Christmas!

Every year we have Christmas at my parent's house, which used to be my grandparent's house. It starts on Christmas Eve with a HUGE family gathering of all the extended family. It's a crazy day of chaos but I look forward to it every year. Then my siblings and their kids stay the night and wake up to see that Santa visited on Christmas morning then we have a huge breakfast. I have a million pictures so I'll get to those....

The happy family...well, three of us anyway.

The happy couple.

One of many group photos: my mom, sister-in-law Nicole, Aunt Nita, me, cousin Hilari.

You know you want to eat this. This technically wasn't made on Christmas but all of the grandkids made it one Sunday for Christmas. I wouldn't eat a thing off of that after all of those grubby paws touched it!

This isn't a full shot of Santa Land but it will do. Caleb loves playing in Santa Land. My dad has a train that drives around the track that hangs from the ceiling in there. Pretty cool for the kiddos.

Here are some of the tasty munchies. Mmmm...getting hungry just looking at them! We all fill up on the snacks before we even get to the big lunch!

The sweets table. See Caleb over there munching on some chex mix?

What pretzel? I didn't see a pretzel.

Prayer time before lunch. I was praying...with my eyes open...holding the camera.

Who needs turkey, dressing, and green bean cassarole when you have bologna and mac-e-cheese?

A bunch of the kids playing in the playroom.

We played a lot of "Apples to Apples". Fun game!

Caleb loved his Toy Story dumptruck with Buzz, Woody, and Lotso.

My neice Hailey was just a little excited!

Caleb checking out his pillow pet.

Ethan is a little obsessed with his. He still sleeps with it every night, it goes to and from the couch when he's on it, it goes in the car even on short trips. And it's not small!

My neice Caitlin...a little tired?

They were dropping like flies by the end of the night.

But they were up again for more food! *Note my dad passed out in his chair. Poor guy.

"Is this mine?" I heard that a lot!

Ethan sprinkled "reindeer food" that he made at school in my parent's front yard. It's made out of oats and glitter. Yummy.

I love this picture. Ethan and his buddy/cousin Blaine laying on their pillow pets watching TV.

Checking to see that Santa ate his chocolate milk and cookies!

Presents from Santa and us.

The baseball helmet was from us. Caleb was so excited about those little dollar store wash cloths that are tiny squares till you add water to them. It's the little things. ;-)

Baseball bases!

Checking out the loot in the stockings.

Making the famous Christmas breakfast.

Caleb needed "tubby toast". (Anyone still watch Teletubbies?)

Ethan needed his morning coffee after waiting all night for Santa.

My nephew Blaine wasn't happy to be awake in the daylight.

Ethan playing his new game while driving Caleb's rocket.

Ethan's Christmas Activities at School

Working weekends paid off once again because I was able to help out at Ethan's Christmas party at school. He loves when I get to help out in his class so I'm going to soak it up while I can! There are 4 kindergarten classes and they all took turns rotating through each classroom with different activities. Ethan's classroom was cookie decorating. We helped the kids put icing and sprinkles on their sugar cookies then hurriedly reset the room for the next class. It was a wild time but I'm so glad I was able to help!

The classroom before the little monsters came in to make their cookies.

That's Ethan's teacher. She's probably saying, "One two three, eyes on me." I heard that a lot!

Icing his cookie.

Ethan and Mommy. :-)

He wanted to be silly and put icing on his face. This is the crew he sits with during class.

Another Christmas activity was the sing-a-long one morning right after school started. Unfortunantly, Caleb was sick so I stayed home and Mondo went. It looked like mass chaos! The entire school was squished into the cafeteria and the parents lined the walls. They all sang a bunch of Christmas songs. Luckily Mondo took some videos so I could feel like I was there.

My little reindeer.

Ethan's class.

So cute!!!

This one is my favorite!

Code Brown All Clear!

Oh what a difference a week makes in potty training! Last week I was so done with potty training. As you read previously, he was kind of getting it but I was running out of patience. Well, pray for patience and what does God give you? A scenario to be patient about!

I was on the verge of quitting but decided we had come too far to turn back. I'm so glad we stuck with it. This week has been great! He has only had one or two accidents and has gone poo poo in the potty every time! Yahoo! That was a HUGE hurdle to overcome. He didn't go for several days and then he finally did with Mondo's encouragement when I was asleep after working. He earned a KitKat for that. Then every time he went after that he immediately demanded a KitKat. Haha! Now he will settle for the "poo poo in the potty" song and dance.

