Christmas

We celebrated Christmas in Albuquerque this year. A few of the highlights:

1) Getting to go see the llamas, sheep, horses, and cows near Grandma & Grandpa's house. My parents live in a zoo!.....and Daniel loves it!

2) Riding a 4-wheeler for the first time down the ditch bank with Grandpa. I'm not sure who loved this more - Daniel or Grandpa.

3) Bella & Miley - my brother's two dogs. Daniel loved chasing them all over the yard.

4) Santa Claus brought a tricycle. I thought that Daniel would go a little berserk when he saw it, but instead he stood there, looking really nervous. I'm not sure what was going on in his head, but he stood about 8 feet away and twisted around for a little bit, not really sure what to do. We finally convinced him to go near it, and he played with the tassles for a bit. When he realized there was a bell, we'd won him over. He hopped on and loved it! He's already learned how to pedal it by himself.

5) Santa Claus also filled his stocking. He got a set of "dirt diggers", play-doh, truck stickers, a paint book, two fruit rolls, a chocolate Santa Claus, and pecans. He loved the chocolate Santa Claus, and we couldn't convince him to slow down on it. He ate more chocolate that morning than he's probably eaten in his entire life. He was pretty stoked about the pecans when they came tumbling out of the stocking too. If you're not aware, this child loves him some pecans! He likes to have David crack them open, and he'll do almost anything for them.

6) Daniel got to make the traditional coffee cakes with Grandma this year. He loved putting his hands in the flour and did a good job kneading the dough. He also really liked eating the coffee cakes when they were done!

7) My parents always do a nice dinner on Christmas Eve. When we were little it used to be shrimp and steak - "cow steak" to be exact. (We were used to eating deer steak all the time, so cow steak was a big deal!) They've gone a little fancier lately, and Daniel enjoyed his first surf 'n' turf meal of lobster and steak this year. I guess he doesn't realize lobster is a special meal because he asked if I was cooking that for dinner earlier today!

8) Grandpa's popcorn. Grandpa received white cheddar and green chile popcorn for Christmas. I think Daniel ate 1/3 of the bucket. Grandpa let him have some for the car ride home, and we couldn't even make it out of the driveway before he was begging to eat it.

9) Time with Uncle Brian (the one with hair), Aunt Heather, Uncle Josh, Aunt Pam, and Bryson. Since he doesn't get to see that side of the family as much, it's always special. He spent some time taking Bryson's pacifier out of his mouth and then sticking it back in. He seemed fascinated by this! Luckily he didn't lick Bryson this time. When we were visiting them in Roswell, he went to give him a kiss, and when he came up, Bryson's forehead was all wet. Daniel said, "I licked him a little bit" as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Strange kid!

Here's a pic of Grandpa with the two grandsons, followed by a pic of the cutest nephew in the world!

10) I almost forgot the tractor ride! The neighbor brought his tractor over and took Daniel and David for a ride around the block.

11) Gifts from everyone other than Santa included a remote control car, a boat for the tub, and a little piano.

Was this child spoiled or what?

Carol of Lights

We took Daniel to his first Carol of Lights this year. There was really nice weather that Friday, so it was perfect! He got a little tired waiting for the event to begin, but as soon as the speakers started blasting Manheim Steamroller, he shot his hands up in the air with his Texas Tech guns. He was a little mixed up about whether this was a Christmas celebration or a Texas Tech game I think. Anyway, he looked pretty cute with his guns up in the air! He didn't say much, but looked in awe as the Saddle Tramps came by with their flames and especially when he saw Raider Red, Santa Claus, and the Masked Rider! He seemed to like the Christmas carols, but he did ask me if they were going to play the Itsy Bitsy Spider too! Now every time we hear a carol that was played there, he says, "They're playing Texas Tech music!"

After the ceremony David and I were planning to go out with a few friends and Abuela and Abuelo were going to take Daniel home. They had told him that they would drive by the big Christmas tree on their way home so that he could see it. Well, the traffic was bad on that part of campus, so they just decided to go straight home. They were halfway to their house when Daniel said, "Are we going to pass that big Christmas tree yet?" They got caught trying to sneak home without going to the tree! Abuela taught Daniel to say, "No me hagas pato, Abuelo!" which means, "You can't fool me, Abuelo!" They turned around, fought their way through traffic, and actually got out to take pics by the Christmas tree!

South Dakota

Because our trip to Chihuahua went fairly well and because plane tickets to South Dakota are ridiculously expensive, we decided to drive to my cousin's wedding in Chamberlain, SD, in November. That trip was about 1000 miles each way. Daniel added Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota to the list of states he's visited! We stayed in 5 different places in 6 nights! Daniel would ask things like, "Where are we going to sleep tonight?" and "Does Nebraska have beds?" The first night was in Oklahoma, and on our way in to the city, he said, "I'm not really sure if Oklahoma has toys." Always sweatin' the big stuff!

