I'm an Auntie again!

This past Monday my sister-in-law gave birth to two perfect babies. She was 36th weeks pregnant, but those babies were more than ready for the world. Wolfgang Augustine Hoelscher was 5lbs 15.75oz (almost 6lbs!) and little Cecilia Frederikke Hoelscher weighed in at 5lbs 7oz. They are joining their wonderful sister Louisa Diann who is 18 months old. Needless to say my brother and his wife will definitely have their hands full :-). Congratulations on your amazing additions to your family!

Baby Cece

Baby Wolf

Melissa's ladies dinner & diapers shower

This past Friday we had a dinner & diapers shower for my SIL Melissa. She is expecting twins, a boy and a girl so she will be needing A LOT of diapers. My wonderful friend Elaine had a great idea to do a ladies dinner & diapers shower. We frequently have ladies dinners where everyone brings a dish and a bottle of wine to share where we eat and drink way too much :-) so it seemed like a great idea to translate it into a diaper shower. Elaine did a great job coordinating the party and it went off without a hitch. I am planning on throwing a Sip&See after the babies are here so stay tuned for that blog post. Melissa is at 34 weeks so the babies could make there entrance at any time now although it would be ideal if they could hang in there for a couple more weeks. We are so thrilled to welcome these two little babies to our family!



Diaper cake I made for Melissa & the twins



Momma :-)

Margaret, Elaine & Reba prepping for the party

Megan & Reba ( I think I caught them off guard :-))

The delicious pink & blue cupcakes that Reba made

some of the ladies snacking

Margaret & my niece Lou playing

My beautiful niece

present opening time!

Adorable his and hers robes

Cute "little sister/brother" PJ's

 

New Year's Eve Party

This year we decided to have a New Year's Eve party at our home. Growing up my dad always was the guy to have a party on New Year's Eve and I thought we could potentially take that role over for him. Last year was the first year I didn't stay up until midnight to say, "Happy New Year!" and I don't want to miss it again. For me there is something special about New Year's Eve and I feel sad when I miss the festivities that go along with it. Maybe it's because my dad always made such a big deal about that holiday, but something about it gets me in the party mood :-). Since James was going to be here I wanted to make sure others brought their children so he would have other kids to play with. I decided it would be fun to shoot off some fireworks for the kids (and adults) as well. Mike was maybe a little too excited about that idea and may have gone a bit overboard with the fireworks, but they definitely were a hit:

Our array of fire works (those bags are full of them as well)

 

We had a great turnout for the party and although it was hectic at times with all of the kids running around, we had a blast. Unfortunately it was rainy all day and we were worried we may not be able to use our fire pit or shoot off the fireworks, but mother nature gave us a break after dark and stopped the rain. Much to my chagrin it was still pretty wet and muddy out so it wasn't the cleanest of nights with children (and adults) running in and outside tracking mud everywhere, but I bit my tongue and tried to ignore it as much as possible :-). We had an abundance of food and drink and everyone really enjoyed themselves. I had had a turkey smoked for smoked turkey sandwiches and I had made a beer cheese dip, jalapeno sausage on a stick and a crudites tray for something healthy, and everyone else brought a dish to share. I decided it would be fun to do a signature drink and since it was New Year's Eve what's a better cocktail than a Champagne cocktail. So I made a Poinsettia Champagne cocktail which included Cranberry juice, triple sec, vodka and Champagne. It was delicious and everyone really seemed to like it. I am looking forward to throwing more NYE parties in the future and I think Mike is just excited about the prospect of getting to shoot off more fireworks :-). Here's some photos from the night:

Some of the decorations before the party

The drink table

The spread of food (some hadn't even arrived yet!)

My bestie and me

One of many fireworks shot off that night

Some of the kiddos watching the fireworks from James' playhouse

Margaret & Krys

Lyla, James & McKay watching Cinderella in James' bed
(I was trying to get them to fall asleep...it didn't work)



Jessica, Dana & me (Lyla & McKay belong to them)

The kiddos blowing on the noisemakers

Aaron & Yvette

Mel & Elaine

One of the festival balls I was able to capture (they were so pretty!)

