Feeding cows

These are the calfs at my parent's property in Blanco. The brown one is Sally and the black one is Molly. Jasmine and Alex enjoy feeding them by hand.

Christmas in Blanco

We spent Christmas at my parent's property in Blanco, Tx. My mom and dad were there, Christophe's mom was there and my uncle David was there... in addition to the five of us. :) It was a lot of fun. The kids loved having most of their family there. They fed Molly and Sally (the cows) by hand and fed Zoro (the mule) carrots and went on adventures. Alex rode motorcycles with his Grandpa. Christophe and my dad broke rock in an effort to prepare for putting up a fence. I'm not sure if they put the fence posts in yet or not.

Christmas Eve was Jasmine's birthday. We had birthday cake and present opening. She turned five years old. That night we roasted marshmallows and set out stocking and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. The kids left him a note.

Christmas morning left presents for the kids and filled nine stockings with fruit, nuts, candy and little surprises for everyone. He even answered Jasmine's questions in her Santa letter, and left a note for the boys. We had a very nice turkey dinner and overall a very nice day. We even stayed an extra couple of days to enjoy the peace and the great outdoors. Well, some enjoyed the outdoors more than other. I did a lot of staying inside with Nathan as it was freezing outside, but the others didn't seem to mind the cold. :)


These are the kids letters to Santa. These are special M&M chocolate chip cookies just for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer, who we learned were named just as the song goes. However, Donnor used to be called Donder.

This is Jasmine opening her Christmas Eve present of pajamas. She is looking at her Little Miss Sunshine pajamas.

This is Alexander opening his stocking. He is looking at his Pez dispenser like deal that actually dispenses smarties. He was really excited about the chocolate inside that he found moments later. Really, he could have just gotten chocolate it would have been his perfect Christmas as far as presesnts were concerned.

Here is how Nathan spent his first present opening. Yep, that is him catching up on the sleep he didn't let me have the night before.

Here he is awake later in the afternoon having a lovely conversation with his Grammie. He threw in lots of very charming smiles.

More pictures in Blanco

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, but here are a few of them. Jamine spent most of her time exploring, so there aren't as many pictures of her.


This is David helping Alex down the stairs. Alex really took a liking to Uncle David. Alex is here now talking about Uncle David because he is looking at the picture.

Memere is out playing with the kids. Jasmine informs me that they are making pot holders out on the porch.

Now Alex is narrating. "On the Bobcat with Grandpa."

Alex is bundled up to go outside. He has his Elmo hat and mittens.

Here Grammie is holding Jasmine's hand and Memere is holding Alex's hand. They are on their way to feed the fish in the pond.

Jasmine and Alexander Birthday Party

Jasmine turned 5 and Alex turned 2 years old. Unfortunately for them, with their birthdays six days apart, they get a shared big family birthday. This year, we had a smores party.


This is Jasmine's preschool teacher, Mrs. Sara, being dressed up by the girls and Alfred. Jasmine is on the left with the sparkly earings. Kate is next to her. Kate is in Jasmine's class. Sarah is in red on the right. She is Jasmine's best friend. Alfred is the blonde boy. He is Sarah's brother. Lanie is on the bottom with the red ribbon in her hair. She was in Jasmine's class last year.

This is my cousin, Renito, hacking away at a block of wood with a machete. Nice kids party, eh? He is trying to help start a fire for the smores. It did not go well for a while. Evidently, we were supposed to start the fire before the party -- not during. While there was a danger that there would be no smores at the smores party, they did finally begin about 20 minutes before the party theoretically ended. We were never good with time, anyway.

Here is a crowd of people helping out with the fire in the fire pit. You can see the smoke.

Here are the grandmas -- Grammie and Memere.

Here are the grandpas -- Grandpa and Abuelo.

More of the party

As their birthday cake, they had cupcakes. Jasmine had princess rings on top of hers, and Alex had sports ball rings on top of his. They enjoyed the cupcakes, but Alex seems to be eyeing the lighter more than the cupcake.

Her is a bit of the crowd. Christophe's sisters from Austin made it in with his dad. There were a lot of friends and family there. It was a good time.

This is Jasmine opening her presents. I think she is opening her Nancy Drew books in this picture. If you have a little girl in the 5-8 range, the Nancy Drew notebooks are excellent books, by the way. Nancy is a great role model for them.

Christophe's mom brought Jasmine a Belle doll with an extra surprise. A lizard got inside the box, and she couldn't get it out. So, the lizard was wrapped up as part of the present. Christophe rescued the lizard from the box after Jasmine unwrapped it creating a lot of excitement. The lizard was set free in our flower bed, where he will join our other lizards --Cinderella, Brownie and Green Bean.

Here is Alex opening his race car set. He didn't have any live surprises in his.

Putting up our Christmas tree

We actually put our Christmas tree at the beginning of December this year. Unfortunately, we are still using the artificial tree. Hopefully, next year we'll go back to cutting down a nice fresh tree and helping out the environment.


Jasmine and Alex both helped put together the tree. Nathan slept in my lap. Christophe took pictures and helped the kids.
After the tree was assembled, Christophe and the kids fluffed the branches to try to make it look more real.

Alex was able to decorate the lower branches.

Jasmine was very excited to put the angel on top of the tree.

Here is our decorated tree. I think the lights are even on, but you can't tell it in the picture.