Thursday, December 29, 2011

It's finally Christmas!

Because it has been so absolutely nuts, we asked to have Christmas at our house. I think everyone has grand visions of what Christmas at their house for the first time will look like. This didn't look like that. I'd love to have the house all decorated, cookies baking, a gorgeous table with fine china and creative place settings. Yeah, we had nothing. I pretty much had a breakdown the night before because my gifts didn't even have bows on them. That and Emmy and I had a massive cold. Emmy told Caroline when we were at her house" oooo- I have one of those (stockings) at GiGi's house." Yes, my poor daughter didn't even have a stocking for Santa to fill. It's always been difficult with her birthday being at the first of December, so I decided that next year, it's all going up the weekend before Thanksgiving. It WILL happen!






















We had take out lasagna on paper plates and spent our time cooking appetizers and deserts, which is what we really like anyway, and you know what, it was ok. We are a pretty blessed (and cute when we try to be!) Mom and Dad spent the night and watched Emmy with Santa. She was a tad overwhelmed. I think she was confused why we were all sitting there waiting for her to do something and videoing her and why GiGi and Pops were there too. There was no jumping up and down, but she was impressed that he ate the cookies she left out for him and Rudolph. Poor Beckett pretty much slept through Christmas and woke up late to check out his haul.


The next day we had an out-of-control Vacek Christmas (or Christmas as normal) at Megan and Keiths. The kids went nuts and opened all their gifts and the adults lagged a little. (Megan still has two unopened ones at her house two weeks later!) Emmy might have had more fun passing out gifts than actually opening them. She loves to organize and that was right up her alley.



One of the best things about Christmas this year was Emmy learning all the Christmas songs. She had the BEST time learning them all and couldn't get enough of them on the radio. She still wants to listen to them now. We're having to do a slow phase out. These are two of her favorites.






I am pooped, and I'm hoping that after all the holidays and coming out of the "first 3 month tunnel " that a new baby brings, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things. Get ready new Year, I'm coming!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Zoo at the Zoo

Since San Antonio didn't kill us (I guess it made us stronger, or maybe we blocked it) we decided to bring all the kiddos to the zoo.Not real sure what the hands were about here, but we just went with it! Our new favorite thing at the zoo to do is feed the giraffes. Emmy is actually a "Frequent Feeder" card holder. This is Miles. His tounge is purple because it's sunburned from eating leaves. She'll tell you this too. There was absoulutely no one at the zoo, so we had Miles to ourselves for a while. Even though we were running zone defense with three adults and five kids, it WEARS YOU OUT! Pushing a sit and stand stroller doesn't help.We managed to see the big guys, chimps, elephants, giraffes, and of course the lions. These are "Scary lion faces." After our quick trip to see only the coolest animals, we snuck on the train for a quick and chilly ride. The girls decided they needed to scream "All Aboard!" for the majority of the trip. Thank goodness that all ten people at the zoo that day were probably actually all on the train. Becks was pretty happy for his first Choo Choo ride as well. I'm sure there are MANY MANY more in our future. We were planning a nice lunch to Ruggles, but were so frigid and tired after all that we surrendered to Chick-fil-a. Oh Chick-Fil-A. If I could have just a quarter of the money I've spent there in the last three months...

Christmas Cookies and Reindeer Dance!

It's a tradition (we did it twice so it counts as a tradition) that we make cookies for Santa with Caroline. This year I was hoping that Emmy would be more into it. (I know I make that statement a lot) and.... she wasn't. (that one too) Even with a table full of sugar and icing and event M&Ms she just didn't care. See the excitement here. I think I'm raising and Engineer. Order and arangement are MUCH more fun to her than coloring or decorating. Oh well! Caroline had fun and at we made at least 2 cookies for Santa, which is what we came for, and I MIGHT have eaten a few cookies. Just a few. Emmy also moved to a new ballet class with a little more structure. She's loving it. She is the first one to RUN into the class when Ms. Cathy gets there and changes her shoes as fast as she can to get back into class for tap. Now she still does a fair amount of sliding across her floor on the butt, but at least we're moving in the right direction. For Christmas, they prepared a reindeer dance for us. Emmy was a LOT more into it this time. Maybe by the recital she'll be doing some real moves!

ROADTRIP!

Yes, are particular nuts and carted five kids under 5 to San Antonio for less than 24 hours for a volleyball game that started, yes STARTED, at 8. It was for a good cause though as Aunt SuSu was selected National coach of the year and got to coach the All American Volleyball game there. Go Susu! We thought the game would be the hard part, but the kids were surprisingly good! They all sported their Team SuSu shirts.



I would like to say that it was a good night but that would be a GIGANTIC lie. Between the two kids someone woke up every hour. I seriously considered just packing up our crap and leaving San Antonio at 2 in the morning. It didn't fare much better in the other room. That left for a bunch of slightly (er really!) pissy adults, but somehow happy, energetic (gr!) kids. We managed to squeeze in one gigantic cinnamon roll at LuLus before heading home. The most amazing thing about that thing is that it was actually good! I will not tell you how much I ate of it =)

We're so proud of SuSu and happy that we got to see her coach, but I have decided that after this trip, it will be a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG time before we're going anywhere involving a hotel with kids again.

Emmy's Debut

Emmy celebrated her real birthday day with her first public performance. She appeared as a "child of the world" in the children's chior musical at church. Her and Abs dressed up in their costumes, Spanish and Egyptian princess respectively (of course!), and stood in front of the church while the big kids sang. They didn't do a whole lot of singing, but maybe next year.They looked cute anyway.









After the performance, we celebrated at Christmas on Bethlehemn Blvd, our Church's Christmas festival. There was snow, face painting, arts and crafts, and plenty for the kids to to. For two kids in Texas holding snowballs, you'd think we would get a litte more emotion, no?Emmy threw a snowball or two and then was done. Beckett wasn't so sure about it, but we got a cute pic, which we all know is the most important thing anyway.

After the festival (Yes there was more) we celebrated with cookie cake and cousins at the "Play Place" as Emmy calls it. Check out this high irresponsible looking video of Emmy and her "candle" as we sang Happy Birthday.


Happy Birthday my snow princess =) This makes Three out of the four years you've been here that you managed to get snow on your birthday. This one is KIND of cheating but we'll let it slide ;)

She's 3!

Of course the one day I choose to do her pictures outside, it is OF COURSE seriously about 35 degrees outside. The day before it had been about 70 so I also picked all sleeveless outfits. Being the mother of the year that I am, I stuck a coat on her between pics, promised her M&Ms if she would smile, and stuck to my guns that we WERE taking pictures, in these outifts, THAT day. I'm so glad we did, because I think the photographer captured her perfectly, and I'm a little biased, but that is a beautiful little girl!

Beckett (as usual) really didn't want his picture taken. We managed to get one shot. Blake likes to call this his Steve Jobs pic.