Funny Twins-

The messes are a daily occurrence here.  These cute babies are sure giving me a run for my money.  As you can see the climbing has begun.  Spencer is pretty quick getting up.  We have learned to put the chairs down on their side to keep them from climbing and potentially falling.  The spilling of cereal is going to be the death of me.  My cute older boys forget to keep their food out of their reach.  Oh, I love these guys.     

New Years

New years was another fun party with the Dubons, the Cuadrados, and the missionaries.  We played spoons for a VERY long time.  Lots of fun.  As we got close to midnight, we watched (in Spanish) the events happening up in Madrid on the internet.  The tradition here in Spain during the countdown is to be able to eat 10 grapes during the last ten seconds for good luck.  You have to be done chewing and swallowing at the stroke of midnight.  As you can in the pictures many big cheeks trying to get them down. Max was the last child to survive the late party.  He made it until 2:30 am.  A great way to welcome 2011!  

Christmas Eve, Day and Night

On Christmas Eve, Tanner started our holiday events with the flu.  We had plans to go to our friends the Phillips for dinner, but with Tanner not feeling well, I stayed home with the babies and Nick went with the older boys for the fun.  They had a great time and came home excited already from the ton of gifts the Phillips got for them.  My evening was quiet and low key taking care of the sick baby.  Our tradition is to open new pjs every year.  The babies opened up their pjs and then went to bed.  Then when the older boys got home they opened their gifts, left out cookies for santa, and went to bed.  Surprisingly, they stayed in their room all night and came in right at 7:00 like we told them.  It was a great morning with excitement to open their presents and give to each other.  I love that they are just as excited to give to others as they are to open their own.  After the busy morning, we cleaned up and prepared for friends to come over.  Thank goodness Tanner was feeling better.  We had fun playing games, with the Cuadrados, the Dubons, Tim James, David Stubbs, (they are two guys that just got here on a deployment away from their families) and the missionaries from our church Elder Ferguson, and Elder Wells.  It was fun to have them here for the holidays.  We have one more Christmas in Spain!  

Santa Visit

The boys got to see Santa last week.  Jake is 5 and this is the first year he sat on Santa's lap without being freaked out.  Santa reached out to hold Spencer and he was not going to have it.  He clung on to Caden for his life.  Tanner was more intrigued.  Poor Max was trying to hold up chunky Tanner.  Thus, the belly shot.  Merry Christmas Santa!

Vacations

November was a busy month of fun for both Nick and I.  We each got to go on our own trips with friends and have a chance to explore more of Europe.  First Nick went on a biking trip for five days through the southern part of Spain. He biked it all.  I don't remember the exact mileage but I'll make him do a post on it and tell you his details.  He's super human and did a great job climbing some seriously steep mountains.  Again, he can do his own post and share pictures of his trip.

After he was back for a week, I left on a cruise WITHOUT any kids!!!!!!  Yes, there is a first for everything.  It was not easy and I went a little (OK a LOT) overboard with preparing before I left.  I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for Nick while I was gone.  He'd never been home for five days straight with the role of "Mom".  I typed out 20 pages of instructions.  Like the daily schedules of each child, reminders of keeping the gates to the stairs shut, how to keep the babies safe,  how to heat the meals I prepared everyday, etc.  It was mainly for me to know I did my best before I left.  I knew Nick would do a good job.  I'm glad he laughed when I showed him all of the instructions.  He understands, I'm a little crazy about my schedules.  Anyway, I totally appreciate him letting me go with the girls for 5 days on my first cruise.  He did a great job playing both roles.

We had 19 ladies in our group.  It was such a blast.  I hadn't gotten to know many of them here since I'd been so busy with the twins.  This was a great chance for me to and I did.  We all drove in a bus together to Malaga Spain to start.  From Malaga we went to Ajaccio Corsica.  This is a French island where Napoleon Bonaporte was born.  We saw his home where he was born, his statue, and the chapel where he was baptized.  It was a fun day to shop and see the cute little town.

The next day we went to Toulon France.  My friend Heidi and I did a tour over to Marseille.  It was so beautiful.  The country side, and the southern french coast was breathtaking.  Marseille was a great city.  We got to go to the coolest Cathedral on the top of this hill that overlooked the whole city.   It was so hard communicating.  Bonjour, Merci, and Au revoir is the extent of my french.  I kept hoping they understood English or Spanish but most of them didn't.

Also I  decided when I lived in Japan, I would try the local cuisine and not be a chicken.  Yes, there were many times, I gagged but I felt like it was part of the experience.  So here, I had to go along with it and try caviar and escargot.  Honestly, the taste of both were pretty good, it was the texture that freaked me out. I don't have pictures only video of that. Checked those off my list.

The days on the ship were a ton of fun. They had great shows, the girls were fun to get to know, we played some fun games.  It was so great!  I am definitely going on another cruise.   Thanks Nick for keeping the boys happy and healthy while I was gone!

Warning... picture overload

I have more pictures of the girls but not on my camera.  I'll post them soon.

Below is in our first port stop Ajaccio Corsica.

This is the cathedral where Napoleon was baptized.

Where Napoleon was baptized.

This is the home where he was born. Above and below.

The pretty streets below.

Beautiful sunset view from the ship just before we left the port.

That's the end of Corsica pictures.  Now Toulon and Marseille, France below.

They were holding mass when we went to the Notre Dame of Marseille.

Yummy french crepe with Nutella!

 beautiful palace

The cathedral on the top of the hill is where I got all of the views of the city and ocean from above.  Inside the Cathedral was so pretty.  This is the view from the palace in the picture above this.