Christmas 2011

We had an absolutely fabulous Christmas!  Katie and Jack eagerly counted down the days with their Advent Calendars and a paper chain Katie made at school.  Every morning in December they searched until they found our little Elf on the Shelf, Elfie.   The mere mention of Elfie and behaviors in the kitchen would improve (briefly!).  We have loved our evening drives to look and Christmas lights and we did not miss an opportunity to see Santa as much as possible.  Katie loved that each time he seemed to know her name.  Katie received a video message from Santa and a letter delivered by Elfie!

Mom and Fred arrived Christmas Eve afternoon and Fred started the turkey smoking!  The smell invaded our neighborhood all afternoon and well into the evening I am sure making the neighbors envious of our Christmas dinner.  Andy and Mom took the kids to the Christmas Eve service at First United Methodist where Katie participated as an Angel in the service.  Luke tried to participate as well and there goes Nana up the aisle after him!

After the kids were tucked into bed and the Santa preparations were taken care of Mom, Fred, Andy & I sat down to a lovely Christmas (Eve) dinner!  We had smoked turkey, cornbread stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts and a cranberry & almond salad.  We rounded off the evening with chocolate pie and eggnog!

Christmas morning was fantastic.  Luke bunked in with Jack and after having a little bit of a restless night, he was woken by Jack promptly at 7 when his light came on.  We were upstairs waiting, got the boys ready to head down stairs and quickly went into Katie.  For a girl who normally does not like to be woken, she perked up quickly with the anticipation was what might be waiting down stairs.

All three were very pleasantly surprised by their Santa gifts on display at the bottom of the stairs.  Katie ask for and received a Barbie camera and was surprised by a new scooter.  Jack has been asking for a Mack truck from the Cars movie since July, but after seeing the Cars race track that Santa also brought, Mack was not as exciting.  Luke equally loved the Cars race track and both boys have spent hours since playing with it.  Luke was very unselfish this year and did not ask Santa for anything, so Santa took it upon himself to bring Luke a red car he can be pushed around the neighborhood in (and might also be good for trip to the zoo!).  All three kids love this item and have taken turns pushing and being pushed all around the house (we had a lot of rain on Christmas day) and out on the drive way.

We had a hard time getting the boys to move past the Santa gifts, so Katie helped everyone empty their stockings and we eventually made it to unwrapping presents.  But as I am typing this on the 29th of December, we still have unwrapped presents under the tree.  The kids got a little overwhelmed by the number of packages and have decided to take a break.

Uncle Adam arrived later in the morning and we got to open more presents and bring out the leftovers from the previous night's dinner!  Then we were left as a family of 5 again.  We spent the afternoon in the play room listening to the rain and going through all the new toys.  Me trying to find a place to put everything and the kids pulling it all back out!  After loading the kids up again with more turkey everyone was put to bed with visions of sugar plums (or more likely little turkey legs) dancing in their heads!

This was our best Christmas yet, each year the kids get more fun and being a family of 5 this year was fantastic as Luke got to fully participate in all the activities!

We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Meme & Papaw on New Year's Eve when we will do Christmas all again!

Jack's 3rd Birthday

How oh how is our little Jack 3!  Now I say this b/c of how quickly this time has come, not based on Jack at all b/c to talk to him you would think he was easily 3.5 ;)!!!  He has grown up so much this past year I have to remind myself regularly that he is only 3!  He has such an amazing vocabulary and comprehension, he is now potty trained over night and has been during the day for well over a year, but the thing we are most proud of Jack for is his huge heart!  He is so considerate to his little brother and loves the fact that he is now a big brother!  He never lets anyone leave the house or go to bed without a big hug and kiss and the same for when we leave him at school.  He has taken to giving Luke his breakfast in the morning and will more often than not hand over a beloved toy for him to play with.  Now sadly this same courtesy does not extend to his big sister, but that may not entirely be his fault!

Unfortunately this year, Jack has been sick leading up to and on his birthday.  We had planned a big family trip to Gatti Town where Jack was really looking forward to racing go-karts with Andy, but it has had to be postponed.  We had a small family celebration before breakfast and he opened (with the help of Katie and Luke) all his presents.  Then he made phone calls to thank everyone for his gifts.  He loved all his cards and especially his badge that told everyone he was now 3!

We had an ice cream cake for him, but waited a few days to cut into it until he really felt like eating, and when he did he really enjoyed it.

We are going to have Jack's party at the Houston Fire Museum in January (we did not think we would get a very good turn out so close to Christmas and this way it gives us something to look forward to once the excitement of Christmas is over).  So watch this space, more pictures to come! We finally made it to Gatti Town (aka the pizza place), in honor of Jack's 3rd birthday! The kids had a blast and everyone got to do their favorite games and eat their favorite junk food!

First Love

I am sure that over the years the boys will have many crushes on Katie's friends, but for about a year now Jack has had his first crush on Katie's best-est friend from pre-school, Samantha.  Or as Jack likes to call her "mantha"!  He loves to ask if we can invite them to play and if he over hears Katie talking about an outing with her he usually chimes in to make sure he is invited as well (and if he is not we try to keep it quiet!).  Well the crush grew even more at the end of Katie's 6th birthday party when Samantha gave Jack his first kiss.  He was stunned (I am told by onlookers as I did not get to witness this) when she ran back to him after telling everyone good bye and planted one right on his cheek!  Since then we have been teasing him (just a little) and he gets very shy and coy and with a big grin says "I don't know" when asked what happened!

We have not seen them since the party as December is such a crazy month for everyone, but we manged a trip to the zoo today and all five kids were delighted to be re-united.  Jack even stole a little moment with his other favorite girl! (I of course am his first favorite and always will be, right!)

