My Christmas tree tells a story

I was just sitting on the couch looking at my Christmas tree and the ornaments we have on them. The ornaments are just a collection of memories that sit on my tree. There will be a lot of pictures but each one of them is very special to me and my family. The first has the year 1998 printed on it and it was given to us by my father in law, it was the very first ornament we had, even if we didn't have a tree back then, then we have a Precious Moments ornaments of a couple kissing each other, a dear couple from Virginia gave to us for our first Christmas together. We have a cute ornament that was handmade by my visiting teaching companion, she was a much older lady than me but was a great friend and she baked this fireplace with three stockings (back when it was just Dan, me and Shayna). We have a cardinal ornament which reminds me of Virginia and there is a ginger bread family which somebody gave us when we only Shayna and Victor. When we moved to Utah we got a dog and that didn't turn out great but still she was part of our lives for a year and a half and the kids still talk about her. When Dan worked for UPS he brought all kinds of little ornaments and we kept a couple and since I love snowmen and angels I didn't mind keeping them. We have Victor and Shayna's ornaments they made at school with their pictures in them. One Christmas the primary presidency brought us a very cute angel ornament and they have to idea how much that meant for me, I didn't think anybody liked me in the ward so that little ornament made my day. I forgot to take a picture of a little ginger bread house, but I have it because it remind me of my Mom when she used to make them for Christmas. The last two are from a dear friend from Virginia, she sent them to me in the mail, they have a picture of the Capitol in Washington DC. I like them because I know that place and because she is like a sister to me and I know that I am a important person if she sends those ornaments for me. So there, I can't really add that much more to the tree or it would kind of crazy, but even if I don't have nice and expensive ornaments, to me my tree is priceless.

Funny video for all the moms out there.

Just click on this

Kids with Santa

Yesterday we took Dan to work so we could keep the car and later join him for a Christmas celebration at work. When I get the car we usually go out with the kids and get things done, so we went to Walmart to get the oil change done and while we waited Aaron and I did some Christmas shopping. I got a lot done and Aaron had a wonderful time being out just with me. The kids and I drove to Dan's work and they boys took a nap while Shayna and I had the radio on singing in Spanish, she likes the same music I like and know the words to the song.
Dan kept talking about what a nice building he works at and we finally were able to see it for our selves, it is big and there are lots of trees around it, they have a nice lagoon with a fountain in the back of the building and it makes it look very relaxing.
The Christmas celebration was great, Santa came and talked to the kids, we took a picture of them sitting on Santa's lap and it was great except for this lady who kept making her little girl stand in the picture with my kids... what was she thinking? I had to asked her to let me take a picture of my kids with Santa, twice!!! She finally stood on the side and I had to manage not to get them in the picture. People... It has been hard for me lately to try to be in the Christmas spirit when people around me keep doing annoying things. I am usually a very nice person and hate to make problems with other people, but lately I just can't take it anymore, I know I had to be nicer, but people make it really hard.
We had cookies, and the kids did some crafts and games, they also got their faces painted. It was all in all really fun.
My Christmas cards have been sent and hopefully everybody who reads my blog will get one, I have tried to get every one's address, so hopefully I didn't miss anybody. Here are some pictures, if you click on them you can see it bigger.

It's snowing.

So I have been enjoying the weather out here, cold enough for a jacket, but not freezing cold. This morning when I took the kids to school, the weather seemed a little bit colder than usual. Just a few minutes ago we were playing with Shayna and she noticed that it was snowing outside. I didn't believe her of course since it is my understanding that it doesn't snow here. So I am thinking that we are bringing all this bad weather to Houston, first IKE and now snow. How funny. Here are some pics of the snow outside, it's not that much but the neighbors are excited outside screaming and stuff.

Christmas presents... help please!!!

So as most of you know my kids are toy less now and since Christmas is coming soon we have been trying to find presents that are not necessarily toys. So far we are done shopping for Shayna, but my problem is looking for stuff for the boys. Aaron is definitely getting toys since he is the baby, but I am thinking that we need some ideas. We have found a couple for each but maybe someone out there has better ideas than I do. Please feel free to leave your comments with ideas for me. Thanks.
This is coming from a desperate mother just a couple of weeks before Christmas is really here.

