Christmas Spirit

The day after Thanksgiving, nearly every house on our cul-de-sac was completely decked out with Christmas decorations. You know what they say about everything being bigger in Texas? Well apparently it also applies to their Christmas displays. In fact, the company that makes those inflatable lawn snow globe things is based right here in Texas. Having disposed of most of our exterior decorations when we moved from our house in Arizona and went back to school, we've spent the last couple of weeks slowly catching up with "the Joneses," as it were.



Here is the current state of our outdoor display, complete with the lights on the 150 year old oak tree that were terrifying to put up. I'm seriously considering leaving them up for good.




Our Christmas Amaryllis from Dad K. This is probably the best one we've had in a long time, with four full flowers on a single stalk. The tag said it was a Red Lion variety (pure, deep red) but it turned out to be a variegated type.




Living room shot, with the real tree, garland on the column, and the Schirmer's on the piano (of course).




The formal dining room shot, with the antique table and the wreaths that Liz made and hung.




The family room shot of our Amish star from Lancaster County (Liz insists that this is NOT a Texas star), the fake tree, and garland.

Finally, here is a video of Charles reciting the Christmas story (Luke 2) from 2005. He is a seasoned pro at it this year, and Joey nearly has it down himself. It's funny how each year we're so surprised (maybe a little annoyed) at how fast Christmas comes, but before we know it, we'll be sad it's gone.

Say Cheese!

This past Saturday we spent a little time in the morning trying to take some Christmas pictures. After a couple dozen attempts, we ended up with a few acceptable family portraits. However, we also snapped a lot of outtakes of the kids.

Tori practicing knocking on a door, or getting ready to punch me out.

Then I told a blonde joke and we all laughed (Tori has just gotten the laugh down, although it's still silent).

Then I told a bald joke that must have hit a little too close to home--don't worry Tori, at least yours will grow someday...

You know when you're making your kids smile so much that they start giving half robot, half constipated faces? That's where we were at with the boys, so I told them to give me a stern look.

A good picture of Charles' new haircut.

Our little Angel

Sunday, the 26th of November, we blessed our little girl. It was a very nice day and we enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa Kewish there, as well as the Wheelers from Houston. Dad Kewish and Greg were able to stand in the circle as well as some of our other friends. Tori was as beautiful as ever, even if I'm a bit biased. Liz did a great job scrounging together her outfit on a budget and I thought it turned out great. Liz made Tori's headband herself when she went on a crafty streak soon after she was born.

The two girls together.


Close up of the home made headband.

Tori's whole blessing outfit.

Enjoying sitting on her boppy.

Joey was so tired, he crashed on grandma's lap in the middle of putting his toy plane together.

New Braunfels, TX

Another thing we did over the Thanksgiving weekend was take a short trip here in the Texas Hill Country where we live to an historic city named New Braunfels. Settled by Germans in 1845 just before Texas joined the United States, New Braunfels still has a strong German influence, including the oldest (and probably best) bakery in Texas. All the boys care about are the gingerbread man cookies at Naegelin's (or as Joey sometimes calls them, gingerman breads, which I guess makes sense) and Landa Park. Comal Spring pops out of the rock in this park and there are lots of other things to do there. I snapped a few pictures while we were exploring.


I caught Joey standing next to a Cypress tree

So I posed Charles next to the same tree

Charles and Joey with Grandpa and Grandma Kewish in front of Comal Spring.

I sat them on this little bridge over Comal Spring and Charles wrapped his arms around Joey.

Another benefit of New Braunfels is that there is almost always a diesel engine or two parked close to the park. We drove up to it, looked around carefully, threw the boys on the train, and snapped some pics.

Thanksgiving

Just a quick post with some pictures from Thanksgiving (only a few weeks late). Mom and Dad Kewish were in San Antonio to join us and we cooked most of the day. When the boys woke up from their naps and saw the spread they were beside themselves. Charles exclaimed, "Joey! It's our Thanksgiving feast!!!"

Here is the gang ready to eat.

And a close up of all the food (homemade pumpkin and apple pies not pictured).

Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change

The title of this post is one of my favorite French sayings (besides the ones Kristy taught me that I can't repeat in a family blog). It means 'the more things change the more they stay the same' and the reason I say that is because of these two pictures. There is a project underway in our ward where we were asked to take pictures of our family having our weekly Family Home Evening, which we went ahead and did. Once I saw the pictures, I immediately thought of the super cheesy pictures in the MTC of families (with gigantic collars and super-feathered bangs) and wondered why we didn't look a whole lot different. We used to make fun of those pictures, and that was 15 years ago. How can our family in 2006 remind me so much of that? I thought we were much more modern and cosmopolitan. Oh well...

Besides that fun exercise yesterday, I snapped this semi-candid of my two girls on the couch.

