Pictures of playing with presents

Santa brought Braden a new "big kid" Razor scooter and brought Garrett a bike.

Kyle gave me a camera with fancy functions like "candlelight."

Family is made by love, not just blood.

(a note to my fellow English nerds: figuring out the commas in this post was difficult, and I'm sure I've screwed some of them up. Oh well.)

We are blessed: we have a HUGE family of people who love, nurture, and care about us, and not all of them are blood related. The short version is that Kyle and I both have divorced parents who have remarried, divorced again, and married again. We explain to people that our kids have five sets of grandparents, and here's the breakdown (in no particular order--we love you each equally).
-Kyle's dad, Geary, and his new bride, Sheri

-Kyle's mom, Linda

-my dad, Scott, and his wife, Janet

-my stepdad, Tom who has been in my life for twenty years (if you just stumbled across my blog, my mom died a year ago)

-Jan, my dad's ex-wife and the mother of my littlest sister, and her husband, Rex. Jan has been in my life for twenty years.

Now for blood siblings:

-my full sister, Linsey (who conveniently dates Kyle's brother, Matt).

-my half sister, Katie

-Kyle's sister, Shawna, her husband, Franklin, and daughter, Taylor

-Kyle's brother Matt (who conveniently dates my sister Linsey)

We also have stepsiblings who are important in our lives.

-Kristen, Tom's daughter, has been my stepsister for almost 18 years. She has three kids (Camden, Morgan, and Mitchell) and a husband (Jeremy).

- Steve, Janet's son, has been my stepbrother for 7 years. He has a beautiful wife, Anne. I would love for them to have a kid soon!!!

-Kevin is Sheri's son who we have only met once, but really liked. He has a wife and a kid on the way.

Grandparents:

-Kyle's maternal grandmother, Otero

-Jan's mom, Ruth (who just moved to Houston from Sun City West, AZ)

-Sheri's parents

So...adding up the members of "immediate" family, I get at least 27 people. That's a lot of love!

If I count the people related by blood, I get 9.

So there you have it, people. Family is made by love, not just blood.

Now, that isn't to say that this family was created without some bumps and bruises along the way. There were certainly some big ones. But, time sure has a way of healing wounds, and love and caring sure can trump anger and hurt. I know several people who are currently struggling with divorces and newly blended families, and I hope this gives you some hope. Things may hurt now, but they won't always. The morning after I learned my parents were getting divorced, I made the announcement to my friends at the bus stop, and one of them told me, "at least you'll get lots of Christmas presents." True. I do, and so do my kids. I'm appreciative, but more important than the gifts are the people who share their lives and love with us.

Here are some family pics from Christmas celebrations of the last few days:

The kids and Tom

Garrett and Linda




The kids and cousin Taylor


The kids and cousins Morgan, Mitchell, Camden (and girlfriend Crystal)


The kids, Jan, aunt Katie, and Ruth


Brothers and sisters

Our little family.

The kids, cousin Taylor, and PaPa Geary

It occurs to me how many people are missing from these pictures. I sure need to make an effort to capture everyone on film (or digital file)! I'll do better!

The BEST NIGHT EVER!!!

...declared Braden after each boy received a phone call from the one, the only....SANTA CLAUS!


Thanks, Linsey, for giving Santa our number. I wish you could have seen the awe and the joy...I wish I had had a video camera with me. His mouth dropped, his eyes bugged out! Too cute!

Folks, if you'd like to give Santa your number, you can do so here: http://www.kroger.com/Pages/default.aspx . Click "Ring in the Season."

Mira Maestra! Este!

Question: What does sheer joy and excitement looks like?
Answer: A busload of kindergartners running wild at a Christmas tree farm on a cold, wintry day!

Kyle and I took off a day of work to chaperone Braden's field trip, do some Christmas shopping, and spend some time together during such a busy time of year. It was a blast!

Here's Braden getting off the school bus. I almost didn't recognize him because he had reversed his reversible coat. I was looking for red; he was in navy.
Kyle became the measuring man. The kids would run wild through the trees shouting, "Mira! Maestra! Este!" (look, teacher, this one!) and all the kids would run to it, Kyle would measure it, and Senora Saenz would discuss (in Spanish, of course) if tree was too big or too little. I'm thankful that Braden was on a Spanish day during the day of the field trip, as it was awesome to watch him listening and responding in Spanish.

Some of the little boys picked up on me calling Kyle by his name, and soon a group of them, with their cute Spanish accents, were yelling "Ky-yle, Ky-yle!"

Question: You know what is impossible?

Answer: Getting a group of kindergartners to pose for a class picture.

Looks like Braden is just about the right size. We'll take him home.

After Jason's dad (el papi de Jason) cut down the tree, all the kids assisted in carrying the tree to the needle shaker and net wrapping machine. Braden's in the back here, not really helping, because he said the needles poked him.

We took a family picture.

