The TEN Days of Christmas!

Day 1: Aguilar Christmas Girl's Party: Stockings!
Day 2: Asylum Christmas Party: StarWars!
Day 3: Christmas at the Lodge: Santa!
Day 4: Dinner with the Whartons: Play!
Day 5: Christmas at Granna's: Books!
Day 6: Christmas Eve Eve at Church: Candles!
Day 7: Christmas Eve at Uncle Frank's: Late!
Day 8: Breakfast with the Wards: Cousins!
Day 9: Lunch with Mima: Twins and Thomas!
Day 10: Dinner with the Hampens: Wall-E!

Next year? Who knows.

A Few of My Favorite Things

New Ring. New Friend.New Toy.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Christmas #3

In attempting to truly celebrate Christ on and at Christmas, we visit a man named Santa once a year at my dad's lodge and he gives the kids a gift. This solves a lot of problems for us and makes the kids happy : ) Plus - we get to watch a pretty fun magic show and spend some quality time with my dad and my poppa. Aurelia received a fun pizza balancing game that she and Ezra have adapted to make it easier (even I had trouble!!) It's been a lot of fun.
Ezra was given some paper and crayons (staples in our home, so a GREAT gift that will keep giving -- for a while at least).
Oliver, in a fun twist, decided not to exhibit his stranger anxiety and sat (curiously) on Santa's lap! We were so surprised and got quite a few pictures, but I liked this one where he was looking at a smiling Santa (this guy was a real sweetie!)

I have to say (those of you who don't care can skip over this part) how proud I was of Aurelia this year. She sat so prettily with her head held high and she laughed in all the right parts and was fun to watch. She participated for a few minutes in the fun until she realized that the magician's silliness made the kids laugh (at her she thought!) and she opted out. I was proud that once she realized what she had given up (a part in the fun and a balloon animal!!) she didn't get mad or throw a fit - next year maybe she won't get embarrased and she'll be able to do those whole trick.

Anywho - we had a good time. Thanks for this fun annual treat, grandy! Love you!

New duds

Thanks, Angela, for being such a sweetie and buying the kids dress-up clothes. Aurelia wore her new dress four days in a row. It's in the wash now and she'll probably wear it again tomorrow!


Aurelia forged a friendship with Angela at our local library. Angela lets Aurelia help her put the books away and is reinforcing all sorts of skills when she does. I so appreciate just that she let's Aurelia help, but in turn, I guess, Aurelia means a lot to her.So much that she asked if she could buy Aurelia a fun and fluffy dress for Christmas. Beyond that - she bought the boys little man-suits too!! I'm so overwhelmed by her generosity. (I'm open to any ideas on how I can show her how grateful we really are.)

Hey, Arnold!

Thanks, L&T, for sharing your cabin with us! We had a great time up in Arnold last week, just Mima, me and the kids! We arrived late Wednesday night and spent the rest of the week exploring the area. First we went to Big Trees and wandered in,through, on,under over and around the fanstastic stumps and trees there (but boy was it chilly!! brrr!). Friday we spent the day in Murphys. It was a breath-takingly beatiful day for swinging, sitting by the river, and pic-nicing at the park, reading stories, eating ice-cream, and buying shoes! An odd thing happened: a sweet, leather-clad gentleman followed us into the shoe store and gave me $20 to "put in the kids' stockings." Very odd, but very sweet - Thanks, guy!

Saturday (After Ezra threw up in the car on the wind-ey way to -- I guess breakfast didn't sit too well in the warm car on that curvey road!) we spent some time at Columbia where we climbed rocks, dipped candles, visited the museum, took a wagon ride and were almost robbed! We ate lunch, had some leather keychains made, and panned for gold! The "gold" guy, John, gave Aurelia "lessons" and helped her find REAL gold. He was so sweet! He also gave both kids a nice piece of orange citrine to put in their vials, and a big piece of crystalline gold (iron pyrite) too! And when we thought we'd lost Ezra's blue egg rock, he gave us another one just in case. That really made our trip to Columbia extra special! Finally we drove home. It was good to see daddy again and share with him all our great memories -- and now we get to share them with you!

Thanks and a Whole Lot More!

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving Day with food and family in proportion to your tastes. This year my family of five joined most of the Aguilar family at my uncle Frank's house to enjoy THREE turkeys (one oven-baked, one BBQed, and one deep fried!) There was SO much food even we couldn't finish it all. Best of all, we had a great time with family. Here are some photos of the day. I'm SO bummed that my group photos came out blurry (don't blame me!) but it's the memory that really matters so, no big deal! Aurelia and Mikey being cats. Meow!

Gramma Sama and Oligator.

Mima's little turkey (hat) and Aurelia.

Yummy fingers, Ezra.

Jason and Frankie - cathcing up after two years!!



The guys.

The kids.

The ladies!

I love Christmas Time!

Now, I know we haven't had Thanksgiving day, yet, but we've been "celebrating" Thanksgiving all this month making signs and posters and drawings of what we're thankful for and turkeys - so many tukeys (Ezra even gobbled his way to bed today) . . . we've even eaten turkey with all the yummy sides at Aunty Kitty's (I love being a guinea pig!)

So - we're ready for Christmas - or at least, Ezra is!

