Merry Christmas!

Our boys enjoying their gifts after Christmas Eve MassGavin (7), Grant (11), Emily (4 mos), Sarah (2)
Camryn (5), Luke (8) and Slade (17 mos)
Christmas at PaPa's
So excited to add another DS game to his collection!

Slade loved the wrapping paper better than his presents...

and that was a-ok with Uncle Steve! ;-)

The guys kickin it outside... doing what they do.

Guess which one's the boss?

Present time!

Let's go racin, boys!

We get together at PaPa's a couple days before Christmas for lunch and day/night of fun. The kids ride and play together until present time. We had such a great visit and it was a blessing to have a healthy baby Emily to snuggle and play with. She's doing very well and we are thankful for that! She's precious and all the kids loved on her; a lot. :-) We spend Christmas day at home playing with those fun gifts and celebrating the reason for the season as well as calling loved ones. Gavin likes talking on the phone. It's his new thing. :-)

Not So Fast, Santa!

Ok, so just for kicks I took Slade to get his pic taken with Santa. That one went over like a lead balloon... I tried it because we have the pics of Gavin. You do it with one kid; gotta do it with the other, right? Ya, Slade's a different cat... He wants what he wants and he also will let you know if he does not like you; I mean something. :-) Ok, the story... the only good thing is we were the only ones there for Santa... and Santa was REALLY nice and patient. The one at Bass Pro Pearland is mean. I wouldn't go there if I were you. The Santa I'm talking about with Slade was First Colony Mall SL. Anyway nice, nice Santa! The best of all time! As soon as Slade figured out what was going on he started doing a growling cry and put the breaks on. Santa suggested I sit next to him in that big ol chair and have Slade sit on my lap. Maybe Slade will come around, right? Wrong! He went into full on hysterical, headbutt crying. The guy was apparently snapping pics anyway while Santa was very calmly talking to Slade. He didn't want anything to do with Santa's bag of tricks. Not the bells, the light up necklace, coloring book... uh, uh! The pic guy was like, "Uh, ya... I don't think he's gonna stop crying. Let me show you what I got, but they ain't good." I looked thinking it's funny when you see the pic of the kid losing it on Santa's lap. The pic guy looks at me and said, "You're not gonna buy that are you?" Slade was all blurry trying to bolt and all you could see was the top of my head because I'm trying to catch him. HILARIOUS! I didn't buy them. So we leave, Santa took a break after that Ortega madness and Slade was still in hysterical breakdown mode as he rode in his stroller while beating on his lil stroller tray and screaming until we got to the food court and he got him a Happy Meal. I had to explain to people that were pointing and some laughing that he had a Santa encounter that went sour... lol

btw, the pic above isn't even our Santa. There were no pics of any sort. I doubt we're even allowed back to the mall after that display. :-/ It's how we roll. The other day Slade did something similar at Big Lots...

Thanksgiving

Slade usually doesn't watch TV. I caught him in action after I had also busted him eating Gavin's Poptart, again...
Gavin and Art have a tradition to decorate/build a gingerbread house over the Thanksgiving holidays. I think they did a great job!
Slade is a busy body! If we don't make sure the closet is closed tight; he will get the broom and mop out and go to town. As shown... He removed all the trash bags from the box and threw them in the garbage can. Makes sense... :-)

Even though Slade has his own set of baby, plastic golf clubs; he prefers Gavin's. This is what he does... He can actually hit the ball quite well. I doubt Art had anything to do with that! ;-) This is Thanksgiving night after returning home from PaPa's. He must have left his pants there...

Gavin and Emily

Emily is Sandra and Rusty's newest precious baby. She is a very good baby and Gavin loves her so much. He now has a baby sister on his Christmas list and if Santa brings him one; he will be in trouble! :-)

We went to PaPa's for Thanksgiving. It was a lovely day. The weather was awesome! Margaret and her family cooked everything; which was great... they're my new heroes! :-) All the food was delish! My dear Aunt Pat and Uncle Ralph joined us as well; which is always such a blessing. We love them dearly and it's such a pleasure to spend time with them. It was also so wonderful to see sweet baby Emily my new niece! She's an angel. She's had a difficult time practically her entire life with her health, but you would never know it because she is so easy going and lovable. Hope to see them again for Christmas and pray her treatment goes well. After lunch PaPa loaded up the kiddos for an awesome hayride! There were so many children with Margaret's grandchildren; each kid had someone around their age to play with. They had so much fun! The Thanksgiving holidays were great for our family. The day after Art and Gavin started to putting Christmas lights up outside as I did the indoor decorating. I also did some online shopping. We do NOT brave shopping over the holiday! No way... I didn't get too many pics, but we did have a great, long holiday weekend! :-)

Happy Halloween!

