifts with her kids.

Here is a rare picture of me with my beautiful kids!


Alex's sister gave Grace this super-cool giant zebra - every inch of it is covered with something stimulating and fun for years! Caleb likes it too.

Yes, Caleb is funny and cute...but this is a face we see all too often. What's Christmas without a tantrum (or 6)?

An even rarer picture of Alex!!



We had the wonderful pleasure of having my niece, Maya, visit us for a couple of weeks. She was here on Christmas. She's the sweetest little girl!



My parents gave Caleb this basketball hoop. He's in love. He loves basketball. So many things about Caleb make me happy. But when he started playing with this, I was SO happy because after he would make a shot he would exclaim, "I did it!" I'm so happy to see him express that he is proud of his accomplishments!

Here is Uncle Aaron and his girlfriend, Mandy with Gracie Grace. Uncle Aaron is just awesome with the kids - what else do you expect from a guy who's able to be a goofball?


It's been really cold here the past few day, so we've been nice and bundled up!


Grace's new favorite plaything didn't cost us a penny! Her foot!

Our new tradition over the past 3 years is that on Christmas day my friends the Stapletons come over since Lourdes is visiting from Dallas with her family and my mom makes pizza. This year was really interesting with three toddlers, Sienna, Maya, Caleb, Grace and Ellie (who's six weeks younger than Grace)

Christmas is upon us!

Yikes!! I don't even know how this happened - it's December already!

I successfully convinced Alex to take some pictures of the kids...I think that I've laid the guilt on pretty thick about having no pictures.

Here Grace seems to be holding her breath in fear that Caleb will decide to roll on top of her.


The happy, pretty girl.


This is Caleb's favorite way to wear his hat...sideways. Because he's cool like that. I wish I had popped the collar for these pictures. :)


We went to Coraline's first birthday party - it was a blast! Happy Birthday to Cora!
There were tons of fun toddler-toys there. Like these cymbals, which we never, ever intend to actually own in our own home. Because I'm not THAT crazy!


Grace had fun, too. She was passed from person to person and spent some time hanging out with Kino, who is 6-months old. Yet another young suitor to jockey for Ms. Gracie.


Caleb enjoyed the frosting from this carrot muffin, and then proceeded to eat my delicious chocolate cake....note the evidence in the 'cymbal' picture above.



In other Christmas news. We put up a 'mini-tree'. For a second there, I considered getting a fake tree, so as to avoid the pine needle mess. Or not have one at all. But, in the end, I just couldn't stomach either option, so I decided to get one of those little 3-foot ones and we have it on an end-table. It's working out perfectly. Each morning Caleb asks to turn on the the 'luz'.

I'm also trying to figure out how to introduce Caleb to Christmas. Clearly, we tell him that this is Jesus' birthday and we talk about that. We pray to Jesus and God before meals and before bed. My mom got him a 'little people' toys nativity scene that is just awesome and he knows baby Jesus. But I also don't want to steal away the fun of Santa. So for now, I've told him that Santa brings Caleb presents for Jesus' birthday. I have some time to tweak this, I imagine that next year we'll have far more cognitive understanding of these concepts.