Thank you, cereal box

Cereal gave us the mask, Daddy taught them the voice. :)

So long December

Our house got amazingly festive for Christmas this year. I was a little sad to see it go. :(

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas morning is so much more magical with kids than without.

And ours were good this year and didn't make us wake up terribly early. :)

Ready to head downstairs!

The initial reactions. :) 

(Don't worry, it's only a couple minutes long)

Kenn's stocking swag

Amy's stocking swag

Yup, Caleb was that excited about having given Daddy some fuel injector cleaner

Daddy was happy about it, too :)

Beckett opening his AquaDoodle mat from G & G Smith

Caleb's airplane

My gifts from my boys--aren't they sweet?? :)

Caleb finally got a red kid-sized umbrella. The face says it all.

Beckett's take-apart airplane

New bathroom stuff! Mommy is so excited!

It's somehow comforting to know that Kenn makes the same face for a tool...

...and books

LOVE this, Caleb really liked what Beckett gave him (plastic toy lizards)

And B was excited about his train book

Kenn didn't know he was getting a shower radio, and it was even better because he'd forgotten until that moment that he wanted one. :)

the mess actually wasn't too bad when it was all over

Santa took bites of everything!

Breakfast was awesome this year--breakfast pasties and fruit and juice and toast--

and some awesome pomegranate jelly from Jackie! :)

the inside of the pasties--eggs, sausage, skillet-fried potatoes, cheese, onions, and green and red pepper. Delicious!

And yes, Christmas was on a Sunday this year, but no, we didn't go to church like everyone else did. Beckett and I were still getting over being sick, and Kenn was starting to come down with something, so it just didn't happen. And we weren't struck by lightning. :)

It was a really nice Christmas, though. We had the missionaries over for dinner, and ate some awesome blueberry cheesecake for dessert, and it was fabulous. Merry Christmas!

Twas' the Night before Christmas...

Had to make sure we had treats and milk out for Santa.

Everyone knows the bribery involved with the big man, right?? :)

Christmas Dancin'

Awesome things to note about this video--

1- Beckett periodically yelling "cheese!" at me, because he still can't tell when I'm recording a video and not just taking a picture;

2-This song is Caleb's favorite Christmas song, 'Wizards in Winter,' and he dances like this EVERY time he hears it;

3- Beckett's shameless copying of his brother's every move;

and 4- Caleb's INTENSE dance style. :)

Enjoy!

Trip to San Antonio--Finally!

I say finally, because we've lived north of Austin for over 5 1/2 years and NEVER gone to see the sights in San Antonio! So it was definitely about time. :)

We only went for 2 days, but it was such a fun trip. 

We started out with some lunch at Mi Tierra, and it was so delicious! Kenn got some kind of enchilada plate and devoured it (see the clean plate below?) and I got a chicken and vegetable soup-type thing that I LOVED.

The boys were actually less than impressed with their meals, and it was hard to communicate with the waiter about making sure Caleb's food was dairy-free. But our biggest complaint, by far, was the fact that we got swindled by a Mariachi guy, who conveniently neglected to tell us BEFORE he sang that it would cost $6!!! We actually didn't believe him at first, and then he pointed out the VERY tiny writing on the thing on the table (we'd been at said table for all of 4 minutes) and we had to pay him just to get him to go away and stop plinking on that d*@! guitar.

But yes, the food was good. :)

And we hit up their bakery before we left so I could try a candied sweet potato on my friend Karen's recommendation. I was smiling like this because I hadn't taken a bite yet. :P

Well, no, it wasn't awful, but it was basically just a sweet potato. I did not love it. Luckily for me, however, my darling husband picked out a chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese filling, and when he couldn't finish it that night in our hotel room I got to. THAT was good. :)

And then on to the Alamo!

People in Texas are always saying 'Remember the Alamo!' But before you can remember something, you have to understand what happened. And I still don't understand the Alamo. It was neat to see, and it's definitely a sacred spot in Texas history, but I'm gonna have to go see the movie sometime because I still couldn't explain to you why it's important.

