When I got home from work last Tuesday night Bernard and Brazienna had created a movie theatre in our apartment. We had hot dogs that were cooked on the official hot dog cooker with the rolling bars, nachos with cheese and popcorn. I must admit, it smelled like the movies when I opened the door. We were in our jammies, Brazienna turned off ALL of the lights and Bernard hit play on the DVD player. We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was fun! We all 3 enjoyed it very much.

I guess it is become a Tuesday night event with us. Last night when I got home Braziennna greeted me with, "Mom, it's movie night!". So, I changed into jammies and waited for the movie to begin. The menu included popcorn, nachos with cheese, hot dogs, the big soft pretzels and cheesesticks! Yummy. Brazienna turned all of the lights off (that's her job) and we watched The Polar Express.

The Polar Express was a cute movie about believing in Santa. Tom Hanks was many of the voices. The animation was amazing and I was really impressed with how realistic the people were.

I love the show Desperate Housewives. I watch it every Sunday and when I am working, I Tivo it. Brazienna started watching it with me and she will ask to watch desperate housewives but of course being a 3 year old, she pronounces it "Deswiss Housewives".



Bernard got me a behind closed doors Desperate Housewives book for Christmas which I am enjoying a page at a time. Brazienna comes in the kitchen carrying the book and says, "Mommy, we two can share this book cause I like Deswiss Housewives, too". I told her that was my Christmas present and she said, "Well, I am picked on Deswiss Housewives, too. Just like you are". What she was trying to say is that she is hooked on it because she heard me telling my sister that I am hooked on the show.

Here are a few more pics from Christmas Eve at the Garcia Family get together.
Alyssa and Brazienna giving Santa a hug before he leaves. Dylan is trying get Santa's attention.
This is Brazienna with Sarah's mom, Cindy who is Nonny to all of the kids that were there.
The kids sitting and singing Christmas songs. This is was soooo cute!
I think is trying to think real hard about what she wants for Christmas.
Bye Santa!
Hmmm...Who's under that beard?
Sarah is striking the mom pose with ber kids, Belle and Collin.
Brazienna is waiting to see what comes out of Santa's bag.
Cheese! The obligatory Santa and kid picture!
Patiently waiting for Santa's arrival.

Bernard took his Christmas nap while I was cooking our Christmas dinner. Brazienna was sitting in the kitchem floor playing with some new Cabbage Patch Kids play-doh toy.

We were all 3 doing our own thing with no conversation. Brazienna said, "Hey mom, I really had a fun Christmas day with you and daddy today". I told her I was happy that she had fun and that I had a good Christmas day as well. Still looking at me with a smile she asked, "Mommy, will tomorrow be next Christmas?". I tried to explain the length of a year by using the holidays that have already passed but that just excited her more!

Brazienna went to bed after playing hard on Christmas Eve. When she woke up Christmas morning and screeched with excitement when she discovered that Santa had delivered presents under our Christmas tree.

We had originally planned to have a quick breakfast since we all woke up feeling a little hungry. That was not going to happen! We began opening gifts, which took forever because Brazienna would inspect each gift box, each bow and each gift before moving on to the next gift.

Pushing her baby "Jessica"

One of the gifts she got from Santa (Nana) was the Polly Pocket Bead Machine. She told Nana that this toy is "The most favoritest, most important thing Santa could bring her". When she opened it she got soooo excited, covered her mouth in awe and kept saying, "Oh my, oh my, oh my". After staring at it for a few minutes she looked at us and said, "Santa is a good person!".

We took Brazienna on a walk to feed the ducks with her new baby stroller and Sammi walking along trying to get at the ducks.

Santa making his grand entrance with his bag of toys! Eric made a GREAT Santa! I think I'll become his agent and start booking him! hahaha! If Eric only knew I was soliciting him!

We were invited to join our friend's family for Christmas Eve. We had a great time and felt very welcome. Our friends live in Galveston but we went to their family's Christmas Eve party at Sarah's mom and dad's house. They have quite a little tradition. One part of the Garcia family tradition is to have Sarah's brother or brother-in-law dresses up as Santa and comes in carrying a bag of gifts. Sarah's dad said, "I hear something on the roof and it sounds like reindeer!". The kids got all excited until they see the silhouette of Santa at the frosted glass door. Some are even more excited and some were scared, including Brazienna. Brazienna had a horrible look on her face and ran over to where Bernard and I were sitting. She was adament about not wanting Santa to come in. About 30 seconds later, as Santa passed us on the sofa, Brazienna grabbed his finger as he walked by. Santa sat down and Brazienna was the 1st one to volunteer to sit on his lap!!!! Bernard and I were amazed. It was so sweet. He gave the kids a gift after each sat on his lap and rattled off their list of wants.

Brazienna was dancing with excitement before she got in the car to go to the Christmas party

Saying bye to Santa

A big hug before Santa leaves to deliver toys to all the boys and girls!

