Happpy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I know I have been really bad with posting and I am very behind so I would like to start off by apologizing for how long this post will probably be. The holidays are just so busy. We have had a memorable holiday season though.

We spent Thanksgiving here in Austin with our little family. It was the third year in a row that we have had Thanksgiving with just our family and I think we might finally be getting the hang of it. We had a very delicious dinner with of course Turkey and dressing and potatoes and green beans. Although, my favorite part would have to be the dessert. JC made a very yummy chocolate pecan pie. Doesn't it look good...mmmmmm.

Then we jump right into Christmas time, I cannot believe how fast Christmas came this year and I will have to admit, I didn't even get Christmas cards out this year. Sorry I know you are all so dissapointed haha :P

We did get to do some fun stuff though. Tyler had a concert at school where his class sang Rudolph the red nose reindeer and another song that I can't remember at the moment. I have some pictures and video from it, but it is on another memory card so I will post those later when I have the card reader on me.

For Christmas this year we have been lucky enough to have lots of visitors. Kelsey, Kevin and Annalise came down for a visit when Kevin was here interviewing at UT for the MBA program. We got to take all the kids to see Santa. The kids were kinda nervous so Kels and I jumped in the picture so we could try and get smiling faces rather than tears :) Obviously Tyler and Samantha were not the nervous children. It was great to have Kels here to visit, the kids had so much fun being able to play with their cousin and we look forward to many more times of getting together with cousins. And Speaking of cousins, there are now two more in the family. Steve and Ellie had their adorable little girl Lilly and Brandon and Heather had their cute little William. They are both too cute and I can't wait for the chance to see them and hold them. The boy cousins are really getting out numbered here though. 4 girls and 2 boys, somebody better get movin here on the boys.... Matt, Kels? Haha

For the first time in a while we decided to go with an artificial tree. The kids had alot of fun decorating and I think in order to stick with our annual traditions Caitlin decided to pull the tree down :) We are on a 4 year roll and I think we should just keep going. We may end up with all broken ornaments a few years from now though. So....... I am looking forward to putting the tree back in the box and not vacuming up pine needles.....yeah for artificial trees.

The program at church was great on the Sunday before Christmas with beautiful Christmas music and some good speakers. I love being able to sing the Christmas songs at church this time of year. And the kids all looked so cute in their Christmas church clothes.


Our next visitors this year were my parents. They came down here to spend Christmas with us. It has been alot fo fun to have them here and the kids have been spoiled. We got to go to The Trail of Lights at Zilker Park in downtown. It is an annual tradition here in Austin where they string lights and create Christmas scenes on a mile long stretch of trail at Zilker park. It was fun to have Mom and Dad join in the fun this year. We saw great lights and had good food. This is the second year we have gone to the Trail of Lights, I would love to make it a tradition.

The next evening was Christmas eve and we had fun preparing for Santa's arrival. The kids made cookies with my Mom and even made a Star cookie, which held a two fold meaning, the star from the Saviours birth and the Texas Star.

The kids had too much fun making cookies and even started dancing. Here is a video of the kids with Grandma, but I have to warn you before viewing, if you are in anyway offended by children making cookies in their underwear than don't watch this. They had just taken a bath and we had not dressed them in their new pajamas yet since they were going to open their first present just before they went to bed.


The kids were very excited for Santa to come and we had a hard time getting them to go to sleep that night but they finally did lay down as we went to work as Santa's helpers. The girls were very excited the next morning to discover that they both got bikes and Tyler was happy to find that he got one of the things he asked for The Hot Wheels Speed Crash Set. He also wanted a PSP but Santa thought that he already had enough video games with Wii and couldn't afford to buy a PSP.

The kids had alot of fun being able to go out and ride their bikes together, now we just need to teach them to ride without training wheels.

Samantha was still in her pajamas when we went out to ride their new bikes.