It made for cute pictures of the boys, though. :)

And even a cute picture of Kenn!

Post-Alamo, we made our way to the famed Riverwalk of San Antonio, and honestly, it was fabulous! I've never seen anything like it, and it was really neat. We took a boat tour, and the boys loved it. They had a good time just looking at everything we passed.

And I even got to snuggle with mah tootsers on the ride. Good thing we got SOME snuggle time in, seeing as it was our 9-year anniversary. :)

And while on said boat tour, we saw/heard about this really old Catholic church that was built way back in the day by German immigrants, and Kenn loves that kind of thing, so we headed that way and took a quick peek around. Very interesting.

Then we went back to the Riverwalk for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which we will never again take our children to, as it is ridiculously over-priced and the food was not that great.

But the Christmas lights along the riverwalk were super pretty!

That night, after we were done with dinner, we had a fun time trying to find an HEB grocery store (watch out in San Antonio, iPhone users, Siri will take you to the HEB corporate headquarters!). We finally found one and picked up some snacks to munch, and then went to our hotel and hung out and ate junk. It was honestly SO much fun. Our room was sweet, too, because we had THREE king-size beds. Caleb did great, stayed right in the middle of his all night, but Beckett fell off at one point and got a nice little black eye. Ooops. :)

The next morning, we got breakfast downstairs, ate in our room, and Kenn took the boys swimming while I packed our stuff. And then we went to the San Antonio Zoo!

I think the boys fit right in with the wildlife

And they are their father's sons, because they loved this Koi pond. Kenn has always wanted one, but I just don't think it would suit our house.

We really didn't take any pictures of the zoo animals, but we all had a good time. It was a great zoo, the layout and everything was fabulous, and the kids loved it. We even spoiled them a bit (heck, we were on vacation) and got them multi-colored popsicles. Kenn and I had delicious ice cream cones. :)

Beckett's got pretty melty, he's a slow eater

But they both loved them

Mmmmm, cute green face

And of course, what zoo is a zoo if it doesn't have a train??? Do I even need to say that the boys were in heaven on the train ride? I think you can tell.

Such a fun trip, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Although I think I'd appreciate the romance of the riverwalk a little more if the boys weren't there with us... ;)

Potty Trained!!!

We did it!!! We potty-trained Beckett! 

There have been a few ups and downs, and quite a few accidents, but all in all he has done AMAZINGLY well. Still not staying dry all through the night, but that's why Pull-Ups were invented.

I'm just glad he's out of diapers. :D

December Randoms

So many things in a month that are just alone and random and don't merit an entire blog post.

Such as...

Caleb seeing 'Santa' at the ward Christmas party. He came back and said "Santa was really Brother Clark! I recognized his voice!" But we explained that Bro. Clark was one of Santa's helpers, and that made sense to Caleb.

Caleb had some pretty sweet hair one morning before school. We always comb it and gel it, but that's not until after breakfast.

Caleb got a present from his friend Kloey, and they look pretty good on him.

My little reindeer

Caleb's very first completely self-written letter to Santa. It took him a LONG time, but he did a great job with it. :)

The awesome oak tree in downtown Cedar Park. LOVE it, every year. :)

The boys discovered they can play horsey and rider

We ordered a sampler package from The Swiss Colony this year and busted it out on a Sunday afternoon. DELICIOUS! We all had fun snacking while we watched a movie.

And this is our gingerbread house from the Hayden's annual party. I think every year Caleb is less and less interested in actually decorating it, and just wants to eat the candy and go play with his friends. It was cute, though, and delicious to eat. :)

And for me personally, it's just not Christmas until you make cut-out sugar cookies and decorate them with LOTS of frosting and sugary sprinkles. This was a fun family activity, and the cookies turned out so cool this year! I credit Kenn for that, he's quite good at cookie decoration. :)