Christmas comes early...

IN the Hernandez Household! Okay so not entirely but kinda. The neighbor kids and our kids have been friends since Carina was in Kindergarten so we did a little gift exchange between all of them. It was very cute. THey all shopped for eachother and then RC and I also got them a set of walkie talkies so they can sit across the street and talk to eachother. Figure it will lead to other fun games outside and at the park and such. So we are kind of excited. Once they opened them up we realized that we might end up getting a second set...but for now we are going to try and enforce sharing. Haha. (Note: the kids outfits change throughout the pics, that is because we did Bath Time and NOT because we did a fashion show in between. LOL) We are going to Palm Springs to meet up with my side of the fam (grandparents, parents and my little bro Gabe). We were originally going to take ALL the gifts to Palm Springs but realized space is a hot commodity these days in the car so we decided to ONLY take our gifts to the kids and were were going to open up Grandma Jackie's gifts with her last night. This turned out great, they were excited, we rushed them into the shower and told them we had a big surprise for them. When they got downstairs they were stoked...to say the least. Funny and well...frustrating moments of the night: 1. Rian was opening his gift after the girls did their gift exchange and he got SOO excited. It was a little truck from Grandma Jackie and we didn't want him to feel left out and it was HILARIOUS. He was rolling all around, he was ooh'ing and ahh'ing and the FUNNIEST part was that he busted out with "oh sweet" clear as day MULTIPLE times. It was HILARIOUS. That kid. He kills me. 2. We piled all the kids presents into a seperate pile so they knew where to grab their stuff from. The difference. The younger they got the bigger the presents. So Carina SEEMED to have a smaller pile. Any mom KNOWS where this is going. She gets through them all and although the SAME amount of money was spent it takes more to buy things for Carina at the age that she is at. So she for about 15 minutes had this pouty look on her face and I was starting to get frustrated cause she just seemed so ungrateful. Grandma excused herself (and I was terrified she was hurt...but she went to do personal things) and then Carina looked at me and said...mom I'm sorry. ALL ON HER OWN! So the frustration went to pride when all on her own our 10 year old said she realized that she was being poopy, she was sorry and that it just sucked at first to see that Neya and Rian got Really BIG gifts and hers were small. Then she realized hers cost the same if not more and she was better. It was amazing. We have waited a long time for her to get to this point. So glad it happened at xmas time! 3. Neya got this cat toy. OMG. It moves, purrs, licks its paw, rolls over and just about acts TOTALLY alive. Kinda crazy. It's so cool that Jackie (grandma) said that her mom (grandma...aka great grandma..billie) even loved it and she hates ANYTHING that has to do with cats. Well Neya opened it she was STOKED, loved it and the kicker. So did Rian. Anyone who has met him knows he has a TOTAL cat thing. Goes crazy for them. Well this was no exception. He was sticking his hands in the box, trying to grab at it and as soon as we took it out he wouldnt put it down. Kissing it, petting it, holding it and Neya was EVEN being nice about him taking over her toy. So funny. Oh how your kids amaze you at certain times. The holidays do a lot of things for everyone, some in a spiritual way, some in a rekindling with family way, some in just a total life and appreciation revelation and for me it makes me look at how lucky we are to have one another. To have Rian have made it, to have had Carina to turn me into the mommy I never thought I could be so young, to have Neya to make us realize that patients don't come naturally and to have one another...which means SURE, we aren't perfect, we don't always smile and act cheery to one another, but we love eachother and really that is all that counts. As time goes on I hope my kids do exactly what Carina did this year and realize its not about the size or amount of presents its about the thought, the meaning and the joy of just ripping open presents to have something New. hehe. And I will leave you with a few last pics from the night:

OH and a video of Rian putting "gas" in his car. Yes it is a juice bottle (empty and NOW cleaned out) but daddy taught him this "trick" in an hour while mommy was at the mall! Yay Daddy!

Boyfriend?!

