Christmas at the Gaylord

Every year we go to the Gaylord with Jake's family. It's a fun tradition that we look forward to! We like to look at all of the decorations and eat at the Riverwalk Cafe. We took lots of pictures. Here are some of my favorites!

Me & my cutie pies by the fire place

All of us!

Cute cousins!

The Girls!

Our family at the Gingerbread house

Cuties running away from the camera!

Sweet silly faces!

Silly Sarah

Here is a short video of our silly girl. She thinks it's so funny to smell her shoes & feet. My dad started teasing her & saying "that's terrible." Now she says it & we think it's the cutest thing!

Merry Christmas!!

Hello friends & family! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We did! I have so many pictures & things I want to remember about this Christmas. Here are a few of the highlights:

~We had our playgroup friends over for a Christmas party this week. It was so nice to see all of them!
~We celebrated Christmas with my family early & had a really nice time with them.
~My mom made me a recipe notebook with all of our family recipes! Some were from my grandma & even one from my great grandma! My sister made me a scarf but she got carried away and accidentally made it really long!
~We did miss being with the big group in Baton Rouge. I know this year was especially sad because it was the first Christmas without my cousin Christopher. I was praying for the family all day, that God would give them comfort.
~We went to the Christmas Eve service at the Met- it was incredible! What a precious thing to be able to sit beside my sweet little four year old boy, holding a candle, singing praises to God! I left feeling so blessed!
~It SNOWED in Texas!! It was beautiful! Adam played in it a little bit. My little princess thought it was too cold!
~We got together with Becky, Kasey & Baylee for dinner, gifts & Disney Trivia on Wii! Fun!
~The kids got new pj's on Christmas eve. We left out cookies & milk for Santa, Reindeer food & read The Night Before Christmas.
~We had to wake the kids up this morning! They ran excitedly into the living room & were so excited to see all of the presents under the tree!
~We had a wonderful morning at home together opening our gifts, eating breakfast, looking out the window at the SNOW!!
~We went to Mike & Maria's and enjoyed a wonderful meal with them. We had a nice visit with them and exchanged gifts once again!
~It really was a wonderful day! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas too!

Getting ready for Christmas!

We've been having lots of fun getting ready for Christmas. We baked cookies, "played project" (Sarah's words!), and got our picture taken with Santa! What a fun time of the year! We are ready for Christmas!!

Oh, Christmas Tree

Well our pretty live tree didn't make it until Christmas! It got so dried out, the ornaments starting slipping off! The funny thing is at the beginning of the season I told Jacob that this year I wanted an artificial tree with white lights. Well....my wish came true, just not exactly the way I would have chosen! We didn't feel like totally re-doing a big one. So, we got this cute little one & hung up our favorite ornaments. It works! We are happy with it! So, here is our second Christmas tree of the year!

Christmas Program!

Adam was in a Christmas program at his pre-school. He was a wiseman. He was so cute! They sang a song about baby Jesus. Here is a little video clip of their song:

Grandma got to come wach the program!

This precious little sheep is Adam's friend Kinsley. They have been friends since they were babies! Her mom Jara is one of my best friends! It's fun watching them grow up together!

Christmas Fun!

I know it was only a week or so ago, I was saying that it didn't feel like Christmas and I wasn't ready. Well, I'm ready now! I'm in crazy getting ready for Christmas mode! There are lists, gifts and half-done projects everywhere! In the middle of all of the crazieness I have to make myself slow down and enjoy this time of year & what it's really about. This weekend my mom & I took the kids to a FUN Christmas event in North Richland Hills. They had so many fun things for the kids to do (Like marshmellow roasting! How cute is that!), cute displays for taking pictures, hot chocolate & a tree lighting ceremony with fireworks set to Christmas music! It was FREEZING but we had so much fun!
My mom got Sarah the cutest hat the looks like a strawberry on top of her head! It's too cute!

We got our tree! We had a family night. We decorated the Christmas tree and the rest of the house, watched a Christmas movie & had a picnic in the living room. Now it's beginning to look & feel like Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am a little late getting this posted, but I'm still feeling thankful! I'm so thankful for my husband and our sweet children. I'm thankful for our extended family and wonderful friends. I'm thankful for our home. I'm thankful for Jacob's job & that it has allowed me to be at home with our sweet children! All of these things are huge blessings from God- I'm so thankful to Him! I'm thankful for all that he has done and is still doing in my life. He is amazing!