We went to the grocery store to get "last minute" turkey day food needs and I bought some marshamllows (for Rocky Road), and now that it's finally winter weather (sort of) Aurelia decided that we needed some chocolate caliente con marshmallows with lunch. While we waited for the water to heat up, Ezra began singing "I love Christmas! I love Christmas!"

I love Christmas too! Bring on the holiday music! It's "Christmas" time!

New Skillz

Oliver's been busy! This week he worked on his crawling skills and finally perfected them! He's now using opposite hands and knees to crawl along (that means he'll be a good reader, right, Beca?) and then, since we spent so much time praising his new skill, he figured he might as well wow us and show us how he can clap and say "yay!" too! He now claps for himself, saving me the trouble (just kidding! He's so cute that I gotta cheer too!) Isn't it amazing how it's still so cute even though he's the third one? I think so!

So - here he is crawling (good thing I just swept!)

And here he is clapping! YAY!

I guess the real trouble now is keeping things off the floor (he does like to try new foods!) and keeping a third eye out for where he's going (oh wait! I don't have one of those!! what will I do? Looks like it's time to send Aurelia to school!)

In other news: Aurelia is hard at work practicing her reading skills and is almost ready to read a book to you online, and we're working on long vowels and *gasp!* four-letter words (not THOSE kinds! sheesh!). Ezra has learned two fun new phrases 1. "You're being RUDE!" and 2. "Don't do that ever again!" The first he used when he didn't want to pick up his toys, and the second was after I had spanked him (yes, we do use corporal punishment in this house - take it up with the management if you don't like it) for getting out of bed (for the seventh time!!). I had a good laugh (but not in his presence) and, matter of fact, am laughing now. Good times; good times.

So - we're looking forward to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with family we call friends, and hope that you are too! God bless and keep smiling!

All Aboard!

Thanks, Gramps Herzog, for the very cool train table and train set! We sure are enjoying it!!

Great Gramps, learning that Ezra is *obsessed* with trains -- and being a train lover himself -- so sweetly made Ezra a train table (that folds up and rolls away! double bonus!) and supplied it with a tunnel, a station and a four car train! So you know Ezra was so excited! The first morning it kept him enthralled for a full hour -- and then mommy called a "train-break" for breakfast and then half an hour later, the train was back on -- it's been that way ever since - it's not off long before it's back on again! What a neat gift!Aurelia thinks it's pretty cool too!

And here's Oliver! Check out his new 'do! Yup - we cut his hairs down and he looks as slick as a snail, now! Woo-Woo!

Oliver's Got the Groove!

He's not "crawling" yet, but he's certainly moved past the rocking and rolling stage -- he's onto scooting if he's got the right kind of motivation. Weighing in at just under 22 lbs, this kid isn't all muscle, but he's on his way!

Did your vote count?

Aurelia and Ezra had a lot of fun placing their votes into the ballot box last Tuesday - Aurelia voted 5 or 6 times!

"Whoops! Can I take that one back??"

Even Oliver was feeling patriotic!

Smell My Feet!

So - we don't trick or treat on Halloween, but we sure do plan some fun! We carve pumpkins (as previously posted), paint our faces, pack treat bags for trick or treaters, pop corn, eat candy, and watch a movie (tonight it will be a Casper the Friendly Ghost movie). Don't these bags look like a delightful treat?? We've packed them full of stickers, playdough, "creepy bugs", a festive pencil and candy. Ezra's dino-face has smeared off and Aurelia's wearing a bird that matched her leotard this morning (which she wore to gymnastics).

Enjyo your evening and make it a safe one!

Six Cheesy Little Pumpkins

Somehow Tuesday slipped past without us pulling out the saftey knife - so here are the next four creations in our pumpkin carving endeavors. Tonight Jason will carve the final face and we'll post the picture later. Hey - see my giant zuchinni in the back?? Well, we cooked some of it . . "Say Cheese!" and boy, do they know how!

Carving out some fun!

If you are a follower of this particular blog, you will know that we have, now, nine pumpkins in our possession. So, to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the fun, we decided to do a little carving today and a little carving in a couple of days and a little more some days after that and perhaps a final pumpkin on Hallowe'en. SO here are our first attempts. Aurelia didn't mind the muck this year and Ezra is SO proud of his pumpkin's lopsided grin. Read on, dear friends, and enjoy the macabre -- just kidding.

Ezra designing his pumpkin's face.

Aurelia drawing on her Jack.

Here's the first cut of the year! Aurelia was all smiles!

These pumpkins from the Smith Farms did not have much gunk inside - so that was a nice treat, but they also had really big, juicy looking seeds. YUM! Aurelia did almost all of her own carving, but her hand did get tired after a while, so I helped to finish it up. I'll have to post a photo of the finished product later, though, because I didn't get one somehow!! There's actually a story to that - but it doesn't need to be printed here.

Ezra was so cute when he helped me cut the parts. First he told his little pumpkin, "Here you go, pumpkin. We cut your hair." Then, "We cut your eye out, pumpkin, so you can see!" etc. . . for each, and finally the last ear: "Now you can hear, pumpkin!" I love two year olds!! Doesn't he look proud! This pumpkin is now a part of our family and must sit with us on the kitchen table. I hope he doesn't smell too much when he rots . . .