Longhorn Bowl Game

As everyone knows I am a huge Longhorn fan. I got my Masters degree there and absolutely loved going to football games. We were lucky enough to be invited to the Fiesta bowl game here in San Antonio by some of our dear friends and jumped at the opportunity to go. The game was definitely a nail-biter and I wasn't sure we were going to win, but we ended up pulling it out in the end. Hook 'Em Horns!!!

The band making their way to the stadium

Mike & I tailgating before the game

 

The band at halftime

Dana & Joe

The final score!

Thank you so much to Dana and Joe for inviting us. We look forward to going to more Longhorn games with y'all in the future!

New Year's Eve Party at the Club

Mike and I recently joined the CCA (culinary clubs of America) here in San Antonio. The plaza club is somewhere I've been going since I was a kid and I was really excited when Mike decided to join. They used to have a really nice New Year's Eve party every year and it was great place to get wonderful food and since it's at the top of the Frost Bank building downtown you could see all of the fireworks being shot off around the city. For the past few years they have stopped holding it on the actual Eve of New Year's and typically hold it the weekend before. This year we decided to attend it with my parents and I'm glad we did because we had a wonderful time.

Mike & I ready for the party

My wonderful parents

Mike doing some of his crazy dance moves

Dancing the night away :-)

Christmas Day 2012

So as seen in the previous post my family has the tradition to open presents on Christmas Eve, but we wanted to create our own family traditions so we decided we would open presents from family on Christmas Eve and then Santa would come and leave all of his presents for James to open on Christmas Morning. This has now become our official tradition. I think it's important for children to be excited about opening presents on Christmas morning, so even though I didn't really grow up with it I wanted our children to. James was up bright and early as usual as he came into our bedroom around 6 am. Somehow we convinced him to watch some TV in our bed so we could slowly wake up. So after about 30 minutes of TV we ventured into the family room to see that Santa had left tons of presents for James. He excitedly ripped into them and was thrilled that he not only got what he asked for (a dart gun and cars), but many other great things.

James and Daddy digging into the first package

James with he new Nerf dart gun

James' new Thomas train set

Love his face here

James with his haul from Santa

After opening presents we headed to my parents house to have a Christmas breakfast of pigs-in-a-blanket (James' request), scrambled eggs and mimosas. We decided to make a day of it and hang out there for the day so I could help my dad with preparing Christmas dinner. We traditionally have baked brie, smoked salmon, mushroom-brie soup and prime rib roast. Christmas dinner is always my favorite meal of the year. We had a nice relaxing day and played games with James while enjoying our mimosas. James wanted to stay in his PJs all day and since it was just the 5 of us (James, Mike, me and my parents) we went ahead and let him do so :-). All of the other kids were at their in-laws or had to work. As always the meal was delicious and we overate, but it was a really nice relaxing Christmas day.

James and Daddy playing games

Here I am working on the baked brie

James with his olive fingers

James got a new camera for Christmas from my parents
and here is one of his photos of all of us (a little blurry, but not bad)

James chowing down on the mushroom brie soup

Another photo by my boy :-)

Our delicious prime rib (James also took this one!)

This photo captures them perfectly :-)

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Until next year...

Christmas Eve 2012

We had a lovely Christmas Eve with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and baby Louisa. We decided to head to Children's mass this year since it was earlier in the day (4pm) in order to avoid it getting too late for present opening time. It was a really lovely mass and there even was a little play put on by some children of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter the night of our Savior's birth. We will definitely be attending this mass in the future. After mass we headed to my parents for the traditional San Antonio Christmas Eve dinner, tamales, carne guisada, Mexican rice and tons of homemade salsa, pico de gallo and guacamole. In my family we typically open presents on Christmas Eve because it is a German tradition, so we went ahead and opened presents after dinner. Here's some photos from the evening:



The family posing before mass

Daddy & James

Mommy & James

James in front of my parents Christmas tree

James and Louisa

James ready to open presents

James ripping into the presents

Louisa with her "purse" and new phone :-)

My brother Joey & his wife Melissa

My silly boy

James and his note and cookies for Santa