merry christmas...

Christmas celebrations started early this year. The kids celebrated with the Kucera family in Rockdale on December 23. On Christmas Eve, the kids went to their grandpa Karl's house to celebrate with the Blomquist family. Also on Christmas Eve, the kids went to the annual Torres family celebration. They were visited by Santa Claus there -- Jacob asked for a puppy and Sydni a doll. Caleb didn't care to see Santa.

At our family party, it is tradition to have tamales. This year we also had homemade beans, tortillas and barbacoa. Jacob and Caleb both liked the barbacoa, which was a surprise to us as they usually don't try new things. Another tradition is to play bingo -- Jacob was the first person to bingo this year. All the kids eventually won and we all had fun.

Sydni and Jacob sang in the choir at the Christmas Eve celebration at our church last night. Well, Sydni sang (and did a great job!) -- Jacob misbehaved and didn't get to sing and he had to sit it out. It's embarassing when Diane's friends go up to her and tell her they were watching Sydni and Jacob to see who would win the fight that was going on between them. Jacob sat down with Granny Gran and he accidentally hit the man next to them. Granny Gran told him he needed to apologize to him and Jacob said "I don't talk to stangers!"

Caleb fell asleep during the entire mass -- which was probably a good thing as I had already warned him that he was losing Christmas presents because he wasn't behaving. He sulked under his coat mumbling "I'm not here...I'm not here" and fell asleep.

After mass, the kids went to Granny Gran and PoPo's and opened some presents. Here's a rundown of what they received:

Sydni

• Disney Princess castle with all the princesses
• Disney Princess story pillow
• Bratz doll
• Hair braider contraption
• Guitar

Jacob

• Transformer robot
• Magnetix Dinosaur
• Airplane
• Skateboard
• Drums

Caleb

• In-line skates
• RC Bulldozer
• Cranky
• Dinosaur
• Electric guitar

Next, they went home and opened presents from Diane and Keith (can't remember all the gifts so here is what I do remember):

Sydni

• My Little Pony Crawler
• Text message phones
• Camera

Jacob

• Robosapien (I can't for the life of me remember anything else as this was the ONLY thing Jacob really wanted this year and he was so excited when he received it)

Caleb

• Gameboy
• Cell phone/text messaging/camera

They are off to another family gathering today and then we will all be together this afternoon for more gift giving.

stomach virus...

Jacob and Caleb have caught an awful stomach virus. Jacob was the first to get hit with it on Tuesday night. He threw up quite a bit but the worst seemed to be gone by late the next day.

Caleb was struck with the same thing on Wednesday night. Usually Caleb can tolerate a stomach bug but this one was fierce. His stomach was completely turned inside out; I ended up taking him to the emergency room at about 2:30 am and we were there until about 6 am. Diane met us there. It wasn't until we met with the doctor that he then started having blood in his stool. It was quite scary. We are still not quite sure what caused that but hopefully we'll know by next week. He now seems to be ok after a couple of days of feeling dreadful.

Sydni did start to feel sick last night but she doesn't seem to have caught the bug.

glad tidings....

On December 9, the Girl Scouts had a holiday party in Taylor. Sydni, Gaby and Lexi (along with Diane, Colleen and Aunt Yolanda -- and me) went to the party. It was a breakfast so the girls wore their pj's. Some of the Junior Girl Scouts read the Polar Express to the girls and then sang carols. They had fun!

Also on that day, Lisa hosted our annual family Christmas cookie exchange. We all had a great time. This years attendees were: me and Sydni, Lisa, Lola, Laura and Morgan, Colleen, Yolanda and Gaby, Aunt Yolanda and Lexi, Rita and Valerie, and Rosa. Everyone made great cookies! This year, Sydni and I switched from our Spritz cookies to a peanut butter mini cheesecake. It was entirely too much chocolate and peanut butter but they were alright.

build-a-bear

When Jacob and Caleb woke up on Saturday morning and saw that Sydni had been to Build-a-Bear, they said they wanted to go too. Jacob has been there once before but Caleb has not been. So I promised them I would take them on Sunday so today we set off for the mall. We did a little Christmas shopping first then headed over to Build-a-Bear. Being so close to Christmas, it was CRAZY there with so many people. Both boys picked out dogs -- Caleb named his Rocky and Jacob named his Jacob. They put soccer outfits on them with baseball caps and cleats. As we were leaving, they saw carriers for them so they had to get those too. The only thing Caleb refused to do was put a heart in his dog -- and he definitely wasn't going to kiss that heart. The girl stuffing the dog was quite shocked that he didn't want to put a heart in; she gave me a look and I told her to just go with it.


They did so well there so we went to Inflatable World to play for a while. Diane met me close to the mall to take the boys and Sydni to a Christmas play in Austin.

christmas outings...

Sydni and I went to the matinee of Austin Ballet's "The Nutcracker" on Saturday, December 16. This has become an annual tradition for us -- this year we were joined by other family members: Colleen and Gaby, Yolanda; Laura and Morgan; Eleanor, Paula and Jessi Jo; Yolanda, Noah, Mackenzie, Lexi and Desiree; Rosa and Lisa. It is a great production and I look forward to it every year. Sydni fell asleep for a few minutes towards the end and I knew she was looking forward to the part where Clara is in her bed (the end of the play) so I woke her up and told her "there is the bed" and she was so out of it -- she said "wake me up if anything cool happens".

Diane and the boys met up with us and we went to the see the "Trail of Lights" that night. We met up with family members to enjoy the lights: Colleen, Gaby, and Jonathan; Yolanda, Colby and Kyle; Eleanor and Jessi Jo. It is quite a sight to see the lights but it is such a long walk around to see them all. We at least took the shuttle bus so we didn't have to walk far in that regard, but it was still a lot of walking. Towards the end Caleb started to complain but all in all they did great.

first sleepover...

Sydni went to her first sleepover on Friday December 15. Her friend Katy's birthday was on Saturday so she took a group of girls to Build-a-Bear in Austin and to visit Santa on Friday afternoon. From there she spent the night at Katy's -- this was her first time to spend the night at a non-family members house so we were a little worried that she wouldn't stay. I told her that she could call me at any time during the night if she wanted to come home and she quickly asked where I was going to be so she could make sure she had the right number. She did great and stayed the entire night.

another pledge of allegiance....

Jacob was asked to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school on December 1. He did well and did not need to have the pledge on paper in front of him -- he had it all in his brain. Very good Jacob!!!