Daniel did pretty well on the drive. I spent almost the whole time in the back seat with him while David drove. Abuelo & Abuela gave him an early Christmas gift - a VTech mobigo - that helped a lot to keep him busy for at least a little bit of the trip. We also spent a lot of time reading books, looking for letters on signs, and singing. Don't get me wrong - Daniel didn't love being in the car for that long. He kept pointing out the window and saying, "Is that out there South Dakota?" He asked fairly frequently while we were driving through Kansas, and we kept saying, "No, baby, that's Kansas." Finally he yelled, "I don't like Kansas!"

He was also kind of confused about how everything worked in the car. I had packed dinner and lunch for us the first day. When it was dinner time, I told Daniel that we were going to eat dinner in the car. He thought about it a minute and then asked, "Did we pack a microwave?" Later when I was peeling an orange for him, he looked at all the orange peels and said, "Did we pack a trash can?" Though it seemed like we had packed half of our house, we actually hadn't brought those few things!

Daniel got to meet Grandma Fox and many of our other relatives from that side of the family for the first time on this trip. He had been looking forward to meeting Grandma Fox, but that may have been because he thought she was actually a fox! She enjoyed coloring with him and sharing blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

It was insanely cold while we were in SD - as in 2 degrees with a wind chill of -15 degrees, as in Daniel would literally scream every time we walked outside. So we spent most of our time indoors. Daniel liked chasing Grandma and Aunt Darcie up and down the stairs and through the halls at the hotel as they exercised. He also liked playing by the pheasants in the lobby. He got to see his first live pheasant at Grandma Fox's house!

The only major meltdown was during lunch one day at the hotel. I judged his sleep schedule incorrectly, making him stay up later than he should have, and he ended up throwing a pretty good-sized fit in front of my family as I carried him upstairs. So fun! I think that's about the time Grandma Fox stopped saying that he was so "well-behaved." Ha!

The wedding was also fun. There were two highlights for Daniel - getting M&Ms aka 'those pink things' from Grandpa and eating a cupcake. He went a little crazy for those sweets...

We were so happy we got to see our family and hope we get to do it again soon!

Chihuahua

We went to Chihuahua in October for the wedding of David's cousin, Marisa. Daniel and I hadn't actually been to Mexico since he was 6 weeks old, so the trip was due! It's about a 9-10 hour trip, so thankfully, my mother-in-law rode with us most of the way. She brought Abuelo's iPhone with puzzle apps and some other cool road trip stuff to make our trip less crazy.

We got to spend some time with his visa-abuela, which was a really nice blessing for David and I (and I would imagine my mother-in-law, as well). I don't know that Ela or Daniel will remember the trip, but I will. He always gets a little freaked out with new people, and it was even harder in Mexico since he doesn't understand Spanish as well as English, but he did okay with Ela. Though he didn't want to sit on her lap or anything, he would point to her and whisper, "That's Ela" to me every time we saw her.

There are usually 50-60 people at our family gatherings in Mexico, so Daniel was probably a little overwhelmed. It was nice to have some quieter time with David's aunt and uncle (Paty y Victor) with whom we stayed. Paty repeated "Paty beautiful" over and over to Daniel to see if he would call her that! Unfortunately, Daniel kept calling her "Ela" (Paty's mother!) Oops! He also got to spend some time with his second cousins, Sofi and Roberto. It was funny to see them play together. A couple times, Roberto asked, "Porque hablas ingles?" (Why are you speaking English?) And Daniel would look at me and say, "He's speaking Spanish!"

Daniel had quite an adventure with Roberto when they took off in the little battery-operated car around the block. He was having a good time and was pretty impressed with Roberto's driving (he kept staring at him, like, "Are you seriously driving us around???").....until they crashed into a tree. Apparently Roberto's not a very good driver yet! Daniel refused to get back into the car, and now when he tells the story, he says, "Roberto CRASHED into a tree, and Daniel cried, 'I want my Mommy!'"

The ride back to Abilene was not so easy since Daniel was pretty worn out from the traveling. Even with Abuela helping in the backseat, he threw a pretty good fit at nap time. Despite that, we hope to go back soon. It's always nice to spend time with family! I'll try to add pics at some point......no promises as to when that might be!

Daniel with Ela, Roberto, & Sofi (the great-grandkids)

Ela's grandkids and great-grandkids

Posting Procrastination

So I need to post pics and stories from our trips to Chihuahua (in October!), South Dakota, and Roswell, but our pictures are a mess. David and I are not good about taking pictures, downloading them, and storing them where they should go. We take occasional pics, but we never know which camera they're on, and we never, ever remember to download them. And I just didn't want to post the stories without the pics because, let's face it, the pics are the best part! So I've been neglecting the blog. I've finally decided that I should just write some of the highlights from our trips down before I completely forget them, and I'll try to go through later and fill them in with pictures. Here goes.....