Early Christmas

Although we will be heading back home in a couple of days for the holidays, we still wanted to celebrate our own Christmas with our family. We all enjoyed opening our presents, but watching the kids is always so much fun. Ethan is now at the age where he understands and is the most enthusiastic he has ever been about opening his presents. He was even handing out the presents to us. We did explain to him that Christmas is not over and we will be opening more presents in Alamo, so he is very excited that Santa is coming back. Gracie just tried to eat the paper a couple of times but she is always happy so we will just pretend she understands. Of course the day ended with Eric and I searching for batteries and practically ripping the toy boxes up trying to get pass the 50 zip ties. All the while, an anxious 2 year old hurrying us along.

Gracie and her hair looking Fabulous!

Gracie unwrapping her presents

Ethan unwrapping his presents

Ready to play

"Take the stinking pacifier NOW!" She kept jabbing it in her eye

"Uhhh Mom, you can totally stop taking my picture now"

The infamous Geo Tracks, although he still acted surprised.

Our very own Hansel and Gretel!

Accessories Make the Outfit.

Artist at work

We went to a pottery studio to paint with our playgroup today. Ethan picked a dragon and used his favorite colors to paint it, blue and orange.

That is his dragon behind him all finished

Christmas Party

Here are the pictures from the Christmas Party. We had a lot of fun and came home with homemade ornaments and presents from Santa. It was nice to sit and relax from all the Christmas bustle that we have going on. I finally got our Christmas cards in the mail after two trips to get more stamps, I know we still have more gift shopping to do and finally just getting ready for our trip back home. I am so excited to see our family and hopefully we will all survive the drive. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Telling Santa what they want for Christmas

Ethan showing off his ornament

Hard at work

No this is not at the party but I threw it in for the heck of it.

Gracie's new found independence

Gracie has finally grasped that she is more than capable to move herself without mommy's help. Since her learning to crawl she has been causing a damper in Ethan's world. He is realizing that if she sees a toy that he is playing with, she will go and try to take it from him. All I hear is "Ughh Gracciiieee" I tell him if you want to keep the toy, you better go and hide. So basically Ethan has been trying to stay clear of her. Although he does get excited to see her crawl and will start yelling for me to come and watch her show off her new skill.

Today we had our Playgroup Christmas Party and everyone brought their favorite holiday treat as well as an ornament to exchange. Our plan was to get the kids all sugared up and just let them run lose. It worked till we were ready to go home and everyone had gotten into a bad mood. Ethan was begging for one more cookie like a little cookie addict but I knew he had enough. Tomorrow we have another Christmas Party with the spouses club so hopefully I can get my little cookie monster to not go overboard.

Watch Out Beckham!

They are my greatest blessings!

"In hopes that St. Nickolas soon would be there"

Well now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we decided to get ready for Christmas. Ethan was a huge help putting the ornaments on the tree.. oh and of course the star. Gracie just watched us while inching her way to the tree. I had to move her away a couple of times because she couldn't keep her hands off of the ornaments. Then she would babble as if she was giving us orders but once the lights were turned on she was preoccupied with that. I think Ethan really enjoyed decorating the tree not because it is fun to decorate a tree but he knows that it is a sign that Santa is on his way!

Happy Thanksgiving...from our little Turkeys

Sporting our new headbands

Us making our annual Thanksgiving headbands.

Dest being a dork

Mommy's Addiction

F for Originality

Yesterday Eric, Gracie and I were playing when we noticed Ethan had mysteriously disappeared. Normally, he will tell us when he is going to play in his room so I started calling out to him. Then not a second later this is what we hear, "OHH WOW, OH WOW, GEO TRACKS, AND BALLS........."

Eric: Crap Dest, he got into the closet. (Where we stashed our Christmas presents)
Destiny: Ethan JETT!!!!!
Ethan: Mom, look at all of these presents!!!!

I put everything back into the closet and took him aside because he was already balling his eyes out.

Destiny: Ethan, Christmas is coming and Santa still needs to wrap those presents. Do you want to play with those presents.

Ethan: Yes.

Destiny: Well, then you will need to not go back in there again or Santa will take all those toys back to the store. You have to wait until Christmas to open them up.

Ethan: Yeah, Santa is coming any minute. ( I tried correcting that 'to any day' but he still keeps saying any minute)

I ask myself why in the world did I hide the presents in the closet when that is the exact place my parents hid our presents. Whenever Gracie starts acting up Ethan reminds her that her presents will be taken back to the store if she keeps it up. Then proceeds to tell her what toys she has in closet as if she understands him.

By the way, I am allowing comments now. I took them down about a year ago and never got to putting them back. I just barely realized it, shows you how much I pay attention.

Ball of Gas

We were outside playing and even though it is November we still have the nice warm sun around. I think it started this conversation.

Ethan: Mommy, The sun is a ball of gas.

Mom: YES it is!!! Did Dad teach you that?

Ethan: No, Blue.

Mom: Blue????

Ethan: BLUES CLUES MOM, scoffs under his breath which he seems to be doing more than a teenager does. It is scary because he is two and firmly thinks he knows more than I do.

Mom: Well, Excusssse me.

Gracie first tooth

We first noticed her brand new tooth on November the 9th but we finally got a picture of it. The one right next to it looks about ready to come on out too. Gracie has decided that baby food is so not the way to go and it is driving her Mother crazy. She barely has one tooth but wants to eat real food. Although I am really glad that she has started drinking from a normal sippy cup. They look just like Ethan's but pink. Ethan had to use a straw sippy cup for awhile till he caught on but they are not spill proof and end up making a mess so I am excited she picked it right up. While her grandparents were here, they were hoping to witness Gracie's first time crawling. She would tease them a little bit by going on all fours then she would sit back down. After a couple times of that she decided to throw out some more bait. She got on all fours and proceeded to crawl backwards. It was quite funny. Only my daughter decides to go against what everyone is doing and makes up her own way. Stubborn little girl!

Do you know why grandchildren are always so full of energy? They suck it out of their grandparents. ~Gene Perret

Last week Grandpa and Grandma Haut came for a visit. It has been a while since we seen them so it was nice to catch up. I often joke that anytime people come to see us for their vacations they often leave more exhausted then when they first showed up. Ethan and Gracie can keep anybody busy but we also dragged them all around San Antonio. First, we wanted to show them the land that Eric and I chose to be our retirement/investment property. Like I said in a previous post we were on the look out and I think we have found it. It is about 2 acres and is in a gated community that the Medina River runs right through. Maybe we will be floating right down the river next summer. Then what would a San Antonio visit be without a trip to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Ethan had an especially good time at the river walk and I think it was due to the Hooters Girls. We were just walking by the front of the restaurant and they caught his eye. It started with just a quite stare but once his bottom lip dropped I knew we needed to change the scenery. As soon as Grandma brought up ice cream his attention span went back to normal. We had a great time and I know the kids had a blast!

Looking towards the front of the property

Grandpa and Grandma with us and the kids

Ethan, Noah and Joaquin

Us with the Zabel's. They came up and visited with us for the day en route to Goodfellow
As you can see getting everyones attention is quite hard.

Looking towards the back of the property

Grandpa and Gracie by the Medina River
In the background the boys throwing rocks into the river

You can't leave San Antonio without your Alamo picture

Enjoying our ice cream on the riverwalk

Ethan feeding the birds.