Jack's Birthday

Jake's little brother Jack came out to San Antonio to celebrate his 5th birthday with us...Ok, so maybe they came to see the baby, but we got to celebrate Jack's birthday. Jack is a fan of Robin...which is not the easiest character to find. Apparently sidekicks don't get the same merchandising contracts as superheros. I made him a cake for the party. Red velvet with butter cream and fondant.

Robin is the Robin from Teen Titans...I had never heard of the show before, but apparently in this show Robin is more of a hero than in traditional Batman. Plus he has cooler hair.

I love bright colored cakes. Jack's reaction was great. He loved it. I wasn't sure how it would go over, since homemade fondant Robin is not quite as cool as a plastic one, but he loved it as was impressed with my skills...I guess all those years playing with playdough are paying off.

We made some yummy home made pizza. I loved the white pizza with ham, mozzarella, and then after it was cooked fresh tomatoes and avocado. Delicious! Then we had the great cake and headed out to Chuck E Cheese.

Uncle Nate scored big on the tickets...he won the jackpot on skeeball and something else. Everyone had a blast. We just wish they lived closer...or maybe that we lived closer, since we are the ones that moved away. Jack and Emma would have so much fun together. We still have the balloons and Happy Birthday banner up on the wall. Guess I should take it down sometime, but its nice and festive and since its the game room I don't feel any rush to.

New Years

We went to Sea World for New Years Eve. It was so COLD! The wind was whipping and freezing. We watched Clyde and Seamore and then Nate and I went to Shamu while Emma and Jake did Steel Eel. Then we headed to the stadium for fireworks. They had singers and different groups performing. It was a little to cool for Ian, so he and I headed over to the Penguin house, which stunk - so we hung out with the puffins. Then just in time we ran to the firework stadium.

Love the wind blown look!

Listening to the bands.


Good thing the wait wasn't any longer. It was chilly. It was nice that they did the fireworks at 8, so we didn't have stay in the cold all night.

Lately Nate has been a carnivore. He has refused to eat anything but meat. He always says, "I eat meat." Usually with a tone that says are you crazy offering me veggies. So here he is attacking a turkey leg.

Jason and Nate Dancing

After Sea World we all headed back to the house and hung out. We tried to do fireworks, but it was so cold nobody wanted to be outside and the wind was blowing so hard it was hard to light things. So we did those the next night when it was warmer.

Pots and Pans were banged at midnight and Nathan was a little scared by that. Emma loved it. The New Years Babe brought Emma a doll that crawls and cries and laughs and Nate got Handy Manny.

Christmas

Opening Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. Nate loves Buzz lately. He doesn't really like to watch Toy Story, but he loves Buzz.

Our little super Hero. Nate really needed PJ's. He didn't have any that fit and were not super hot. Now he's all stocked up.

We let them pick one present to open on Christmas Eve that wasn't PJ's. Emma really deliberated which one to open and spent a lot of time comparing packages trying to decide which one to open first. I loved watching the excitement in her eyes as she dug through the presents.

Thanks for the play food grandma. Both the kids loved playing with it and I regularly get served from the restaurant of Emma and Nate. Emma is the waitress and she has Nate in the kitchen cooking. Nate takes his job very seriously and does just what his sister says.

I love the excitement of opening the first present

Getting ready for bed Christmas Eve. Aunt Jenny spent the night and Grandma California was here too.

The tree after Santa came.

Santa came! Emma blew through her stocking and was ready for presents. I wish I had a picture of Nate over eating candy for breakfast. He would have been happy to sit at the table with his stocking all day.

Ian looks a little upset that his bottles came empty.

Jake and Emma listening to her ipod. Dad went through and filled it with all her favorite songs before he wrapped it. So she could rock out to Taylor Swift right away. Now Nate walks around singing, "I wear t-shirts..."

Nate's own scooter. He can go slow on it already, but the coordination will come with practice. Note the mouth stuffed with candy.