Ever since we moved into our new house in San Antonio last February I've been concerned about our two gigantic oak trees in our front yard. As beautiful as they were, they worried me to no end as they had gigantic branches over both our and our neighbor's houses. Not to mention, they were completely overgrown and blocked all sunlight to the front of our house. You could only see about the first 3 feet of our house if you looked from the street, and then just this seemingly impenetrable canopy that drooped nearly to the ground. There was even a branch that took a nice sized chuck out of my bald head while I was mowing the lawn. Well, a few weeks ago we finally bit the bullet and paid for some professionals to come trim the beasts. I was very nervous, but the end result was amazing. I love the way they look now, and you can even see our house from the street!

One more picture of my little girl from a few days ago.

Joey Turns 3

Joey was very excited for his 3rd birthday on 11/8. Liz decorated the dining room while he was taking a nap. When he got up he walked downstairs, his eyes got big, and he exclaimed "WOOK! (that's not a typo, he's still learning to say "L"), it's my BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!"

When we brought the cake to him he was beside himself.

When we started singing Happy Birthday he was so excited.

Charles assumed that now that we live in Texas that we were going to have a redneck birthday and decided to skip wearing a shirt.

Joey loved the airplane that can be dissembled/assembled over and over again.


Tori was relaxing in her bouncer, having a great dream.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Part I

Last weekend Joe and the boys went down to Lackland Air Force Base for the annual airshow. The boys were extremely excited to go see the airplanes and, as usual, had been talking about it for weeks. We went early enough in the day to secure an excellent spot, front and center, where we could watch the show. Unfortunately this meant that the planes were REALLY loud at times. There were basically three levels of noise at the airshow, which Joey displayed very well.

Level one was kind of loud, where even with his earplugs in his ears, Joey would turn around with a concerned look on his face.

Level two was very loud, to the point that even with the earplugs, Joey would cover his ears and get a very unsatisfied look on his face.

Level three was so loud that it made your insides shake. That is when Joey would cower down into the stroller in a fetal position, trying to find a happy place.

The show was a lot of fun, although the Thunderbirds did what air show people call a "sneak pass." This is where some of the planes perform an innocent trick in front of you and, while you're watching them, another plane comes from behind on full afterburner, almost at the speed of sound, and buzzes the crowd. I guess it's fun for the pilots, although I doubt they can see everyone's reaction since they're flying by at 500 miles per hour. It certainly isn't very fun for the crowd (see Joey's position #3 in the previous post).

So the Thunderbirds did this not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. After the third time, Charles was exasperated and asked me (as he fought to keep himself together), "Dad, when is that plane that keeps tricking us going to land?" On the way home Charles and Joey made a list of all the things that the Thunderbirds were louder than, and it was a long list.

Here are the boys in a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter.


The airshow continues in the next posting...

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Part II

They also had a lot of fun playing in and around a C-130 gunship. First they manned the tailgun.

Then Charles took the controls to go find the Taliban.

Then both boys strapped in and pretended to fly around (and they said they were flying around Disneyland, although I'm not sure what their exact target was).

The boys had a great time, despite the bleeding ears, and buzzed about the planes for at least the next 3 days. But I think the best part of the day was coming home, after a full 8 hours of airshow, and finding the girls exhausted from a full day of shopping.

I think Liz is trying to train Tori early, although judging by how we found her on the couch, she still has to get into top shopping shape.

Monsters and bugs running amok!

Halloween was a very fun day at the Kewish home. The boys were excited about trick or treating--to the point that they recited their door approach in the days leading up to Halloween. For our Family Night on the 30th we carved pumpkins. Joey only said "EWWWW!!!" about 20 times when we hollowed them out, while Charles seemed genuinely intrigued that pumpkins didn't come hollow.



Once Halloween night finally came, they proudly donned their costumes and set out to terrorize the neighborhood. Charles was proud of his "bug arms" that moved along with his real arms. Joey was again a green monster with googley eyes, which seems to match his personality well.


For two boys that have spent most of their lives in a high rise apartment, they didn't do too badly. Charles only walked into about 8 houses and Joey got the "trick or treat" right about half the time. The rest of the doors he would just say, "um, do you have some candy?" Joe was ready to run them all over the neighborhood for maximum candy, but they decided they were done after just a few blocks. Still, thanks to our friendly new neighborhood, they got more candy than two little boys would ever need.



All in all we had a great time. Liz and Tori handed out buckets of candy and the boys tolerated being dragged to the neighbors' houses. But Halloween 2006 definitely took its toll. Once the clock hit 10pm and the boys crashed from their sugar highs, they just wanted it all to end.

Victoria makes her appearance

Victoria Elizabeth Kewish was born on September 29th, 2006 weighing 7lbs, 8oz. She was ready to see the world and nearly jumped into the doctors arms after only two pushes. She is very loved by the boys and they just can't get enough of her.

Here are Liz and Tori a few days before the birth:

Here's our little girl about 15 minutes old:

Then about a week old:

Her first Sunday outfit:


Ready for her close up: