Molly's Baptism

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We were so fortunate that Kerry and Jeremy arranged to have Molly baptized at my parent's church while they were here so that all of us could attend:) I have the honor of being her Godmother (I think my sister's both feel sorry for me living in testosterone land and let me the surrogate Momma for each of my girls!!!) Sunday morning, bright and early, we headed to the church. Let me tell you...getting 15 of us out the door on time was no easy task but we were successful and even a little early!!! The Baptism was perfect and Molly was awesome...she barely cried (but did fill her pants quite nicely right as we were heading to the water with no time for a quick change!) She was the only baby getting baptized and the priest really did a wonderful job in making the entire mass all about Molly:) In lieu of a party...we all headed home to change and Kerry and Jeremy treated us all to see Yogi Bear! We took up an entire row, the kids ALL behaved and everyone enjoyed treats and a good movie together:)

Christmas...part 2!

Click the top picture for a peek of the fun we had:)

After the opening of Santa, we let the kids play for awhile then headed to my parents for an evening event with EVERYONE present:) Kerry and Jeremy came with Molly (she had her first of many to come plane rides!!!), Kelly and Chris were there with Emma (and stayed the night giving everyone a HUGE laugh the next morning with Emma's morning hairdo!!!) and DJ and Christy arrived right as we did:) We were all beyond spoiled and had such a good time opening present after present after present after present! We are very lucky to have received everything we could've dreamed of and then some:) Craig and the boys got to meet Molly and she is such a trooper (she even let Craig run around playing Laser Tag while holding her!!!) Another highlight was seeing Emma as...she's walking:) She was absolutely precious toddling around like Herman Munster and quite enjoyed herself trying to constantly bug Luke and steal his toys. A family game of Hot Potato concluded our evening of fun and all three boys were thrilled beyond words that everyone was there playing with them and giving them so much attention!!! Now the question is...where am I gonna out all these new toys?!?!?!

Santa came!!!

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6:30am sharp we discovered that we did in fact make the good list...Santa came!!! The boys were thrilled to see their loot under the tree with Brian happily shouting "There's like a thousand presents!!!" All of their wishes came true with everything they asked for being checked off of their lists!!! Luke got his "Mickey dance", Matt got his K'Nex roller coaster, Brian got his Madden 11 for the Wii and Laser tag for all of them turned out to be a HUGE hit...with even Craig running around the house shooting the boys in a giant war:) I can only imagine their excitement when they get to my parents tonight and see all of the gifts from their Aunt's, Uncle's and Gaga/Papa:)

Christmas Eve

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Christmas Eve was low key and PERFECT! The day started with the boys acting like Christmas crazed maniacs and Craig threatening to not go to bed so that Santa can't come and the mood quickly turned for the better:) Zippy (our resident elf) surprised the boys with an early gift off the sleigh...a new trampoline net, already put together! This was super exciting as my three goons had destroyed ours when they decided to make their own door back in October and have been banned from the trampoline ever since:) Luckily we got some early morning jumping in as the day turned nasty and poured rain for six hours. The bummer of this was the cancellation of our Christmas tradition dinner...campfire hot dogs and smore's :( but will be rescheduled for as soon as Luke is recovered enough to eat it!!! Thankfully we live extremely close to some awesome Chinese take-out! Opening the gifts the boys bought each other, movie time, checking out Christmas lights, feeding the reindeer, cookies for Santa as well as a thank-you card for the big guy topped off our night:) The boys all went to bed claiming they wouldn't be able to sleep but as you can see if you click the pictures...there was no problems there!!!

Cookies for Santa

On Thursday night, we went to a Cookies for Santa party:) The kids had a ball with their friends rolling, cutting, baking and decorating TONS of "yummy" treats for the big guy! It was a super fun evening and we made it home with a huge tray of BEAUTIFUL cookies:)

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We know...I'm a GIANT sucker:)

Click to see how skinny the poor guy is :(

So the boys and I took some Christmas treats to the local pound for the doggies without families for Christmas and BIG surprise I fell in love with the sweetest boy...a clone of my Mia, complete with self-induced vet bills! (He managed to lick away all of his sutures from his neuter, resulting in a second surgery and three different ongoing medications!!!) "Wilbur" (as in the AZ Wildcat) is a roughly 3 year old yellow lab that was found running the streets. He is severely underweight (even though he currently weighs 91 lbs.) and in desperate need of some TLC (all things we can do!!!) When I sat down to meet him, he rested his GIANT head on my shoulder and I was hooked! Craig and I figured he'd be a good playmate for "Tex" who is also pushing 90 lbs. (although he is only 9 months old!) and all of us our completely in love with this gentle giant, even Ally & Tex:) The best part is he came trained...he can sit, stay, lie down, retrieve a ball and seems to be potty trained:)

We're halfway there!!!

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School is halfway over....thank the Lord! This waking up every morning is killing me...I feel like I barely get to bed and that stupid alarm is going off! All three boys had such fun last days of school:) Lukey ended on Tuesday with a Holiday sing-along, games and crafts, a present exchange with his class and a pizza party! He had an absolute blast and shocked me when he actually stood up in front of everyone and sang his little Christmas song:) Matt and Brian ended on Friday with jammie day and parties! Craig and I had to tag team them since I have discovered that as hard as I may try...I simply cannot be in two places at once:) Both boys had fun decorating cookies and cupcakes, playing games and making presents for Mom & Dad. I am just giddy that not only are they out of school for the next two weeks...I get a two week break from school as well:)

Next up...Christmas, Molly's Baptism and Luke's surgery (sounds like busy days ahead!!!)

