That time again

Remember flipping through haircut books trying to figure out what cut you wanted, pointing to about six and then changing your mind when you get to the seat? Yuliya was able to do that for the first time yesterday. See her finger pointing?

In case you are wondering what she is craning her neck to see. It was the Scissor Sharpener that stopped in while we were there.

Below is Yuliya's before shot.



Pretty neat cape :)

The man sharpening scissors gave us all pink carnations before he left. Cash was extremely proud of his flower and sat beaming as we watched Yuliya get her hair cut.

Finished product!

Also after her haircut we went out to eat. A few minutes after we sat down a man and his wife sat down across from us. The man was older with a full white beard and happened to be wearing a red sweatshirt. The kids were so excited to see "Santa". He got a kick out of them watching him like a celebrity, giggling and talking about Santa all through dinner.

Yuliya trying not to be obvious that she was staring at "Santa"

P.S. "Santa eats all of his dinner."

Find a penny

Pick  it up

 

If you find a penny face down, do you flip it over so the next person will have good luck?

I do

Do you throw a penny on the ground if you are having a bad day?

I had never heard of this until recently but maybe that's why we find homeless pennies every so often just looking to make someone grin.

Do you still play in toystores?

We do...we all do!

Yuliya likes to surround herself with stuffed animals. She could spend hours in the same spot. Hugging and talking to them, teaching them, and feeding them. Yuliya loves to play house with dolls but more so with animals.

 Keith and I may or may not have enjoyed playing with the masks.

 And Cash....of course was in heaven. He played with cars, trucks, buses and emergency vehicles.

While I am not a huge fan of monster toy stores, I do love the toys at whole earth provision, lakeshore learning, and smaller more focused stores. I love finding the toys I had as a child for my children.

Do you buy your little ones toys you had as a child too?

Christmas lists

Have you seen your kids lists yet? Or made your own? Here are the kids Christmas lists just for your viewing pleasure, I wrote them as they dictated, and they signed their names and drew pictures

Yuliya's is pretty self explanatory, below she drew a picture of an elephant next to a person with buttons on their shirt. As well as her name with "a really big Y"

Cash asked for:

• A Christmas tree
• Christmas(he just wants the day to come in general)
•  A monkey
• A-B-C-D
• A phone
• Crackers(of course!)
• The sun (do you think he's ready for it to be warm again?)
• And last but not least....milk.

I translated the letters that he said he was writing in purple.

Below his name he mentioned a few select letters as he was coloring, so sorry I can not remember the order.

Middle row looks like H N N I

The bottom row kind of looks like D A V I G D...what is he trying to tell us?

Our letters are now safely tucked in our letters to Santa holder on the tree. Hopefully he stops by sometime this week and takes a gander.

Dear Santa

Why are your lines so long?

My office usually has a Santa visit once a year, this year however, they did not. So on Monday I told the kids we could go see Santa after Cash's well baby appt. This is my first year to take the kids somewhere other than the office to see Santa, and boy did I have a lot to learn.

Notes to self:

• Do not make the mistake of driving down Westheimer where there are at least 15 Cash for gold or jewelry sign promoters dressed as Santa standing in the medians for about 6 blocks. They wanted to stop and talk to every single one of them.....it is difficult to explain that, that's not the Santa that wants to hear all of your dreams and wishes.
•  Do not mention Santa until we are 5 minutes away.Or you will hear, "Are we going to Santa's house?" every 2 minutes for 3 hours.
• Do go to the bathroom before you get in line, as you will stand in line to get to him, and then stand in line a second time to obtain the photo you just took.
• Be prepared to spend $25 or more.
• Be prepared to be in the photo -Cash was not okay with sitting in a stranger's lap, so I sat in with him. Oh and didn't smile....whoops.

Yuliya locked up and forgot everything she wanted to tell Santa as soon as we sat down, would hardly even look at him.

The event ended up being a little more stressful than anticipated.


Cash eagerly waited to meet Santa, but had no intentions of looking at him or talking to him

Here it is folks....our picture with Santa this year.

And so it begins

We started celebrating the season on  Sunday! My oldest sister Tara and her family will be in Switzerland for the holidays so we had an early Christmas dinner with the cousins.

Dinner consisted of spaghetti, a fantastic fresh fruit salad, a delicious jalapeno artichoke dip that Tara brought with sliced bell pepper, a Christmas tree garlic bread creation compliments of yours truly and Keith, and NINJABREAD MEN!

Keith and I made ninja bread men, what do you think? Some have swords, some have bikinis, Christmas sweaters, ninja garb, baseball player, and there's even a zombie in there!.

 

The Christmas garlic bread tree with spinach, feta, and bell peppers on top

Alyssa looks very Cindy Lou Who here

 

And of course there was present opening to be had! In the bottom right hand corner is a very cool yard work set that Aunt Amy gave Yuliya for Christmas. Aunt Tara and family gave cash an adorable villain outfit. Now he can dress the part when he plays villain to Yuliya's princess!

