Monday, December 27, 2010

A visit from the Baezans!

My good friend, Iris, whom we met while we were briefly stationed in Missouri for Leevi's Captain's Career Course, was in town visiting her family for Christmas. She laughs because I introduced her as my friend from Missouri when she is really German and from Germany. Her parents live only about 20 minutes from us so we were so glad that we got to get together on three different occasions over her time here. I was pregnant with Hailey when we waitressed together at the Audie Murphy Club and our husbands were in the same Career Class together (that is also where we met the Stampfers). Long ago before either of us had children we would get our first babies together for doggie playdates. Our spoiled pups would go on long walks together and have playdates every Sunday at the dog park...I'm sure they miss those days of being the only child! :) I looked for a picture of Leila and Charlie together but couldn't find one. The last time Iris and Vic saw Hailey, she was less than two weeks old and now almost 5 years later we have two kids and Iris is pregnant with her second! We had hoped that our military paths would cross again and it's most likely that they will be heading to Germany also within the next few years!



Vic, Hailey, Manuel, Kailee, Iris (Leevi couldn't make the long walk on his crutches! Only two more weeks for him to hobble around!) Walking in a winter wonderland!


They did more playing at the park then sledding but it was still fun!


Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! (Hailey is peeking in the window)
A goodbye note from Snowy, Stuffed stockings, the tree, and the snow!Checking out the loot...Hailey has a scooter coming that hasn't arrived yet along with about 5-6 other packages! Kailee's favorite present of the day was her new Balance Bike (it doesn't have pedals) and Hailey's was her new Leapster gaming system!Playing in the tent with their new lanterns and remote control Strawberry Shortcake cars, Hailey with her Barbie from Santa, Leila and her Christmas bone, and Kai opening presents(the Barbie toothbrush next to Kailee could have been her only present of the day and she would have been just as happy!)Ready for Christmas dinner with our neighbors!The snow shoveled path from the Quichochos and Minaudos to our house...Christmas dinner...we celebrated with a potluck dinner with 7 families (all could walk over except for two). The food was great and the kids (11 under the age of 7!) were all so well behaved! Rebecca and I hosted and combined our houses for the party (we joked that we should just recut the hole in the wall were our houses once connected for a family that had 6 kids!) I hosted the appetizers and desserts and we went to her house for the main dinner! Caught with her hand in the candy jar! Loving their Treehouse tent from Santa
Trying out the Crayola Quick and Easy Face Paint...very, very, very cool! It it concept of a tattoo but with paint. It's not messy and very easy to apply! The girls tried out the Mermaid face first and we still have a kitty, unicorn, princess, fairy, butterfly and a few others to do!


Christmas Eve

We had a busy Christmas Eve...the Secret Santa party in the morning, cleaning the house all day to get ready for the Christmas Dinner party, playing in the snow, Christmas Eve church service, and opening a few presents!


Making Santa's cookies...you'll see this "teapot" pose that prevents amputee pictures for the rest of the Christmas photos!Spreading the reindeer food after church
Presents from Grandma and Grandpa Bryant before bedI told Hailey I had to retake the picture because her eyes were closed and this is what I got...
Santa's cookies and carrots for the reindeer, Saying goodbye to Snowy who was waiting for Santa on our tree star, and crashed waiting for Santa

Secret Santas

We had a Secret Santa exchange with our neighbors...for the three days leading up to our party, we snuck small gifts in each other mail boxes and then got together on Christmas Eve morning to do our gift exchange and some crafts. We made two ornaments and some reindeer food to sprinkle on our lawns that night!

Our Gingerbread House

I'm way behind on blog posts so I'll start where I left off and continue through the day after Christmas! Keep checking back...hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We got our White Christmas (as did most everyone else it seemed!!!)

I was concentrating on getting the gingerbread house together but had to keep an eye on Kailee at the same time to keep her from eating all of the candy and icing!
My amputees...I feel bad even posting this picture but Hailey looks like a double amputee from the way she was posing with her arms behind her back. She opted for the "I'm a little teapot" pose to do something with her hands and then Kailee ended up being "just a head" The finished product in the kitchen window...Snowy came to check it out that night!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Snow Days

We had a few inches of snow each night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (and it's snowing again right now on Monday....we better have a White Christmas!) The snow didn't become good packable snowman snow until Sunday so we played at the park and made snowangels until then. Rebecca's camera takes 300 pictures per second so I had to create collages to minimize the amount of pictures! :)

At the park
We piled up snow for a small sledding hill on Friday! We should have done it again on Sunday because I'm certain it could have gotten massive!
Waiting for her turn...

Of course the mommies had to try it out!
The Christmas mouse (this was as big as a snowball you could make on Friday but by Sunday it had snowed again and it was GREAT snowman making snow!The Giant Snowpeople family! The bottom of the Snowmom on the left was supposed to be the middle for the Snowdad on the right but we couldn't lift it! The snow packed on so easily we could roll a snowball that large in about 5 minutes! We rolled until we couldn't push it anymore! My back is really sore today! :) Who needs the gym, just build a snowman! They had to be about 7 feet tall (it rained later that night so it was a snowpeople massacre by the morning!
The little kids went inside but the big kids (Rebecca and I) stayed out and had a little too much fun posing our Snowfamily (the picture on the top left is me showing Hailey in the window the Snowbaby in the car...of course she is stripped down to her underwear!)

Dress Up




Sunday, December 19, 2010

Still trying...

This will have to do for now but I'm still working on getting the "perfect" picture of the girls in front of the tree...(I added this picture to a collage from http://www.picnik.com/ they have REALLY cute stuff!!!)Most of the "photo shoot" resulted in pictures like these below... hahaha...I really like this oneCute but blurry....I've added our Christmas card for this year because I wanted it on here so it would be documented in the blog book. I didn't think I could top last year's card because I loved the layout and the redeployment pictures but I do love this new one...poor Leila didn't make this years' card because I had so many ones I likeD of the girls at the Heidelberg Castle. I love that it captured Kailee's cheesey smile and I didn't fight her on having her baby in the picture because the baby obsession is such a big part of her life right now...we NEVER leave the house without one. 2009And I finally thought to make one for our first Christmas 2002...we didn't send out Christmas cards that year because we were married only 5 days before Christmas....in those "olden days" we didn't have digital wedding pics so I had to wait almost a whole month before they arrived! :) I like to display our Christmas cards from years past so now that I have this my collection is complete (and still growing!)