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

The existence of this card is a Christmas miracle!  Firstly I had arranged for a friend to take pictures of the kids, but then sadly her computer crashed and without the ability to edit pictures she was out of commission.  So then I made an appointment at Picture People for a Friday afternoon.  It was a perfect plan.  The kids were dressed in their matching snowmen shirts, they were rested and fed.  So off to the mall we went.  We had lots of time before our appointment so we paid a visit to Santa first!  Not surprisingly Luke did not want to have anything to do with St. Nick, but Katie and Jack gave a decent smile and manged to voice their Christmas wishes, so we got that ticked off the list.  So off to Picture People we head.  Thankfully they had us in the back studio and not the one on display for the entire mall to watch.  I can almost laugh at it now, but at the time  we were in picture chaos.  Trying to get Katie and Jack to sit nicely and just be ready for when Luke was actually doing as he was told was impossible.  The kids thought it was a big game, Andy and I thought who are these children.  The big kids thought it was just a big game and were having a great time playing with Luke, who would say cheese, but never at the camera.  There was fighting, tears, threats and eventually we just left.  It was silent on the way home and the kids were just sent to bed wearing their Christmas PJs we tried to get a picture of them in .  So the next morning since they were already dressed, I attempted one last time to get a picture for our card that is already going to be going out horribly late.  Well after messing with the camera setting and getting some great shots of the kids but with the wrong setting, I finally got a useable picture!  I am sure years from now we will have forgotten the whole debacle and we will look at the above picture and say what a joyous time it had been!

Soccer Tots

At the end of a grueling hot summer we were desperate to find indoor activities for the kids.  Jack's days of Gymboree had come to an end and we were looking for something for him and Andy to do that was their special time.  We found Soccer Tots and it has been great.  It in an INDOOR soccer program that focuses mainly on the kids having fun and teaches them a few soccer skills along the way.  They are learning about ball control, kicking and most importantly listening to the coach.  Jack's initial class was a parent participation, so I did not get many pictures from Andy, but he has graduated now and parents just sit on the sidelines.  Jack very sweetly asked if I would take him last week, so I jumped at the chance to take a ton of pictures.  He really loves the program and is very proud of himself (as he should be) for all his efforts.  His face really lights up when he scores a goal or finishes a drill sequence.  The best part is taking home a little boy whose cheeks are flushed and who has a beaming smile!  I think this is a program will will continue for a while!

Katie's 6th Birthday

To ease the pain of a very busy December, we had Katie's birthday party nice and early in November.  She was thrilled to have her party early and then basically get to celebrate her birthday over again a few weeks later.  She had her party at Alpha Omega Gymnastics where she has attended several parties and after the last declared that is where she wanted to have her next party.  It was a Hello Kitty theme and most importantly she had a fantastic time.  So did Jack and Luke who loved the fact they could run wild and all the surfaces were padded!  Luke really became fond of the trampoline and the air log and both loved the pizza and cake!



I was very impressed with Katie and her approach to opening her birthday presents from her party.  She opened one at a time and I suggested she write the thank you note after each one.  She was very on board with this suggestion and took her time with each note.  It took about a week to open everything this way and she was fine with that.  She loved all her presents and this way actually played or used each one rather than forgetting about it and moving on to the next present.  She got all her notes written (thankfully over the Thanksgiving holiday) well before I would have been able to do them for her!

On her actual birthday, Andy stayed home late so he could have breakfast with his girl, she opened her presents from Grandma & Grandad and Auntie Louise & Uncle Richard before leaving for school.  I had lunch with her at school and at her request brought her macaroni & cheese with carrots and an apple sauce!  We also had special cookies to share with her class.  After school we had another party with the Hanhan boys and when Andy got home we had our second Hello Kitty birthday cake and opened the rest of her family presents!

All in all she had two great birthday celebrations and I was exhausted!  I have always made a very big deal about birthdays and I hope this does not change, now we just have to get ready for Jack's in a few days!

A McDaniel Family Thanksgiving

After a lot of planning and plan changing, we finally set our plans and we headed to Boerne, TX for Thanksgiving.  It had been several years since we had been to Ross & Amy's so we were really looking forward to seeing everyone.  Katie especially could not wait to see the girls and was even more thrilled to find out she was bunking with Mallorie and Alexa!  The boys also shared a room really well and gave us good hope for them sharing in the future.


We had a really nice journey there and after a quick stop in Katy for some lunch, we drove straight to Boerne.  The kids were very eager to get out of the car and explore and they loved the back yard and we were really glad we packed all their ride on toys and Katie's scooter!

We had a great first night catching up with everyone and grazing over a delicious buffet of food.  The kids loved picnicking outside.  Jack was Papaw's boy and quickly warmed up to everyone else.  Luke was a star and kept everyone entertained, and once the girls got a hold of Katie we did not see much of her!

Thanksgiving day was nice and relaxing.  We got the kids out of the house and after a quick trip to HEB to pick up the new customary Thanksgiving food (macaroni and cheese) we found a really nice park for them to burn off some energy.  It did the trick and the boys slept nicely through the meal and we all sat back and enjoyed all the wonderful food.  We were treated to beautifually grilled steaks, some amazing salads, delious veggies and mouth watering chocolate pies!

We also decided to put together a family recipe cook book as there were so many wonderful things to  eat that we wanted everyone to be able to re-create them.  So this is my task for 2012.


We were sad to leave, but after another trip to the park to hopefully wear the kids out for the journey home, we hit the road.  After a year and a half of van ownership, this was the first family of five road trip we made.  All in all it was a success and we will be ready for another one next year!