The kiddos took their snack on a hayride around the Christmas trees.

What a great day! I'm glad Braden goes to such a wonderful kindergarten, and it was fun to experience it for a day.

Why my purple sweater is in the trash.

It was a beautiful purple sweater
Cowl neck, the perfect fit.
It looked good on me-
Everyone said so.

I loved that sweater.
Brought out the blue in my eyes
Cozy and warm on a cold
wintry day.

It was a beautiful purple sweater.
But one three year old
and a "cowbunga"
off the coffee table
while my back was turned
And the sweater was in shreds.

A visit with Jan

Last Saturday (was that really only a week ago?), the boys and I spent a few hours visiting with Jan. She was going to take them to the movies while I graded papers, but their behavior that morning proved so awful that I had to follow through with my threat of not going to see the movie.

(plus, I kinda wanted to visit with her and put off grading papers for a few more hours).

We tried to take a picture of the three of them, but the boys were in a super-silly mood. Finally, we got a good one, though.

Kindergarten choir performance (alternate title: my kid will not be a professional performer)

Braden's kindergarten Winter Fest performance tonight.You'll have to mute the Playlist player at the bottom of the page to hear the sound of these videos. Enjoy!

Saturday evening, I told Braden how proud I was of him. I told him that I looked at all the kids up there and was so thankful that he was my son. He beamed, then asked me, "is that because I did the best?"

"uh, no. It's cause you are my son, and I love you even when you aren't the best."

Thanksgiving and more...

What a busy Thanksgiving! Linsey and I spent almost all day on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, in mom's kitchen cooking, reliving memories, and catching up. Linsey prepared several casseroles, I made breakfast strudels for Thursday morning and a pumpkin cheesecake, and then for dinner we had another family over for a big chili supper.

On Thanksgiving morning, we woke up eaaaaarly (6 am!), loaded up into the truck, and drove to downtown Houston. We set up camp on the edge of Discovery Green to wait for the Thanksgiving parade (official name: HEB Holiday Parade). At the end of the parade, just before Santa Claus, we saw what we had been waiting for: Taylor and Sheri and the miniature horses! Taylor is the boys' cousin and Sheri is PaPa's wife. How cute are they dressed as Santa's elves? Sheri is a fabulous seamstress. After the parade, we met up with Grandma Scheele and Aunt Shawna...a quick pause for a family picture. Fabulous! Notice the toys the boys are carrying: when we picked up the parking pass from Jan that morning, she slipped Linsey some cash to buy the boys something frivolous...something Kyle and I would never buy them. How sweet of her!Thanksgiving Day was actually very stress-free thanks to great advance planning. I whipped up the cornbread stuffing, we baked the casseroles, the men smoked the ham and turkey, Kristen and family came over with salad and rolls and voila! A beautiful dinner served on our special china. It was our grandmother's china, and mom treasured it very much. Mom would have been so very pleased that we were all together on Thanksgiving and that we all pitched in to create such a beautiful, delicious meal with relative ease.

After the grown-ups ate, we cleared the table for the kids. Here they are chowing on some chocolate pie brought by Kristen. Morgan (the only girl--think she is spoiled?) has a strong aversion to beans. When Linsey placed the pie topped with chocolate morsels in front of her, she wrinkled up her nose and said, "beans?" Assured they were not, she easily cleared her plate.

This afternoon (Friday), Linsey, the boys and I went to Schlitterbahn in Galveston. After 2pm, they have reduced price tickets for their heated, indoor areas. We had a blast! Garrett went down this little frog slide approximately six thousand times. The same slide is in the kiddie pool at Adamson's Lagoon and he will NOT go down it. What a change a few months make!

We had a blast in the river!

This pirate ship in the kids area was our home base for the afternoon. Doesn't the brotherly love make you smile?

All in all, this Thanksgiving was wonderful. Special times spent with special people. New experiences. Two very sweet little boys. My heart is warm.

Lessons from Sunday School

Braden made this in Sunday school today. It's two figures (you know, where you fold a piece of paper in half and cut out the outline and voila! two figures holding hands. Apparently the lesson was on friends ("loving our friends," Braden says) and Braden chose to depict himself and his little brother. My favorite part is that the outfits are accurate: this is what the boys wore to church today (only the pants were not pulled up to their armpits).

Happy Halloween!

So, I wanted this picture to go at the end, but as those of you who use Blogger know, moving pictures around is a huge pain.

So, I'll start with the end. Even Kyle got into the Halloween Spirit! Here he is (pretending to look at something else so that his face doesn't have to be in the picture) wearing the Spiderman shirt the boys picked out for him. They thought their dad was VERY cool. Kyle didn't feel quite so cool. I sure appreciate him for wearing the shirt just to make the boys happy!

Halloween began early this morning, when Braden woke me up at 7:15 asking if it was time to put on his costume.

