Christmas Day 09!

Marcus helping daddy put his new grill together
Yup! Taking a bath in the sink

Grandma and Popo playing with playdoh with Elena

How did Marcus know this was for him?!

Preparing for the big day!

Christmas day was fantastic! Grandma Sylvia and Popo decided to come into town late Christmas eve to be with us for a couple of days. The kids were very excited when they woke up to see the tree, plus that their grandparents were here. It was a day of family, which is what Christmas is really all about. The presents are just fun stuff to pass around, but being with your family is what is most important. The lunch I made was delicious....followed by round 2 for dinner. Our day began in our "lazywear" and it ended in our "lazywear" - it was great!

The next day was my father-in-law's birthday so we slept in a little bit, then had a great lunch at Saltgrass before they had to head back out to Corpus. It was a quick visit, but a worthwhile one. Hope your day was as great as ours! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve 09!

Placing Santa's key on door
Spreading the reindeer food

Surprised my husband with his new grill

Our Christmas Eve starting with preparing for a late lunch with Uncle Danny, Aunt Stacy, Uncle Randy, and future Aunt Cathy at our house. We loved having them over for some food and of course some laughs. We winded down with presents that we had for each other. Since I also had no way of hiding a huge grill for my husband as a gift, it worked best to give it to him on this night. He was very surprised and loved it!

Afterwards, we headed out to church in the cold and very windy weather. It was a beautiful sermon. Father talked about how we need to learn to just "slow down". We get so caught up with cell phones, time, rushing, appointments and such that we've gotten away from really taking in each moment of our lives. It was actually pretty funny how Father quoted a movie from Jennifer Lopez. It made sense though and this was a perfect time for this message of peace, love, family, and happiness.

We ended the night late by spreading some reindeer food and leaving the Santa key on our door since we don't have a chimey. The key only allows Santa to enter and leave the gifts he has for us. Needless to say, the next morning he came through!

The Big Tree

This is the HUGE lighted tree we see every year. It's in Cedar Park and it's absolutely gorgeous! Of course, we missed their annual celebration when they have a bonfire and festivity of lighting the tree on at the very beginning of December. But it's still a nice place to let the kids run around the tree and be silly. The kids had an absolute blast! Marcus hadn't taken a nap at all yesterday and all he did was run around the entire time (go figure)!

There is also a huge sleigh were families can take pictures together. My kids, on the other hand, didn't like the part of sitting still for even 5 seconds because they were just having too much fun playing. Afterwards, we picked up some Starbucks hot chocolate to warm up and went driving around looking at lights. It was the perfect ending to a busy day. Hope your family is enjoying this time together with the many small traditions you celebrate! Merry Christmas ya'll!

2nd Annual Cookie Baking!

Kalli is putting her personal touch to her cookie

The three cookie makers hard at work!

We recently had our 2nd annual cookie baking at our house this year. We get together with the Steele family and Miss Rebecca to make cookies as gifts and as goodies for our families to share and eat. The kids love getting together to share in this fun occasion. This year was more difficult since we had some batches burn, but overall is was a success! We had so much dough that we didn't do that many cut-outs and ended up just having regular round cookies.

All in all, the kids had a blast and my kitchen and table were covered with sugar and icing! That was plenty of proof to show how hard the kids worked to perfect their cookie skills. We look forward to the 3rd annual cookie baking at Miss Rebecca's house next year! Merry Christmas and happy baking!