Memories

It has been 26 years since the death of my father. I know that is hard to believe it and even after all these years it hurts to think about it. My dad was born in 1950, he died just a few days after he turned 32. For years I have been worried about turning 32 because I used to think that I would die just like my dad after reaching the same age. I know it is silly but some things scar you for life.
I know my Dad wasn’t perfect, but I love the memories I have of him and treasure those few memories of him. I remember as a little girl how he was a very active person, he loved playing soccer with his friends. He had lots of friends, in fact I think everybody loved him. I have met so many people that as soon as they found out my last name was Gonzalez they immediately asked if I was related to him. As soon as they knew I was his daughter they would start telling me all these stories about him and even cried with me telling me what a great and special person he was.
Before he died he wrote the story of how he met my Mom and the changes in his life after meeting her and getting baptized. He used to be a hippie and I have pictures to prove it. I am not proud of it, but it is part of who he was. He had a brother who was a bishop and tried to convert him for years, but he wasn’t interested. One day the missionaries came to the house and then he decided to get baptized after the first discussion. From then on he turned his life around and dedicated himself to the church. He loved serving people, helping everybody and was a great missionary by converting a lot of people in the neighborhood.
He was a very smart guy and knew everything about mechanics. He built his own business from the ground up. He loved to take pictures and it is interesting because when he was alive we had lots of pictures, but after his death we only have a few of us growing up. I think that is the reason why I take so many pictures.
He was diagnosed with cancer and 7 months later he died. I remember a lot about those last days, he died 14 days after I tuned 6 years old. I have missed him so much and growing up without him was the hardest thing in my life. I know that he was always with me and he has been my inspiration my whole life. He was a kind person and had so much to live for.
I would like to think that he has been working all this time helping a lot of people on the other side. I am sure he has been a great missionary there too. In my entire life I have had only two dreams with my Dad, in one of them he came home to say goodbye to me, he sat me on his lap and asked about school and my brothers, he told me to be good to my Mom and then he left. I don’t remember if he ever said bye to me in real life, but I am sure that he did. Anyways that dream is so special to me and every night I go to sleep hoping that he will come in my dreams and talk to me. So far it hasn’t happened yet. November was a tough month for me full of all kinds of emotions, more than I have had all year long. I was very depressed last week and mostly because it has been years since I went to visit my Dad’s grave and leave flowers. It is a big thing for me not to be able to do it. I realized this year that the reason why I like to decorate for Christmas is because my Dad is the one that used to do it for us, he made the house look very nice, it made us feel happy and I miss that, my Mom didn’t do it after he died, because it just made her sad. The pictures on this post are of my Dad when he was 16 years old and in the other one I am sitting next to him, this was just a few months before he died. He was so skinny then.

Tristan

All my kids have different personalities and that is what makes them so unique, right? I don't know why Tristan does the things he does, even if he know that he will get in trouble for it. Maybe he is just testing my limits and see if he can get away with it. I have had some conversations with him lately about different things that come up in his little head. He loves to talk and never stops, when you are expecting a single "yes" he comes up with some kind of story and then finally tells you what you need to hear. So today I was trying to get some laundry done (what's new) and went in the kids' bathroom to collect it and decided to clean the toilet since there was some weird smell coming out of the bathroom. It wasn't the toilet, it was the trashcan. He decided to pee in it AGAIN!!! I was so mad because it is not the first time he has done it. He just did it for no reason at all. I talked to him about how dogs pee everywhere and told him he is not a dog, he is a little boy who can very well pee in the toilet. I don't know if he will do it again, hopefully not, I made him get all the toilet paper full of pee out of the trashcan and he understood that it was gross and promised not to do it again. Last week he took all of Aaron's clothes out of the dresser (4 drawers full of clothes that I had organized a couple of days before)and dumped them on the floor. When I called him to find out why, he said Aaron was doing it and he decided to join. I made him put it all back, but that didn't work because he put it in the wrong place of course. A couple of days after that we were vacuuming the entire house with Tristan and then I noticed that going up the stairs there were little drawings on the wall and the hand writing was his, so I called him to show me where else he had displayed his artwork and he showed me 5 more spots, mostly behind doors. I am thinking he was labeling the doors because Shayna's room had a drawing of a girl and his door had a picture of a boy, needles to say he cleaned up that mess too. I keep telling him that he knows his mom will get mad at him if he colors on the walls or doors but he won't stop.
A different conversation that we had the day he started PK was kind of interesting, he was waiting to go in and there was this little boy (Hispanic) and he wanted to play with Tristan, he then told me that he wasn't going to play with him because he wasn't white, and that he only likes people with the same skin color as his. That made no sense to me since he is not white, we are almost the same color. I talked to him about it and he said he wouldn't say things like that at school, the next day he referred to his teacher as "the black teacher with the big fat butt", how embarrassing, hopefully he didn't say that at school either. I kept trying to figure out a way to talk to him about it, Dan had a conversation with him and made it very clear that we like everybody regardless of skin color. I have this little toy, it's supposed to be the planet earth and when you open it up it has 8 little people from different races and colors, so I used that to explain to him how this world is full of different people and how HF created us all and loves us. I really hope that he got the idea. He hasn't said anything about it lately, so maybe he did.
I don't know where he get his ideas from but it is very interesting to hear him talk about everything. He is a cute little boy and very smart, too smart for his own good sometimes.