Way Too Many Christmas Pictures

We had a great Christmas this year. We went out to dinner on Christmas Eve, and then had everyone over here for Christmas morning and brunch. We all took naps and then headed over to my parents for Christmas dinner (and more presents!). I don't have pictures of that, but here are WAY too many of the ones that I do have :)

Christmas Eve in our jammies in front of the tree.

 I love this one SOOOO much:

Christmas morning. Shea got a baby doll and stroller from Santa. Lucas got his much desired "big machines". He was soooo excited!

I bought both the kids a pair of rainboots. They were weirdly so excited about these. They both tried them on and proceeded to have a dance party in the den for about 10 minutes.

Random other pictures from the morning:

After we opened presents and munched, I went to make brunch. Shea was so worn out that she took a nap, and Lucas bundled up and took all his machines out to the sandbox to create a building site. We had a wonderful and blessed Christmas. Hope you did, too!

Fun with Mimi and Papa

We have so enjoyed having my parents back in Texas since October! Over the holidays, we got to do lots of special things with them, and we are so excited to have them at our everyday events, too. (And to have babysitters in town!)

I personally was super excited to get to do Christmas cookies with my mom again. We did this every year growing up. (Who am I kidding...ever year until I was in my mid-twenties!) We haven't been able to make it to their house before Christmas in the past few years, so we have not gotten to partake in the fun. This year, the kids and I headed over for lots of frosting, sprinkles, and sugar fun!

Making the dough and icing (ignore Lucas' weird faces):

This is how Lucas decorated. Mom does the icing. He does one blob of sprinkles. Then eats a handful.
 

And, then he gave up and worked on a puzzle while my mom and I finished the rest of them up.

We also took my parents to the Perot Museum with our Member guest passes. We had a great time, but it was SUPER crowded. Does anyone know what days are LESS crowded. I think all the 2nd graders in the world were there!

Christmas with the Knights

So...I only snapped a few pictures at our Christmas dinner with our friends-who-are family, the Knights. (Poor Baby Jude didn't even make it in the shots...he was there, I promise!) Since they moved further away, we don't get to see them as often as we would like, but we sure have fun when we do! Here are the other three kids enjoying each other and making it impossible to take a picture :)

Our friend Jeremy is a wonder with his tools, and this is what Shea came home with from our gift exchange:

It's a super cute crib for her baby doll, complete with a drawer for all it's clothes. So cute. Shea pretty much thinks it's for her at the moment (as you can tell from the pictures), but we will work on that. Thanks Jeremy and Becky...we love you guys!

Christmas Boating Adventures

Back in November, my parents found a great Groupon for a boat ride where we get to look at Christmas lights. There is a town nearby that puts on this HUGE Christmas lights display, and we thought this would be a fun way to look at them other than by car. Well. The there was the ice storm. We got cancelled once because it was too cold, and it was STILL cold on the day we rescheduled for. However, we all toughed it up and headed out.

First of all, I am NEVER going to see these lights in a car. There were a LEAST a million cars in line, and it costs $30 just to get in!!  Our boat driver told us the wait is about 4 hours to get in. No thank you. No lights are that pretty. It was fun to be out on the water to see them, though. I would do this again if it weren't 20 degrees. Hah. My kids were pretty miserable but the rest of us had a good time. Things perked up for Lucas when he got to drive the boat. He pretty much thought that was amazing, and Steve became his new best friend.

Go figure that the year we decided to do this, December was FREEZING!  Next year, it will probably be in the 60s!