Gavin and Ashlyn eating their candy and watching TV.

Slade had so much fun trick or treating!

Gavin dressed as Ironman at school for the Book-tacular celebration. Students and teachers dresssed up as their favorite book character and Ironman vs Whiplash is Gavin's favorite book. All that participated took a group picture holding their book. He had a blast!

Gavin throwing bean bags along the way... someone had that set-up in their drive way for kids to play with. Cool huh?!

Gav and Slade playing before trick or treat time.
Captain America and Spiderman!

Every year we dress up our sweet ghouls and goblins and head over to Jack and Amber's for some pizza then trick or treat as a group. Their neighborhood is great. Many decorate, sit outside in costume and a few sometimes go overboard and scare the candy corn out of our kiddos by popping out and chasing them. But hey, it's all in good fun! :-) Chainsaw Grandma took the year off, but his wife was still making balloon animals though. Jason was in full force, but decided not to chase them with his knife this year and there was also a zombie that was waiting for them in a coffin. He popped up and scared the kids after they got their candy. Cool neighborhood!

I'm Walking Over Here!

Slade learned how to walk 2 weeks before he turned 14 months old! He has so much fun and is all over the place. He gets up, takes off and laughs while he walks... so funny! He's so proud of himself and so are we! I caught him on video on my phone. It's shaky bc he's coming towards me; so I kept moving back. Here it is... he's too much. :-)

Ridin'...

This is what Slade does while Gav rides his bike.
So proud of Gavin! He learned how to ride his bike! He picked it up rather quickly too! Once he decided he was ready; he just took off! He's so confident and wants to ride everywhere too. Him and the neighbor learned together... so cute! We're super proud of him! He's so happy! :-)

We went to Baylee's bday party and she has a horse, Lefty. Her dad offered for kids to have a ride. Gav of course was the first to volunteer! He wanted to ride 'ol Lefty all by himself; so there you have it. Gav and Lefty... :-)

Happy Birthday Slade Michael!

Slade's first time on an airplane... did great!
Gav loves on Slade every chance he gets and Slade always pulls the too cool move... ;-)
Gavin with voodoo man on Bourbon St

A shot of the butterfly sanctuary. One of the many exhibits at the Audubon Insectarium Nature Institute
baby Komodo Dragon Gavin was a bit disappointed that he wasn't full grown :-)

That Orangutan had to be hot!

Slade turned one on August 17th. We celebrated by taking a family trip. Big brother Gavin picked our destination, New Orleans! We packed our bags and headed to the Big Easy... :-) We all love it there! Well, we didn't know how Slade thinks about it, but we took Gavin a couple of years ago; so he had the trip all planned out as to the places he wanted to take Lil bro. This was Slade's first experience on an airplane and as you can see from the pic, he did great. He fell asleep before the plane even took off. On the way back he stayed awake and played with a kid sitting behind us and Gavin. :-) After we arrived, got checked in and all that good stuff then, according to Gavin's itinerary; it was off to the Audubon Insectarium Nature Institute. Next, we headed to the Aquarium. Oh and the aquarium is always Gavin's favorite, but now we have 2 fans... Slade, after having Art point telling him fish, repeated and kept saying, "fish, fish, fish..." we are so proud of our little talker; learning new words everyday! That EARLY evening, we took a stroll down Bourbon Street. That was a quick one... Gavin met voodoo man? He was nice. :-)

Day 2: We went to the zoo and man was it hot! But they have those indoor exhibits that save you from falling out; so that's good. Gavin really enjoys the reptile area. Slade just likes to ride in the stroller, be exposed to new things and roll with us! After the zoo we took the street car (I call it a trolley and a soon realized that I was the only one.) we rode that back to our hotel. It was neat and about a 30 minute ride so we were able to get a good look at the city. It was a first for all of us and we really enjoyed it. We also had Gav's favorite, room service here and there and rented some movies at night. It was a great trip and I'm sure Slade loves New Orleans just as much as the rest of us... As I was packing all our stuff, getting ready for check out Gavin asked me, "Mom, when's the next time we can visit New Orleans?" He LOVES it! :-)