 

Thank you Tara, Amy and families, we had a great time and truly enjoy our gifts.

P.S. I can't wait to make gingerbread men again!

Dancing in the night

We went looking for Christmas lights on Friday night.

After dinner we all took a nice long walk with Lisa and Soldier.(who dragged Lisa a lot of the way) We found a plethora of lights, and angels, nativity scenes, reindeer, Santa's, and more. We found Christmas lights that were in bags on the ground, Yuliya had to look inside every single bag before we could pass the house. We found Christmas lights on houses, wreaths, trees and even on the ground.

But maybe best of all, we found Christmas lights that danced along with the season's music.




So we kept them company and danced along with them :)

Crackers and Cash

Really all you need to do is replace the Muppet's section with crackers and milk(yes, this much of his brain really is devoted to crackers and milk) and this would be a pretty accurate depiction of what goes on in my two year old's brain

Also I felt it worth noting that. I asked Cash what his middle name was the other day and he told me Money. Alright....which one of you has convinced him that his name is Cash Money......

If you ask him what Yuliya's middle name is he will tell you Princess.

To that special someone

Today is your birthday in case you didn't know. Today is that day that you're supposed to get whatever you wish for....it's a rule. So pick your meals, pick your clothes, pick your nose, and maybe pick some lottery numbers. I am oh so happy that you were born today 32 years ago. I am even happier you survived childhood, those harsh teenage years, survived college, and the military, survived living in SETX and a series of unfortunate events. I am happy you made it to this year, to this day, so I could inform you how blissful it is to say...."geez you're old" :)

Happy Birthday to Keith, thanks for keeping Alyssa company in our family of spring birthdays. I am thankful for all that you are and do, and I hope 31 is out shined by 32.

Christmas riverwalk

The new lights on the river walk, led and wrapped around the trunks

The traditional riverwalk lights, the old style lights and draped from the branches

Which do you like better?

Keith tried to catch me marveling at the ceiling in Schilo's German Deli, but instead ended up with a more snap to attention, "Hey I'm hungry!" serious look. And then he did his impression of it.

Which do you like better?

Schilos seemed to have one main rule...

I thought it was a good rule.

We enjoyed potato pancakes with apple sauce and our eggs over easy.

It rained all weekend which put a damper on our plan to ride the Mission trail this time.  At least our bikes were cleaned in 160 miles of rain. We did however spend a great deal of time in whole earth provisions, with the countless books, toys and camping gear one could spend hours playing with. We also spent a great (and long*) day with a ton of Willefords, including tiny baby Cameron (Keith's nephew) who I couldn't put down of course. Colin (Keith's other nephew)amused us with his direct ownership of the letter c, his dad and brother will now need to find replacements. Sorry no pictures of them, but you can take my word for it, they are cute.

We also built a pizza to envy for lunch and had sandwiches and tea in a cozy sandwich shop for dinner. Great margaritas and cake for desert, and a nice walk around historic San Antonio to end the night.

* Has the time change messed with you at all? I keep having to remind myself it is not as late as it seems....except on Saturday, where we did not realize how late it was until it was nearly midnight..sorry Mama and Papa W!

I love the way they lit up the cathedral in the main plaza.

Pretty Christmas tree that Yuliya would have loved also in the main plaza.

Remember the Alamo?

Hopefully, but if not here's a refresher.

And the considerable Christmas tree right in front of the Alamo.



And there you have it folks, another successful trip to S.A., this time with a little rain.

Happy Birthday Miss Alyssa

Happy Birthday to Miss Alyssa who is now one. We celebrated at her house with a small gathering of  family. She had a blast digging into cake and trying to keep up with the older kids. Alyssa received 4? baby dolls and I hear she's in line to get more for Christmas. Watch out octomom.

I think she likes it

Every toy had to be played with immediately

When we first arrived they tried unsuccessfully to get this little lady to nap. After finally giving up I held onto her until she was over her heavy sighs and gasps from crying(cute) and was ready to play. She still looks a little tired in this picture, but she was a trooper after she was over her tears she wasn't cranky in the least.

Alyssa's yummy cake, half chocolate half white cake.

I can't believe it has already been a year. How the time flies!

P.S. Once I get it uploaded I will repost here with the video of her getting cake :)

Life Lessons

I would like to openly thank any and all people that leave their christmas lights on until 7am. The kids love seeing them on the way to school, they shout out everytime we see a decorated house. Hearing Cash shout "greesgas lighs!!" makes me grin everytime.

Also Yuliya learned a very important life lesson today....

If you try to climb in the car with your hands in your pockets there's a VERY good chance you will be kissing the floor board. The more amusing part of this situation is that she actually tried to wiggle up in the car face down on the floor board refusing to take her hands out of her pockets like a scene from A Christmas Story. Strong willed little girl....Smooth sailing after she listened to her momma and took her hands out of her pockets....imagine that :)

Movember

Look who's participating in movember this year. Compliments of Green Goodness.