Christmas Pictures and Goodies

 Pictures we took after church last Sunday.  Good times.

Christmas Goodies.  Heaven served up on a dish.  :)

We're not having Christmas till Saturday so there's not much else to tell. We had a good time at our friends house on Christmas Eve where we had a toilet paper snow ball fight, since it was 72 degrees outside.  Also I decided on our next Halloween costumes.  I'll not say what they're going to be, but I'll give you a clue: I'm not going to go broke for Baroque.  Hee. Hee.  I'm so witty.  Umm, yeah, no.  But whatever.  And yes, I almost went for Victorian costumes because they have a Dickens Christmas Festival down in Galveston every year, but then I would go broke.  Maybe I'll stick to making a corded petticoat, chemise and corset for me this year, and make the rest of the costumes the next year.  My fingers are itching to sew.  Can you tell?  It's been a month......

Merry Christmas from Texas.

This is my family.

The Alamo

The back side of the Alamo.

And the front of the Alamo (the main mission part).  It was really pretty actually--the grounds and stuff.  And any old building with stone floors pretty much always wins me over.

And we walked just a little bit along the Riverwalk.  But we only had a really short time there because we had to be back home for the ward Christmas party.

And what my children are really interested in, no matter where we are.  This is why you shouldn't bother traveling with kids, all they want to do is play in the dirt.

Work Party

Friday night we went to Leo's work party at the Westin Hotel (not the hotel we stayed in) on the San Antonio Riverwalk.  It was a beautiful hotel, to give you an idea of what it was like, there were 17th century tapestries decorating the walls.  Isabel and Elena were in awe.  They called it a castle the whole time, which was nice, because then I told them to act like princesses.  And yes, I'm not posting a picture where I look bad.  Yes, I am that vain.  And Isabel had a goofy shot too.  But here's us on the boat with Benj, Leo's friend for BYU who was also hired at Leo's company.  He's the one who took our pirate pictures for us.  The girls love him!  And basically they maul him whenever he's around. And I'm so glad he was there!  He helped keep our kids occupied for quite some time.

Here's Katie and Sarah and José, and Jef and Laura and Jonas.  Now you've seen all but two of the kids at the party.  Laura is the sister of a girl I visit taught in Provo, and that was the connection of how Leo found this job in Houston.  Yeah for visiting teaching!  You've also now seen all the LDS members in pretty much the entire company.  

 And this is what happens when I had Jef take a picture.  Jef and Laura and Benj came over for general conference and watched it with us.

 The San Antonio Riverwalk is lovely!  We had such a good time.

 Which was good, because Leo's work party was casino themed and while some suggested we let the kids go play on the slot machines, we decided not to.  The food was delicious though, and the kids were very, very well behaved.  In fact, some random lady came up to me and said she was a therapist and she just wanted to compliment us because our kids were so obviously well brought up.  :)  I guess that kind of made up for all the stares and open mouths, and people counting......

 Leo looked so handsome.  Although he just called me an evil witch...

 I was so spacey, the party was so dressed up, and I forgot the girls hair bows and flowers and the normal things I put in their hair for Sunday.  I did make a quick stop at a Goodwill right beforehand and bought a new purse to use as diaper bag that was more dressy.  Yeah for the fancy Goodwill near our hotel (seriously it was the nicest Goodwill I've ever been in).

 Resting in "the castle," while we waited for Leo to valet our van.

 Sebastian had fallen asleep on the river boat ride, but he woke up as we left.

I can't decide if we should go again next year.  It was kind of nerve-wracking to watch the kids and make sure they were well-behaved at this kind of event.  Like I said, thank goodness Benj was there.  Also, Laura helped get the kids' dinners from the buffet table.  We didn't even have enough spaces open to seat all of us together. But then the kids were really good.  Hmmm....  I don't know. Also,  I've never been the center of attention before as we walked into the room simply because of the number of kids we have--it's a little awkward.