He has even decided to use the big potty...and flush it! That is another HUGE hurdle for him. I stressed over that stupid potty chair trying to find the right one for days and now he uses it as a step stool to reach the sink!

We have been keeping him in underwear all day, even when we go out. He still refuses to use the potty in public. He has learned to hold it. Poor guy. He went to school twice this week and had no accidents. I thought he might go potty at school since they have little potties and he is comfortable there. I won't stress about it as long as he can hold it!

I'm so proud of him and he seems so big to me now. Where did my little baby go??

Gaylord Texan

Every year we take the kids to Gaylord Texan to see the lights and trains. I also hope to get a good Christmas card photo out of the photo opportunity filled place. This year was just as tough if not more tough than last year with Caleb. He was NOT into photo ops. He was really excited to see the lights and trains but would not sit still and pose for ANYTHING. I invited my parents to come with us since my dad likes little train sets ups and to give the kids some special Nana/Papa time.

Photo op #1...not gonna happen. Ethan's face is pretty cute though.

Not smiling even in Nana's arms.

Look at the trains!

There is actually a pond behind him but it's too dark to see it. The pic we took before this one was Ethan posing all cute and Caleb running away.

Ethan...alone...again. What a trooper.

Ethan looking at the trains with Papa.

Ethan was really trying to make him stay put for this one. Look at Caleb's little mischievous eyes!

I love that Ethan loves having his picture taken.

The gingerbread house was a bit hit. It smelled yummy!

Our one decent family photo. Caleb's not smiling...he's whining to get down.

The three amigos.

Yep, there's Ethan again.

He was posing himself by the end and saying, "Mommy, take a picture!"

The boys checking out this cool gingerbread house castle.

Love that kid.

Ahh...that's what he wanted. The perfect scenario: eating chippies with Nana and Papa.

Check out that giant cookie!

Oh look, I was there that night too!

Another failed attempt at a pic with Caleb.

Yep, he posed himself again with the penguin's arm wrapped around him. Haha!

They entertained each other by dancing around this Christmas tree while Mondo went to go get the car.

So sweet. They were listening to a lady play the piano and sing.

Bass Pro

Part of the Hernandez family Christmas tradition is going to Bass Pro to see Santa (or the "fish store" as the kids call it). They absolutely LOVE to go there and get on all of the boats and look at the fish. This year we must have picked a busy night to go because we had to wait a long time to see Santa. Luckily there is so much to see in the store that we had plenty of ways to kill time.

This year brought on some questions from Ethan: "Daddy, why do people like to kill animals?" Uh....we were at a loss for words. We told him it was for food but he still looked puzzled as to why people enjoy stuffing them and putting them in stores. Me too Ethan, me too.

Writing their letters to Santa. Ethan asked for a skateboard with a handle on it which was good since that what Santa thought he wanted. Caleb wanted Buzz. He already has a hundred of those.

Putting their letters in Santa's mailbox.

They also decided that they would like this tent. It was pretty awesome. We went camping with church when Caleb was around 18 months and Ethan was 4. Ethan loved it and asks to go all the time. Maybe one of these days we will invest in a big tent.

Caleb didn't care about the giant polar bear in front of him. He wanted the "coke coke".

We stopped for a chippie break in front of a little pond with fish.

Riding on the reindeer carousal.

Caleb opted to sit next to mommy...while eating a candy cane.

Not too terrible. Caleb was all excited to see Santa...until it was our turn. We shoved him up there and he had the big lip and wanted to cry but he never did. It's progress!

Trimming the Tree

We finally gave in an bought a fake, pre-lit tree...and I'm so glad we did! Every year we fight with the real tree and forget to water it and spend most of our time vacuuming up pine needles. I think I was most excited about not having to wrap lights around the branches! There is no theme to our tree. Growing up, our tree was filled with decorations from over the years like photos and home made ornaments. I like to carry on that tradition. Sure, a "themed" tree is probably prettier but I like that there is a story to almost every ornament on our tree that we can reminisce about.

Isn't this what everyone wants their tree to look like?? I was cracking up at Caleb's decorating skills. He put everything from the Christmas tree box on the tree. I started taking it down and he got mad and said he was decorating the tree! I had to sneak it off later.

I just realized that this is the only full body shot of the tree. So you're gonna have to look at me adjusting the star. Whoops...next year I will get a full on shot!

Caleb "adjusting" the ornaments. I found ornaments daily around the house, some broken. I think the tree was pretty bare by the time Christmas came around.

Ethan was a big helper like always. He loves to help us do anything. He feels very important.

He really loved standing on this ladder to put the more breakable items at the top.

But of course he still had to be silly for the camera. :-)