Bernard and I went Christmas shopping for Brazienna about a week or two before Thanksgiving. We thought we were don but it's hard to resist buying things when you are a proud daddy of a princess who has him wrapped around his pinky. Bernard bought her an Easy Bake Oven and left it in the trunk until we had a chance to get it to our hiding spot in the house.

A couple days later, I went to the car and opened the trunk before Brazienna and I went to walk Sammi. Brazienna caught sight of the Easy Bake and immmediately started questioning what it was why it was in the trunk. I told her it was for my work so she said, "Ohm just in case you get hungry when you're at work?". I said, "It's kind of hard to explain". So Brazienna said, "That's okay, mommy. When I get older you van tell me all about it and explain it to me".

I got out of that one for now!

We were watching t.v. the other night when a commercial came on for a teeth whitener product. Brazienna perked up and said, "Look mom, that's teeth whitener stuff". I agreed with her, what else could I do? Then the commercial indicate that it was "Premium" and Brazienna said, "You hear that, mom? It's Korean". I told her they said premium and she insisted and explained that the said it was Korean and that it would only whiten Korean teeth. I didn't even have a response to that.

It's been a while...Sorry everyone! I have quite a few entries but I am probably off on a few dates so I will just enter them and carry on. I certainly hope to be able to finally keep up with the blog. I really enjoy doing this and I know that Brazienna will truly enjoy reading this when she gets a little older. Until then, we will enjoy the funny, yet innocent, things that occur daily.

Brazienna had her 1st Christmas party at school today. Her teacher is really good with the kids. She has been working with kids this age for over 25 years.

As I walk in the door of Brazienna's classroom I was greeted by a bunch of kids yelling "Merry Christmas" and another bunch of kids getting on their case and yelling that it was not Christmas yet! All of classes decorated their own "something" for Christmas to hang in the entry of the day care. I could not resist taking a picture of the cutest one (okay, so it also happens to be from Brazienna's class. Its a bunch of gingerbread men that the kids decorated and hun on a piece of tin foil. It's supposed to be a cookie sheet! How cute is that? Take that, Martha Stewart!

Brazienna has really gotten into someone leaving her a voicemail. She will ask to call someone and when she gets them on the phone, she simply asks them to call and leave her a voice mail and that's her whole conversation. She will listen to the same voice mail over and over.

Well, I dialed the number to her Aunt Rose for her and to Brazienna's surprise, Aunt Rose was not home and she got so excited because she was going to leave Aunt Rose a voice mail.

This is Brazienna leaving Aunt Rose a voice mail. Rose, I believe you may have still been in Las Vegas :) She has a hunk of watermelon in her hand all over her face as you can see.

I know, another posting about walking Sammi, right? Not really but it does start that way. Brazienna was walking Sammi and I kept calling her by her name so she would catch on that it was her name. Brazienna got silly and started calling her Sam-I-Am and then decided we should call her "Window". I was like, "Window"? I told her that was silly and we were not going to change her name to "Window". Well, this obviously frustrated Brazienna because she said, "Mom, you don't know many things and I do. Actually, I know a lot of things and I will teach you some day". Imagine that! Keep in mind, she is soooo animated and even more so when she is serious.

Brazienna is sporting her dance class outfit.

Brazienna has not ever had to share our attention with anyone and she is not digging the whole idea of sharing mommy and daddy with a dog. Brazienna and I were walking Sammi the other night and it was cold so we were wanting her to hurry and do her business so we could go inside. I kept saying, "Come on, Sammi. Go potty" in a nice low voice.

Brazienna chimed in and said, "Just treat her like a dog, mom!". I thought, how else am I treating her? I hope Sammi don't think she is a sheep or duck or something!

We got a new puppy. Meet Sammi! Sammi is a yellow Labrador Retriever. She is 12 weeks old and her breeder was going to keep her so they already exposed her to duck hunting. Uh-oh, we live beside a little lake with ducks! Her dad has a slew

of awards for hunting, show, etc, etc and her mother has them for show. She is a cutie pie! However, she is a hand ful. She wants to chew on everything and we are house breaking her.

We bought her a stuffed duck with a quacker inside the tummy. She goes to town on this duck!
We could not decide on a name for her because Bernard and I had very different ideas when it came to dog names. Well, when we were on our way to get her we passed one of many huge statues of Sam Houston that are in the Houston area.

General Sam Houston is a former Governor of Tennessee, victor over Santa Anna in the Texas War of Independence, first President of the Republic of Texas, Senator from the State of Texas and Governor of the State of Texas.


This statue is 77 feet tall. As you can see, it is much taller than the tall pine trees that surround it.

Sammi, the puppy, was also born in Huntsville, TX. (The town in which Sam Houston lived and died)

I instantly suggested "Sammi" (since she's a little girl puppy) so that when we get a boy dog we can name him "Houston".