So last night I went to the mall with Carina, my oldest baby. We went for some last minute grandma gift shopping and we ended up finding something for Uncle Gabe as well, what a great mall trip it ended up being. The weird thing was that the dreaded conversation came up:

Carina: So mom, are girlfriends supposed to buy boyfriends presents for xmas?
Mom: Well if you want to...what would you like to get him?
Carina: Well those things he wears on his wrist and a hat, he LOVES those beanie ones with the little hard part in front (she meant the mini bill kind)
Mom: okay we can do that, lets look around

Then after we are done shopping she says with a little red in her cheeks...

Carina: Mom its kinda weird shopping for a boyfriend
Mom: Why?
Carina: cause I had crushes and "little pretend boyfriends" before but this time it seems more serious

THIS is where I wanted to throw up, and instead had to collect myself and just explain that she was getting older...I GUESS! What the heck. When did my little girl grow up so darn fast. Granted she doesnt even barely hug SAID boyfriend but yes, we bought him a present and the WEIRDER part was that she knew ANYTHING about him. haha. I know, that is soo silly of me, as she knows all her friends inside and out why should a male be different but still. It was the slight in to the fact that not only am I getting older, but my babies are getting older as well.

Alas, they cannot stay young forever, but to preserve those moments here are the rest of the pics I promised from our camera (yes my extra appendage has been returned to my side) from the night at Zoolights.

Zoolights

So every year I hear about how GREAT Zoolights is. What is it you ask, well its exactly what you THINK it is, ZOO all LIT up. Hehe. I will tell you exactly what the sign says "over 2.5 MILLION lights". It was pretty cool, they have hanging monkey, some lit up elephants, we saw baby otters and well, all around although it was...

A: Quite a hike from parking to the ZOO
B: Cold and Dark
C: Interesting with 5 kids and 6 adults

It was ALSO really fun. We had some time to reconnect as grown ups while still entertaining the kids and although of course, like any outing at a PUBLIC entertainment place, we spent WAY to much money. I don't even want to go over those numbers, but lets just say we had to buy THREE little light up toy things, and I am sure you all know any ZOO or Amusement Park is all the equivalent of Disneyland prices when it comes to souvenirs. Either way, the money was worth it after all as Matt said "it's only money".

Ugh this is soo true. So often we get caught up in the price of things or how it SUCKS to spend money but in the end, it is ONLY money and we work hard to keep our fams happy so if spending an extra few bucks on a simple glow stick that will inevitably break and end up in the garbage is what makes the kids smile then so be it. Our kids aren't spoiled, they don't get ALL the finest things so it's nice to see that the LITTLE things are still good enough. PHEW!

Well here are a few pics from that night...INCLUDING the TWO group pics that we bought (yes we are those tourist types!)

NOW keep in mind, there are ELEVEN people in these pics! That is 5 kids (under the age of 10) and 6 grown ups and in BOTH pics we managed to get EVERYONE to look! I know. GASP. What an occasion, it must be christmas time...the time when MIRACLES DO HAPPEN! Hehe.

GROUP PIC: Hernandez Clan (you know all of us), Troj Family (Matt, Ashley and Xander) and the Landers Crew (Alison, Dave and Jack...Neya's Husband)

Then we saw this nifty sleigh thing in the middle of the zoo where they were taking pics so we decided on a MOMMY and BABY pic. This was a harder challenge than we thought it would be but we did manage to STILL get everyone to look. Yay us!


I have other pics on the camera but SOMEHOW I managed to leave that at home. Yes I know we all thought it was an extra appendage but apparently even a mommy has an off day. Please excuse me for my sheer moment of dillusion where I thought I could LIVE without my camera for an entire day ;)

Sweet Pics

We recently went to Xanders birthday which I blogged about a couple posts ago and at the party Ashley (Xanders Momma) had her step sister and her boyfriend there and they were taking some "professional" pics. Very cool. Here are a few of the kids that turned out really good and of course a couple of Xander because he is like an extended "kid" of ours. haha. Oh and by the way, these pics SUPER make me miss Rian's little mohawk. Talk about mommy having an identity crisis for her soon. Don't worry some day I will be mature enough to realize "it's only hair". hehe.