About 5:30 we began our preparation for our evening of trick-or-treating. First order of business: make jack-o-lantern pizzas. As you can see, the kids had a blast creating their own pizzas.

They even ate every bit of their pizza!

Then, time to get dressed. Scariest costume: Braden!

Cutest costume: Garrett (this is a flying dragon, in case you can't tell). This picture was one of the only two seconds that Garrett wore the headpiece all night.

My two-little trick-or-treaters (and the other second of headpiece wearing).

Our good friends Courtney and Johnny walked over with their baby Yoda. How cute is he? Oh, I could have kissed those sweet baby cheeks all night!

We all walked down the street to meet the annual neighborhood hay ride. As usual, the boys had a blast. It really hit me what a big kid Braden has become. He was always one of the first to jump off the trailer and run to the door. Garrett was a real trooper, even if he mostly just wanted to stay on the hay ride and eat the candy.

And now, off to bed to enjoy an extra hour of sleep! I wonder if Garrett will let me...

Laughing baby Jack

On Saturday night, my friend Courtney and her baby Jack dropped by to visit. My boys loooooove baby Jack, especially Garrett. Jack loooooooved my boys and laughed his little baby head off at them; it was just so darn funny.

I tried to get good video of Jack laughing, but I was using my picture camera not my video camera. You can hear lots of noise other than Jack's laughing--me telling Garrett to get him to laugh, the radio, etc. Even so, I think it is pretty cute.

Tellin' Stories

Tonight, the boys and I were snuggled up making up stories. I started the story like this:
"Once there was a silly little frog named Kerplunk. Kerplunk was named Kerplunk because he looooooved splashing in rain puddles making kerplunk sounds. One day it rained lots and lots and the whole street was full of rain puddles. Kerplunk was sooooooo excited that he went hopping down the road kerplunking in all the puddles..."

I passed the story on to Garrett who said, "and then, Kerplunk ran into a car and it smooshed him and he died."

(should I be worried about this kid, or what?)

Garrett's Day with Daddy!

Garrett went to work with Daddy today, and he is going to help me write a story about his day:

He says he did, "nuffing."

Let me try again. With some questioning by me, here's the story Garrett told me:

"Garrett went with Daddy to the farm. At the farm, Garrett saw chicks and they were babies. The chicks were yellow and people get to hold them. Garrett hold them seven times. No, eight times. Garrett saw pigs. There weren't any more pigs. It was pink and it walked and he sometimes gets to catch them and bring them home. Then, he ropes the pig and the pig drinks water. There are more pigs that drink water and even one is sleeping in the front of the cage. Garrett saw the pigs' cage today. The cage was pink. At the farm, Garrett got a cookie. It has sprinkles and sprinkles that are colors and pigs. Pigs on the cookies. Pigs on cookies taste yucky. No! Not yucky. They taste good. It has little brown sprinkles." ("little brown sprinkles" is apparently really funny to Garrett because he repeated it, giggling, several times).

Sounds like a nice day to me!

Cake Thief! (or GrandTom's 65th birthday)

GrandTom was here yesterday celebrating his 65th birthday with us. The boys were ecstatic, as always, that GrandTom was here, and were really happy to be able to help make him a cake. After the cake baked and cooled, I was ready to frost it. I turned one of the round cakes over onto a large plate, leveled the top with a knife, and opened the frosting. Kyle had bought a delicious-looking can of whipped cream cheese frosting, but when I opened it, I discovered that it had clearly been stored above the 80 degrees recommended on the label. It was a yellowy, oily, deflated mess. New icing was desperately needed, so Braden and I headed off to the store for more icing (and ice cream!). We left Garrett playing quietly in his room and Kyle and Tom contentedly watching TV on the couch.

When Braden I came home, this is what I discovered:

I shrieked for Garrett, who came in the kitchen looking all sheepish. I picked him up, pointed at the cake, and said, "did you do this to GrandTom's cake?"

Noooo, Garrett shook his head, and then pointed at Braden. Yeah, right! By this time, Kyle and Tom had joined us in the kitchen and we were all having a difficult time smothering our laughter.

Kyle took Garrett into his room and put him in time out in the corner. Here's where I found him a few minutes later:

And here's where I found Cali, snorting up the cake crumbs from the carpet. Look carefully, and you'll see little pieces of black cake all over the carpet.

Here's Garrett snuggling up to GrandTom telling him sorry for eating the cake.

And here is the cake. It is probably the ugliest cake I've ever made (I ran out of frosting!). The chocolate ribbons on top are brownie icing that I spontaneously bought because it looked so good. I was picturing drizzles of chocolate. Not quite. Tom wanted nuts, so we added chopped pecans to the top.

Here's GrandTom blowing out the candles with a little help from the kids.

Here's Braden enjoying the cake (gosh, he loves posing for pictures!).

And here is the picture that Garrett insisted on taking of the cake.

We love you, GrandTom and are very thankful that you came to celebrate with us!

Pumpkin Patch!