Lake and Maile each had a happy night tonight…

Maile got to eat ribs for the first time…

and then discovered splashing in a bath by herself.

Lake got a surprise in the mail from Grandpa Jones… it was a “Cars” playhouse!

Have you ever seen someone so excited to go to bed?

On Friday, we jumped in the car and drove to the coast just to get away and do something different. We first drove to Corpus Christi, stopped for some seafood and then drove a little farther and took a ferry to Port Aransas to play on the beach. It was a beautiful day. It was in the seventies with a little breeze, warm enough to be outside but nowhere near the conditions I need to swim. However, the drive was totally worth it just to see the look on Lake’s face as he was splashing in the COLD water. He is a water baby - for sure - he doesn’t care about getting cold or dirty, he just LOVES the ocean. Steve and Lake did most of the playing in the water. But after testing the water ourselves, Maile and I were content to watch the boys splash around as we sat in a chair, in our fleece pullovers, with a blanket on our laps.

Steve and Mai.

Me and my kids.

Beautiful Baby Girl.

Steve and Lake would walk into the surf until a “BIG” wave would come and then they would try to beat it back in.

The girls.

Lake is so funny. He kept spreading his legs apart and letting the sand cover his feet until he would fall.

Whoever said Lake and I look nothing alike hasn’t seen us both squinting into the sun for a picture… what do you think? Twins?

Well, we have successfully pulled off our first ever Steven J. Rowley Family Christmas!!! Here is a little visual story to fill you in on how it went…

We got downtown on Christmas Eve early to walk around in the beautiful weather. We had planned to meet a couple of families to have dinner together on the riverwalk.

We had some extra time and our kids were asleep so Steve and I played a couple of games and the Buckhorn Museum. Steve was UNCONTROLLABLE.

We met our friends in front of the UGLY Alamo Christmas tree. Sorry, but it IS hideous. Then, we “toured” the riverwalk looking for a good place to eat (and one that was open on Christmas Eve).

After dinner with our friends, the Whites and the Stephens, all the riverwalk lights were turned on. They were beautiful.

With Bjorn Maile in the front and Lake on my back, we walked back to the car looking for reindeer in the sky.

Once we were home, we opened our green and blue Christmas jammies from Grandma Jones.

Lake and Maile were cute in their jammies. But, Maile was WAAAY past ready for bed and wouldn’t stick around for her photo shoot.

Lake set out Oreo cookies for Santa, Carrots for the reindeer and a tall glass of milk for whoever was thirsty.

On Christmas, Santa brought Lake a bicycle and Maile a toy with balls!!!

Santa even surprised Steve with a gun safe. This is the first year that Santa has given Steve something that he really liked or didn’t pick out himself… Yay! for Santa!

Grandma and Grandpa Jones came in to town around noon on Christmas Day with lots of gifts and fun. Lake is now the proud owner of a mini marshmallow-shooting gun.

I didn’t make a traditional Christmas Dinner but we did have fried turkey tacos with all the trimmings - yummo!!

Quinton and Kara had our names for Christmas this year and sent our family SUNS shirts. It was very appropriate to get these shirts for Christmas because the SUNS played the SPURS on Christmas day back in Phoenix. We wore our shirts all day long… we really wanted to watch the SUNS vs. SPURS game, but our cable had some “issues”. We missed a good game but showed our home-town pride.

Here are similar pictures of my cute chubby cheekers before each of their First Christmas.

Lake’s First Christmas 2006

Maile’s First Christmas 2008

Lake decided on Tuesday that he was Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. He dressed himself in the Lightning McQueen shirt that Grandma Honey got him (the one that has a button to that makes a car engine sound - THANKS AGAIN - with heavy sarcasm) and came downstairs to tell me he was a car, not a boy. He was role-playing like a car all morning and wouldn’t come out of it. Anytime that I called him Lake he would tell me that his name was “wightning” (lightning). And, he wouldn’t let me call his hands or feet anything other than wheels. One time I asked him to come downstairs and he refused, “I can’t walk down the stairs, I vroom.” NICE, he was “vrooming” around on his “wheels” calling himself “wightning”…

So, I decided to make it a Lightning Day (if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em right?). I turned on the movie Cars and Lake grabbed his Lightning blanket and pillow from OOMA. Once he got hungry, I made him some *HOMEMADE* mac and cheese - and called them lightning noodles - and put them on his Cars plate. I had to convince him that cars eat noodles - nobody better contradict me. Then I offered him some water. “Mom, cars don’t drink water!! Silly! They drink apple juice.” Of course I gave him apple juice because I am a sucker for a theme party.

“Kaaaa-chow!” Lake called me “Sally” all day long and called Mai “Little Sally”. When Steve got home, he was “Mater” - I am telling ya, it was all day long. Lake had a really great time and I got some laughs out of the day. He is a movie head and the cutest Wightning ever.

Lake eating Lightning noodles.

Lightning, Lightning, Lightning, Lightning!!!

Watching our movie.

On friday night, the whole family went down to the mall to see Santa… and the kids were AWESOME! We only had one person in front of us so we didn’t have to wait long at all. The kids sat on Santa’s lap and neither of them was scared. Then, Lake told Santa what he wanted for Christmas (a bicycle) and what “sissy” wanted too (a toy with balls). The Santa place was great and let us video and take our own pictures. Yeah for Santa! And, yeah for kids who don’t cry when they see him.

Every day since, Lake has reminded me, “Remember I saw Santa Claus?” He can’t stop talking about him. Also, today he realized, “Mom, Santa didn’t tell me ‘HO, HO, HO’”. So funny.