Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning is always here at home. We start with a quick snack of bread and then the stockings. Usually Alex makes us breakfast while the kids do their stockings. This year, we just went straight to the presents. lol The kids were so excited!
AJ got lots of super hero stuff and DVD's. He said his favorite thing was the Kung Fu Panda sleeping bag and movie.
Emily didn't need much help with her presents this time. She named most of her items as she saw them. We heard- candy, book, pretty, cute, puppy, shoes, bows, diapers, and doll. Her fave was the Strawberry Shortcake stroller. I didn't catch a pic of that before my battery died. I'll have to get one on here soon because it's super cute! Well here's a bunch of pics....

Emily saw all her brother got in his stocking so she decided to just dump it out! She got the hang of shaking it really fast.

AJ's stocking all laid out. Christina at www.punkrockpadding.com made the chalk mat roll. The kids LOVE them!

AJ asked Santa for a Bumblebee Transformer.

Emily got this cool purse set. The pieces were all fabric or lightweight wood. It was the only purse I could find that had a puppy in it.

Transformer box- hoodie, DVD, finger skateboard, and lounge set from www.22nddesigns.com

I just like her silly face as she struggled to open.

Dipeys! lol 2 puppy dog prints and a cool guitar print. From BabySoftDreams.com and www.Mudshrimps.com

His fave- Kung Fu Panda!

Yes, she's kissing her Dora shirt.

A shirt with each of her fave characters- Dora, Pooh, Wall-E, and Ponies. Plus a pair of cute shoes since Emily LOVES shoes.

Cool Indy game that actually is fun to play with him. (See the piles growing behind him??)

I "made" the fleece HSM blanket for him. He's actually curled up in it right now. :)

Daddy, please, please, PLEASE open this???

Little dirt bike set that he adores. He loves motorbikes. @@

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at Alex's parents--- This is a must every year. His mom was sick so no pics of her with the kids and we made it a short visit. We did eat a TON of fresh, homemade tamales. :) AJ got a pair of monster trucks. Emily got a new baby that is SO real... yeah real enough to have an annoying cry. It's a good thing I like my IL's. The baby has to have its paci or bottle shoved in its mouth to shut it up. Emily already figured out how to work the off button so if she doesn't master it soon, the batteries are going to disappear soon. :X After watching the kids fight, I mean play with the doll, we located Alex's brother's family. AJ got a huge remote control truck. Which he broke yesterday. He was just being too rough so not listening was the reason. We're discussing our options and how we want to handle this. Emily got a doll that speaks English and Spanish. Hmmm wonder why? lol She loves it almost as much as the other new doll. She's baby obsessed!
AJ opening his monster trucks.

Emily and her new doll.

Sophia on top, Ernesto, Emily, and AJ.

AJ and the remote control truck.

Let's see... AJ was a pain in the butt today. He's either coming down with something or was just in a whiny mood. lol
Emily said "Close the door" "Let me go" and "Get away" today. Can you guess how today went with her??? Her penguin loves wearing dresses. I know this b/c that penguin has changed dresses 4 times in the last hour. Anyway, here's the pics from our cool venture to the Christmas Train with our friends Skye, Hailey, and Jon. :)

The girls playing in the bounce house....

I love this pic of Skye. She is just too cute!

The girls playing while we waited for the train.



Eating funnel cake on the train.

My fave display was this... gingerbread village!

Where did my baby go?? He's such a big boy now.

AJ and Emily at the train engine.

LOVE this pic!

Emily is counting to three easily now and she's sometimes answering "Emmy" when asked her name! This is a HUGE milestone for us. She's getting too big too fast.
AJ is his usual comic self. If you ask him something he doesn't know the answer to, he says "I won't tell you" or "I have no idea". @@ Annoying but cute. Oh and if we're being funny and he doesn't get it we get told that we "make no sense". lol
Tonight we tried out a new Christmas thing, the Christmas Train. It's run by a church/camp near us. It was alot of fun especially since we got to go with our cool new friends Hailey, Skye, and Jon. Emily and Skye are so much fun to watch together. Em was being a bit of a diva but she warmed up after Skye shared her cotton candy. :X I'll post pics tomorrow. Emily is being a pita about going to sleep tonight. @@

I uv you mama! and Santa

The sweetest words out of a toddler's mouth. She finally got it right! And she's counting to 3. My baby is getting so big. I just love her bye ya'll's. lol AJ is really starting to get funny! He keeps doing the funny jokes that the kids on Disney Channel say. :P
So here's our Santa pics from 2 weeks ago.