We also noticed there weren't nearly as many pics of the girls, but I STRONGLY believe that is because the photographer was there to take pics of Xander and of course the "big kids" were always in a different area than the "little kids" which included Rian AND Xander...so...sorry Laneya and Carina...I nabbed all the pics of you I could find!

Goodbye Mohawk

Well he has had it off and on but mostly ON for the last 6+ months and well last night we decided to shave it off. I'm not sure if the reasons behind it were something I felt good about or something I did so that I can stop feeling guilty for not pleasing everyone but to make myself either feel better or make me think twice before making choices like this again, I am going to list them out...here goes...bare with my rantings...

1. His Grandpa REALLY hated the mohawk. Every time we saw him he asked when we would get rid of the silly haircut...

2. People gawked at him, they ALWAYS said he was SOO cute but I got tired of people almost "staring" and although we have some good stories instigated by the hawk it can get tiring...

3. I had said we would cut it off when he turned 1, but I never did, I tried...but couldn't bring myself to do it, then a friend said "you keep saying you're gonna cut it, but you won't" (this felt more like a challenge pushed at me)

4. It became tiring to do it all the time...and although he LOVED when we did his hair it was daunting to have to do it. I know. I know. He's a boy hair should be easy...but it wasn't...

So there, that is the list. We were going to cut it for an xmas present to his grandpa, and we had told some folks that, then his grandpa had to cancel the xmas trip so I was like...SHOOT! Either way we did it and its good we did cause he had a little dry skin patch where his hawk was (just in one corner) and he STILL looks super cute without it.

Funny thing is, for me, the hawk was Rian's way of showing his toughness from his whole heart surgery ordeal "on the outside". I know, weird, right? I guess I will never ever ever ever have the heart surgery or the struggle we went through and will forever go through out of my head or even in the back of my mind but I guess I never realized I held certain things so close to me that I felt represented the heart surgery. Crazy.

Anywho, I just wanted to vent and get out my thoughts. It seems to have worked alright but hopefully I didn't offend anyone in the process.

Here is a pic of the outcome!

No Time. Only Pics. Sorry.

Vegas Trip...No kids...There was more pics but here are some good ones of the two of us... When we came back we had Xander's first B-day, so here are some pics and such from that day! Happy Birthday Xander. We love you!

Then we had some funny time with Rian saying "EEW", it was SUPER cute so here is a quick video of that as well...

And then we went Christmas Tree hunting (at Lowes. haha. We needed xmas tree lights and they had cheap trees!) and that is always a fun time, here are some pics from that FUN adventure...




And then the girls had their Christmas play, it was cute, it was Kindergarten and fourth grade so we got to see them participate in something school related TOGETHER. Pretty nifty and we only had to sit on cafeteria benches ONCE! SCORE!



If ever I wonder if I have made enough time for my kids or if we do enough fun things I will reflect back on this blog and go over what time I DON'T have to truly write about things because that means I was TOO busy DOING stuff. hehe. thanks everyone for being patient, hope the pics and vids make you smile!

Alone Again...

Okay so it isn't as severe as it sounds but yesterday my bro took off to move himself and his few belongings to Des Moines! So sad. He was our last piece of family here in AZ and now he is gone. This means, all alone again. It wouldn't be so bad but of course the holidays are coming up and although we are having visitors it still won't be quite the same.

So yesterday as he loaded his 89 Ford Ranger and said his SECOND goodbye (the first one got tears, but he only got 10 minutes into it until he needed some upgrades on his truck) and then off he went. He is currently in New Mexico and has quite a trip ahead of him but here are some pics from before he left.

We will miss ya Broham Al...(alex if you ask our mom)...