A Fun, Chilly Weekend in San Antonio!!!

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We are so lucky to live so close to so many fun things and this weekend decided to meet Aunt Kel, Uncle Chris and Emma in San Antonio for a mini getaway! We had so much fun with all of the kids!!! On Saturday we met at the hotel, got checked in and bundled up (of course we picked the weekend of a nasty cold front!!!) to head to Six Flags Christmas festival. Emma got to ride her first rides and seemed to enjoy everything but the carousel:) The park spends a month closed decorating and we were not let down...there were so many light absolutely everywhere and all of us had a fantastic time!

On Sunday we all got up and headed to one of my absolute favorite places... the Japanese Tea Gardens. If I could ever get "remarried" (to Craig of course) and have the big celebration again... it would be here. It is the most beautiful, peaceful place in the world and as soon as you walk in you completely forget you are standing in the middle of downtown San Antonio. The kids a ball going under and over waterfalls, climbing endless trails and watching the massive koi fish. I had a blast watching Aunt Kel try to maneuver the stroller in all of these places:)

After the Japanese tea Gardens, we headed across the street to the zoo. Craig and I have heard so many times that the San Antonio Zoo is amazing and is actually ranked the third best zoo in the nation but we've never made it there. Boy have we been missing out...this was the best zoo I have been to! You are right up in the face of each animal, they have all authentic lands (like a stroll through Africa) and quite possibly the coolest kiddie land I have ever seen! This place beat all of the children's museums I have ever been to!!! They have a multiple areas of which all are designed to get kids outside and have fun. There was a farm area, complete with live chickens laying eggs, a riverbank with a man made stream and sandy beach for the kids to wade in in warm weather, a camping area, complete with a campfire and tent to play with, an indoor learning center with a "fishing" stream (and of course Luke managed to fall in it!), a baby play area and a crawl out tunnel that takes you right into the heart of the prairie dogs exhibit and my kids favorite area...the park. The sign outside says "Go wild, be a kid" and my boys did just that! They had races against Uncle Chris and Daddy, wrestled up and down the hills, played with Emma in the grass and made a boy pyramid on top of Daddy!!!

We were sad to see our fun weekend come to end and excited to see Aunt Kel, Uncle Chris and Emma in two weeks for Christmas!

Our First SUCCESSFUL House!

For the past four years I have dropped $10-20 on a gingerbread house kit and for the past four years, we have ended up throwing the collapsed house in the garbage within hours (or even minutes) making my $10-20 investment a total waste of money! I was not surprised when my boys asked to make another house, but came up with a plan to make it work:) That's right...I hot glued my house together!!! The boys played hookey and we built our house...seven glue sticks later we had a standing house for the boys to happily decorate! The finished product turned out so pretty I think I might like to live in it:)

WHEW...What a busy few days!!!!

Click for pics of our crazy busy few days!!!

Christmas season is in full swing in the Rose household! The house is decorated, the lights are up (and look fantastic I might add!!!), the tree is up (and finally decorated!!!) and Zippy...our family elf, has been coming every night and leaving treasure hunts for the boys! The past few days have been beyond busy, with me falling into bed each night hoping I remembered to do everything:)

We kicked off December with a visit to see who else...Santa!!! December 1, with no exceptions, we met Daddy at the mall to make sure we told Santa in plenty of time what we need for Christmas!!! Luke is on a HUGE Santa kick (about as BIG as his Mickey kick!!!) and was downright giddy to meet him:) After buying our ridiculously expensive picture, we headed to the food court for dinner and ice cream before falling into our beds, dreaming of Santa and his elves busy making what we asked for!!!

This weekend is when the true craziness started...Saturday began with Daddy's IBM Family Christmas Party at his office. We got our faces painted, had balloon animals made, went to a petting zoo, played in the jumping castles, watched Mr. Puppet's show and ate more hot dogs, chips, popcorn and ice cream then we needed:) Afterwards we headed out on some of my errands (which took MUCH longer than necessary with the WHOLE family along) and got the boys new sneakers (Daddy got to discover I'm not lying when I tell him how expensive decent kids shoes are!!!) and finally ended our day with pizza and football.

On Sunday we headed to Church where Brian got to be an usher this week. Each RE grade level takes turns performing the different jobs and this week was 1'st grade's turn. Brian took his role very seriously, even using hand gestures to order people around during communion:) Once we got home we made a mad dash into "get wet" clothes so we could head to the annual snow day in our neighborhood! This is a super fun event that is funded by our HOA dues in which they bring in tons of snow to a hill on the golf course and provide sleds, hot chocolate and cookies to everyone. The kids have an absolute blast sledding and having snowball fights with all of the kids in the neighborhood:) It's even more fun now that they are in school and actually know lots more kids! Once we got home, I made yet another quick change in order to make it on time to a cookie exchange I had to go to...that's right, last night after pizza and football I got to make 12 dozen cookies!!!

I mentioned we had an exhausting last few days...right?!?!?!