Emma with her new violin. I don't know if I can take all the practicing. Beginning violin playing is hands down the worst sound in the world. Luckily we are getting better. I'm about ready to actually start teaching her fingering...we've just been working on making good sound on the open strings.

We may not get leaf piles to jump into in the fall here, but we had an awesome wrapping paper pile to jump into.

Yes, it was an awesome Christmas. One of my favorites. We just hung out and played and had tons of fun. We had a big dinner and ate yummy cheese cake.

After Christmas some one asked me if I was glad the holidays were over...are you crazy! I love Christmas, the getting ready for it, the decorations, the lights on the house, the treats. I'm always a little sad to take it all down. Good thing there are only 11 months until we get to put the decorations back up.

Christmas at Sea World

We love living next door to Sea World...the only thing that could be better would be living next door to Disneyland. We have got to be some of their most frequent visitors. Nathan would go everyday if he could and is quite confused why they are closed right now.

This was Ian's first trip. It was a short one and mostly just to get his first pictures with Santa.

Nate is a little cautious towards some of the animals, but he'll follow sissy and she loves them.


Dolly Dolphin.

This was the highlight for Nate. He loves Clyde and Seymore. When we went to their show on New Years Eve I realized he actually had the show almost memorized. I need to get a clip of him singing deck the Halls with Clyde and Seymore. It is so cute.

Christmas Pics

My three little Santas. Nathan loved Emma's winter dress. She looked like "Ho Ho." He was really excited that he had Ho Ho pants too.

Santa's littlest Elf

Santa's craziest elf

Santa's Princess Elf

Grandma with the Christmas crew

They are going to love the fact that their mom dressed them all alike when they are older. Good think they still think its really cool.

Nathan and Emma "ho ho ho"

Getting ready for Christmas!!

You can't make it through the holiday season without making gingerbread houses. The kids had a blast and these would be well insulated with all that candy on them. Nate really didn't need to use frosting to stick his on, because I think he licked every piece before it went on.

Emma is such a great big sister and so patience with her little brother who is a really big helper.
Jack and Seth came and made them with us. Seth looks really excited in this picture. I love his face. They also joined us on Christmas eve. We went to church with them and then they came over for appetizers and christmas caroling. I'm bummed I didn't get any pictures of the caroling. Especially since it was a really cold night, so we made sure everyone had mittens, hats, etc., but some how we forgot to put shoes on Nate. After about the 3 house he started saying ouch and we realized he had a warm coat, a hat, mittens, socks, but no shoes! Good thing we were in Texas and it wasn't that cold.

Emma is the best little helper. On this day she put Ian down for a nap and held him while he slept. Then put Nate down for his nap. She must have been worn out, because she fell asleep too.

More Baby Ian

Its crazy how fast time flies. The little man turned 1 month yesterday! Crazy! Sadly his little belly button hasn't fallen off, so we'll have to go in and they have to "help" it off. He has grown so much and is such an easy baby. He is opening his eyes now...those first couple weeks he hardly opened them at all. He smiles alot and loves to be held.

This morning we went in to wake up Emma. I laid him next to her and he got so smiley. It was adorable. (It may have been because he was just in a diaper, because he'd spit up and pee'd out of his diaper on my bed right before then and Emma's bed was warm). I didn't tell her that and it made her morning to have him so smiley to see her.

Ian drinking his first bottle. We thought it fitting for Nathan to help with this, since he has lots of experiance.

This probably should have gone with an earlier post, but some how I missed it. Here is Miss Emma helping with Ian's first bath. She was a very proud big sister.




Here is Nathan at the hospital with baby Ian. Nathan was a little distrcted by the TV (and his nose).

I love it when Nate says Baby Ian...which is better than Baby Becky (Nathan called him that for atleast the whole first day). Lately Nate loves to sit by Ian and have us call them the Willis boys. He's a proud big brother and can't wait to play with his brother. I walked into their bedroom to grab a diaper and when I came out Nate was sitting in Ian and shouting "giddy-up! Giddy-Up!"