Giant tree outside Santa's Workshop was a great backdrop for extra pics.

I just love her dress and shoes in this pic.

This is the funny face I get most of the time. She's really starting to resist pictures. :/

I really hate Houston weather sometimes. It's freezing cold, foggy, and trying to rain. So the Dickinson Festival of Lights was closed. Course we didn't find out until we'd already driven out there. At least it wasn't too far. We're going to try again next week. We're doing the Christmas Train later this week. AJ is super excited to do the Train. I think Em will like it... as long as we keep her warm. She does NOT do well in cold. Now if the kids would just go to sleep so I can start working on wrapping the TONS of gifts for everyone.

Today AJ I and tried our hand at crafts. We did the recycled crayon craft. Turned out pretty well. I did a green/red and blue/white mix for Christmas gifts. I LOVE how the blue/white turned out! I'm going to make more of those tomorrow as well as some pink/purple and green/brown ones. Emily was a little leader today. Lead's anyone else around her straight into trouble. She cracks me up when she manages to crawl in and out of her highchair all by herself. (Wooden one that she can get into by going under the tray.) This girl is going to be SO much fun when she hits puberty!

Emily today....

Emily can take her tops off and almost put a new one on all by herself! She is a serious clothes monster so this is going to make life nuts! She figured out how to take her socks and shoes off about 2 weeks ago. She could put shoes on for the first time last week. Uh-oh... she just mastered getting jammie pants off. Now to see if she can get jammie shorts on.... She got one leg in but needed coaching for the other and a quick tug to get it over her diaper butt. Dude, I'm seriously in for it now. :P

O' Christmas Tree... Tradition of the Season #1

Since 2001, we have visited the same tree farm in Huntsville, Tx. We drive almost 3 hours north to spend the day finding a tree and doing all the fun stuff at Mill Hollow Tree Farm. AJ actually remembered doing this last year so he was super excited. His fave part was the hayride but I forgot to snap pics. Oh well, maybe next year. It was actually a great day to be out there. Last year we wore shorts and got overheated. @@ This time it was a nice, cool, and breezy.
Emily waiting for us to just find a tree already.



I'm lucky there was any tree left after they dragged it to the front.

This tree came down during Ike. The kids are standing in it's roots.

Inside the cabin, waiting for dad to pay for the tree, and trying to drive mom nuts.


Decorating!!



The finished product. AJ was so proud of this. He was actually really helpful this year.

Going to try this out...

So being a mom for the last 6 years has been interesting. Way much harder than I ever thought it would be. Course I make it hard for myself, as everyone else tells me. I just want the best for my kids... even if it means there's too many sacrifices. I have the sweetest 6yo boy and a spitfire 2yo girl. Maybe we'll have more kids later or maybe not. I won't be ready for another year or two at least. I want a bigger house first and AJ reading and Emily potty trained. I wanted to do this so I could keep a record of the cool stuff these kids do everyday. So today's....
AJ- Counting up to 15 without help 80% of the time. Numbers are NOT his strong point but he likes to add. Go figure. He knows all his letters by sight and most of the sounds. He can write all the letters well except for C's, G's, and S's. The curves just get him. He surprised me by starting to say blends w/o sounding them out first! So reading is getting better every day. Hopefully he can start first grade work next year without much trouble. I don't want him to struggle but I want him to have a challenge too.
Emily- Oh where do I start?? 2 going on 20. She already argues with me while smiling. She knows I have a hard time scolding her when she smiles! She's into everything but so sweet. She started saying I love you, Sorry, and Thank you at the right times. She loves Mama Mia songs and understands YouTube gets her video clips of the songs. So now she climbs up into my desk chair and begs for "Coming, Coming". Which is either Honey, Honey or Gimmie, Gimmie from the movie. No idea but I know that she wants Mama Mia. Everytime she see's the commercial she flips out and starts dancing. I love her little hip dancing. She's really giving me fits about potty training and weaning but oh well, I'm not in that big a rush for either. I just want her to slow down on the nursing. Having to sit every hour while she gets her fill bugs the heck out of me. Especially when there's a million and 2 other things I need to do! One day she'll be done and I'll be sad... just have to remind myself of that!