Christmas Day 2009

Since we were snowed in at Jennifer's house for Christmas Eve we had to come up with a plan to make sure Santa had left out his presents for the kids. So we dropped the kids off at my mom's house and came home to make sure everything was ready for them.

Note to Santa...next year don't wait until the last minute to wrap the gifts...you will wear yourself out Santa! *wink*wink*

Here is our tiny tree. I miss our big tree but we live in such a tiny house there is no room for it. We plan on moving this summer though and I shall once again have my big tree up at Christmas. This little one will go into my kitchen next year. I already have several Mary Engelbreit ornaments that will match my kitchen perfectly.

Anyways....on to Christmas!

My babies. I love them so much. I thank God for them on a regular basis. The rest of the time I huddle in a corner crying why me? I'm kidding I'm kidding. Kind of. lol Oh I think I'm so funny today, aren't you lucky!

Family games! We love family games. I want the kids to be able to play chess and right now only The Boy knows how to play. So Santa brought us this to learn. Yay Santa!

Pictureka!!! I don't know how Santa knew that I've wanted this games for quite awhile now...but he did and he brought it to us. We love you Santa. Especially for bringing us fun family games to play together.

The girls LOVE this game. They make us play it every night when Aaron gets home from work. We love it too...go buy one right now, it's worth it, trust me!

I love handmade stuff...and this is the BEST!! Handmade wooden swords with Anthony's name burned into them. You can buy them here. This guy is awesome and has great customer service. Seriously, go to his store and buy stuff from him.

Emma loves small rodents....these aren't real though...fake hamsters yay!

Both girls got a paint-your-own tea set. I will post pictures of their painted tea sets later...they did an awesome job on them!

The girls both got this gun....that way they can shoot their brother. I use it to shoot my father-in-law when he comes out of his room. hehe

This was on his wish list so he was pretty happy...can you tell by that huge grin on his face?

They asked for Leapster games and that's what they got!

She asked for this doll so she was pretty happy Santa brought it for her.

Emma got a new horse. For the last four years she has carried around a horse we got her from the Alamo. That poor thing has had surgery on his side, his mane singed off in the dryer, and basically just loved to almost death. If that horse was the Velveteen Rabbit, that horse would be alive already!

The big gun!

My mom got Emma this cookbook along with a bunch of stuff she can use to cook...mixing bowls, measuring spoons and cups, spatulas and a whisk.

This is an awesome little cookbook with cajun recipes. I cannot wait to try the gumbo and the jumbalaya. So far the only thing we've made from the book is Eggs in a Nest. Man of man is it good but so not healthy. Good nonetheless! You can check out info on the book and pictures of the inside here.

And here is our puppy Caleb on Christmas. Today is actually New Years Eve and it is Caleb's 3rd Birthday. Happy Birthday Caleb!! We got him on Valentine's Day and he was just a cute fuzzy little puppy.

Here he is when we first got him. He was so cute! I love my stalker dog!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Y'all be safe tonight!!

Christmas Eve 2009

Can you believe that we actually had a white Christmas this year? Maybe not so unusual in the north, but in Texas, it doesn't happen that often.

We went to Aaron's sister Jennifer's house for Christmas Eve and halfway there we debated whether or not to turn back and go home because it was snowing so bad. We went ahead and made it to her house and ended up having to stay the night.

The roads were just too icy and the snow was really coming down. It probably wouldn't have been so bad but the wind was blowing so hard, it was just unbearable.

But we had a good time with everyone and ended up going to bed at 9:30! Ha!

This is our great niece Alivia. Isn't she beautiful?! She is such a good baby, I think I only heard her cry twice the entire time we were there. She has grown so much since she was born back in August. You can see pics of that here.

Jennifer and her husband Bobby gave Anthony a Tony Hawk skateboard for Christmas. The Boy loves Tony Hawk. His jacket, backpack, shoes and most of his shirts are Tony Hawk and he loved the skateboard. He loves it so much in fact, he doesn't want to ride it and mess it up. lol

Here is Aaron, me, Bobby and Jennifer.

My car out in the freezing snow.

The road. There was no way we were gonna drive on that!

Me and Aaron with Alivia. I love this pic!

Kayla and Jesse with their precious baby Alivia.

Emma taking the dog out in the snow....that girl is part Eskimo I just know it, she LOVED the snow!

And that was our Christmas Eve!

times up

I am almost done catching up, just have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pictures to blog but I am out of time! I have to leave and go get Aaron now so I will have to finish blogging another day!

I do have some exciting news I would like to share!! Aaron's uncle works for immigration and he is being sent over to London for a 6 month assignment and he has invited us to come visit him! If everything falls into place, then we will go in April and also include Paris and Amsterdam in our trip! Maybe even Germany.

So cross your fingers for us, I think everything will work out and April is only 4 months away!!!YAY I'm so excited!!

Pictures with Santa

Who waits until Christmas Eve to go see Santa? I do I do! I do it every year and I always promise myself that I won't do it again the next year.

It wasn't too bad. I took the kids over to Bass Pro Shops in Grapevine and had their picture done for free. I like free things, they make me happy.

I'm not at home so I couldn't scan their actual Christmas picture but it turned out cute...like how all three of them are in red? They all matched me because I was wearing red too!! yay

Christmas Cookies

We made Christmas cookies for Santa! We had the cookie dough, the icing, the sprinkles (you like my soup can rolling pin)?

All three kids helped out using the cookie cutters to make cute Christmas cookie shapes. Then we put them in the oven.....

...and forgot about them. LOL Oops, my bad! Santa had store bought cookies this year!!!

Prairie Lights in Grand Prairie

The next night after seeing the Interlochen lights all of us (Kristen, Daniel and their kids; Scott, Carrie and their kids; Jen, Shawn and her kids; and Jeff, Heather and their kids) went out to Grand Prairie to see the Prairie Lights.

Over 4 million lights!

We stopped at Santa's Village to ride rides, get some hot chocolate, watch a musical light show and walk through more Christmas lights before getting into our cars and finishing the drive through lights.

Look at little Spencer, isn't he adorable?!

This is Sara's future husband Nathaniel. Aren't they cute together? He is a sweet boy and that is why I chose him for her. Plus he's adorable!!

It's hard to see the tunnel of lights on our way out of the park.

This was a lot of fun and I think we will try to go next year too!!

Interlochen in Arlington

We took the kids to the Interlochen neighborhood in Arlington to check out their lights. Our friends Kristen, Scott and Carrie came along and brought their kids to see the lights too.

There were so many cars and such a long line! I had made hot chocolate for us to enjoy while we looked at the lights and we played Christmas music to get in the mood!

This house had my favorite display. Santa outside a camper with pink flamingo's as his reindeer!

I think we will skip it next year, mainly because of the super long line and hoe long it took to get through it. But we are glad that we got to go this year!