Here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving celebrations. The first two are from the kids' parties at school. The others are from Thanksgiving day. I didn't end up getting very many pictures that day. Adam was there, I promise! :) We enjoyed spending the day with family- including our special guests- Grams and Aunt Julie's family! We had so much fun with them!

Can you believe that tomorrow is December 1st! It's crazy how fast this year has flown by! I love this time of year, I just feel like it snuck up on me this year! I'm sure it will be lots of fun though. I started shopping a little bit on Black Friday. I didn't go crazy early but I did have to go to a few stores that day! We're hoping to get our tree up this week & start decorating the house. I guess it will feel more like Christmas then!

My sweet, silly boy

I love this boy!

My beautiful girl!

I love this girl! (yes that's Daddy's wallet in her hand! She's ready to go shopping!)

One more...

I love this guy too!

Visiting with friends

The Mullaney family have been good friends of ours for years. Actually, they knew Jacob & I before we knew each other! Jacob was friends with Chris & I was friends with Trisha. Their parents were always so sweet & made everyone feel like part of their family. Trish has since moved away, but she was in town this week. We had a nice visit with her and her mom. It was great to see them!

Family Day!!

Jacob FINALLY had a day off! Seriously, I bet it's been a month since he had one! We had such a nice day together. I thought he was going to work, so I took the kids to preschool then went to my Bible study. We had a good discussion about the Proverbs 31 woman & being a homekeeper. When I got out of class I had a message that Jake had taken the day off & wanted to go to lunch! A surprise lunch date- I love it! We went to one of our favorite places- Baja Grill. Yum! We went to a few stores then picked up the kids. When we got home we went out in the backyard & played with play-dough. The weater was beautiful today. Jake & the kids took a rest while I worked on a craft project. When they got up, the kids helped me make dinner. Since Daddy was home we made a special dessert- brownies! We ate dinner together & watched a Tinkerbell movie. It was such a fun family day! We all loved it! :)

I'm back!

I'm finally catching up on my blog! Things have been crazy! First Jake got put on this mandatory overtime schedule. He was working 10 hour days with no days off. That was crazy enough, then they sent him out of town on top of it. He went to Paris, TX to help them get caught up for "a few days." A few days, slowly turned into him being gone for TEN DAYS!! We missed him so much! He's finally home but still working long hours! He likes his job a lot but the hours are really hard on our family. I have a whole new respect and appreciation for single moms & military wives whose husbands are gone for long periods of time. This parenting thing is really easier with two people! The kids both have colds so we stayed home from church today. We've had a lazy day. I've been spending some time catching up on my blog. I tried to do them in reverse order, so read the next few, then click "older posts" for a few more!

Pre-School

With Jake's crazy schedule I decided to put Sarah in Mother's Day Out too. I feel a little guilty about being a stay at home mom and sending both of them to school! But, I think it will be good for all of us! I like having a day or two to run my errands, get groceries, have a lunch that doesn't involve spills or tantrums, exercise, Bible study or just take a little break! I feel refreshed when I go pick them up and I have more patience with them to get through the rest of our day! Sarah loves her time there! She's always excited to go and happily goes in to her class. She loves to do projects and comes home singing songs. Adam is very excited that she gets to go to his school! Here's my cute school girl on her first day!

Pumpkin Patch!

We finally made it to the Pumpkin Patch. We were so late into the season, there weren't very many pumpkins left! We still enjoyed our day there! The kids weren't very cooperative for pictures this time! But, I did get a few. My favorite ones (the last two) don't even have any pumpkins in them! :)

Halloween Fun!

We had so much fun celebrating Halloween this year. Adam was a knight & Sarah was Goldilocks. We spent lots of time with Sammy too- he was Harry Potter!

On Friday night we went to Trunk or Treat at our church, The Met. It was lots of fun! It was sooo crowded though! They had a very good turn out & hopefully were able to tell lots of new families about our church! We played some of the games, looked at the cute trunks, the kids played in the bounce houses & watched the kids sing & dance. We saw some of our friends but I know lots more were there that we didn't get to see!

On Saturday night we went to Hoot & Howl~ a carnival in North Richland Hills. That was lots of fun too! It was at a park. They had lots of games, more bounce houses, and a hayride. We had fun there! Sarah loved musical chairs. She would have stayed and played that all night!

After the carnival we went trick-or-treating in my parents neighborhood. That was fun too! Sarah caught right on! We ended up at Grandma & Papa's house for dinner. My dad made chili and my mom made a cute Halloween cake. (like we needed more sugar!)