What I love the most..

about having little ones at Christmas time!

Just to name a few..

Baking and decorating cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve..

 I'm not a baker, but I got this recipe on Pinterest, and these were the fluffiest, yummiest sugar cookies I've ever had!  YUMMMMMMM

We put two of them out for Santa, along with some milk.  Santa thought they were pretty stinkin' good too.

 Even Daddy got in the mix.. (Mommy did too.. but no one takes pictures of Mommy..what are you gonna do?)

 Going to see Santa to tell him what we want for Christmas..

 They were SOOO good this year!  What a huge difference from last year!  They got right up in his lap and told him what they wanted.. so big :)

 Going half-way to crazy-ville, trying to put together something that might resemble a gingerbread house, so the kids can decorate it!! 
As stressful as the first part was for me (and as BAD as I am at that stuff), they loved it and really did have so much fun decorating it themselves. 

I may just talk myself into doing this again next year..

 Lilly just puts the candy wherever she wants..

 Nate is definitely more my "liner upper".. Much more uniform..

 Daddy wasn't home to help with the gingerbread house, but he did enjoy eating all of the candy off of the roof little by little (he thought he was sneaky)!  I wish I had taken a picture of that..

Pre-school Christmas parties! Pretty much just sitting at a table with a hat on eating a cooky (in jammies, no less), but still.. good times!

But let's face it.. what I love the MOST about having someone in the house who still believes in the MAGIC of Christmas.. is that it reminds me to believe too..

More pictures from Christmas day with the family to come.. MERRY (late) Christmas!

Christmas Show

Look at these cuties all dressed up for their Christmas show at school! 

 They did all age groups together (2-5) and all the kids did surprisingly well for being so little!  Nate and Lilly got in their spots and just stood their looking around..

 They stood..

 and they stood some more!!

 Maybe next year they will do more singing and dancing..but they were still soooo cute! And we didn't have any melt-downs so I was happy!!!   



Colorado 2011!

Every year, getting to Colorado with the kids gets easier and easier! This year was really great. The car ride itself is always horrid, but the kids were really great and didn't fuss very much at all. It was a far cry from the previous years where our ear drums were bleeding before we even got out of our neighborhood!

While we were there, we did exactly what we wanted and needed to do.. a whole lot of relaxing and just sitting around the house enjoying family and letting the kids play and spend time together.

Of course it was colder than a witch's -you know what- but at least it was sunny and a couple of days weren't too windy so we got to play outside, which the kids LOVE to do (notice the Texas kids are the only ones in coats- LOL!)! 

Grandpa reading a story!  These babies were read to A LOT!! 

They got a special treat when we got to go see a bunch of pretty Christmas trees decorated by differnt companies.  Grandpa's company was one of the hosts..

The LOVED it!

More playing outside!

Uncle Danny (Nate's new BFF) brought over Cars 2 movie for us to watch (we STILL had not seen it)!

Brian and I even got away up to the mountains one day!  Thanks for babysitting, Grandma! :)  Brian wanted to see some animals up close and he got his wish!

Aunt Pam reading to a full house!

One morning we woke up to several inches of snow.. They were so excited.. I just love this picture of LIlly looking out the window.. I think she is so pretty even with crumbs on her face!

Aunt Stephie is so much fun to play with!!  See Lilly eating the snow?!

Baking cookies with Grandma!! YUUUUMMM

Anna is getting so good at reading! 

All the cousins with Grandma and Grandpa!

Fun with Uncle Danny!!

Thanks to Pam for this DELICIOUS cake to celebrate the December birthdays!  IT.WAS.GOOD!

This was such a great trip, partly because I got to sleep with Lilly and she slept in until 9:30 every day, but mostly because the kids are at such a good age to enjoy spending time with family and really know what is going on and who they are spending time with.  We all enjoyed it- can't wait to be back in May for Aunt Stephie's graduation!!