We Wish you a Hairy Christmas

Some years I am so good about taking lots of pictures and some years I just want to be in the moment....this was an in the moment year!  I did get a few but not many.  

My mom crocheted beards for everyone in the family so I marched everyone outside and made them put on beards and we took a picture.  I love how fun this is! (I wish we'd done this at Thanksgiving....it would have made a great Christmas card picture!)

I was feeling left out of the beard club with Shawn, so this made me feel like I understood him a little better.  I love this picture!

Gramme gave me an ornament that said "The Elves made me do it" since she knows our Elf is very active and quite mischievous.  

I didn't get a picture of it, but my parents gave each of us (their kids) a trunk full of things from our childhood that we haven't seen since our childhood....ALL KINDS OF THINGS.  I opened the box, and pretty much burst into tears...the kind of crying that alarms people.  I worked to get myself together, pretty much closed the box back up and told them that I'd be going through the whole thing alone!  lol  I feel pretty emotionally stable so I think I am going to go through the whole thing tonight!  I have been anticipating going through it since Christmas day so I can't wait to see what's in there!  I am a very sentimental person so this gift meant more than anything to me.  

It's the Most Wonderful Day of the Year!!!

Here's the Eve of the Most Wonderful Day of the Year.  Reading the same book I've been reading for all 38 of my Christmases!

Levi took the cookies and milk to put by the fireplace and then posed exactly like this, without me even saying I was going to take a picture.  

Finally!!!!  It's Christmas morning!  I love the sleepy face looks mixed with excitement!

Then it's finally time to run down the stairs and see what Santa brought!!!

I had to share this picture!  Shawn bought me 2 pounds of the marshmallow stuff they put in cereal!!!  Funny and great gift!

Christmas morning was wonderful as usual.  Next stop: Tyler!

Cookiepalooza

I needed to really challenge my Type A personality so I decided to make sugar cookies AND gingerbread cookies with my three children.  It was a crazy, creative, loud, messy, chaotic and wonderful time!  On Wednesday we made two batches of sugar cookies with the first batch using all kinds of decorations and a second batch using royal icing to "color" them.

The finished products using royal icing....these were FUN to make!  We all had a lot of fun!

Today, we wanted to make gingerbread cookies!  I got a little smarter today and only rolled out one big piece of gingerbread instead of giving each child their own dough.  (that made a LOT of mess yesterday!)

Levi bathed himself in flour.  I think I need to officially throw out what I have left and buy a new bag.

After baking them and letting them cool, we began decorating them.

I absolutely loved doing this.  It was so soothing.  The kids were quiet and good at sharing the whole time which was a wonderful surprise!

Ta-Da!  

And now to consume as many as possible...and leave a few for Santa.

Last Days with Mikey

Tuesday, Mikey was at the top of our tallest tree, hugging the star.

 Wednesday, Mikey brought gingerbread peeps and cookie mix!  The peeps were delicious.  We made sugar cookies instead and saved the gingerbread mix for Christmas Eve.

Today is Mikey's final day.  We found him by the front door, with his sleeping bag, pillow and suitcase, ready to head back to the North Pole.  The kids are sad to see him go....but I'm a little relieved!

It's been a fun season with Mikey.  Now to spend the next 11 months hunting down more odd miniature objects!

A day in Austin

Shawn planned a super fun day for our family down in Austin.  We stared today at the Capital.  We haven't been since possibly before Levi was born.  The kids were all very into the whole thing!

I took random pictures of cool things I saw.  :)

This was the tree inside the House of Rep.  It was really big and it was real.  

Here it is in scale.

More artsy shots.

This is standing in front of the doorway into the Senate chambers.  

Even the lights in the House of Rep room spell "TEXAS!"

Love this pic of took of the handrails on the stairs.

Checking out that amazing dome inside the building.

Next we headed to the Four Seasons to check out a gingerbread display.

And a really cool tree in the lobby!  Lots of large metal objects that personify Austin.

As we were getting ready to leave, the train going around the gingerbread town started up and Levi freaked!  So we had to stay a little while longer so he could run around the track over and over, staying up with the train.

Next we headed to Home Slice pizza.  It always hits.the.spot.  The kids got the full experience by sitting on the curb while eating their slice.

After that, we headed to a toy store Shawn had heard of on 6th street called Toy Joy.  It was a lot of fun with SO many things to look at!  We had a fun time trying on masks and hats.  Lots of laughing in that section of the store.  

We finished off our Austin day with Amy's icecream.  It just never disappoints.  We headed home tired and happily exhausted.  It was a great day!

Percussion People

Elle performed in her 2nd band concert last week.  They played some Christmas songs and of course my heart swelled with pride as we watched her perform.  She had been excited all week for this concert.  She played the triangle, the bells and the marimba!  

We can just barely see her head during the concerts because percussion is always in the very back.

Proud family after the concert

She can't exactly pose with her instrument, so she posed with all the sticks and mallets she needed!

Speaking of percussionist, Uncle Chad got to come see us for the weekend!  Everyone loves Uncle Chad because he's silly and funny and makes us laugh.  Shawn was super excited because he also now had someone who would appreciate it, to go see the new Star Wars movie with.

Our favorite memory from his visit is taking him to see Christmas lights on Saturday night.  We went to a house with an amazing light show and you could turn your radio station to have the lights and music in the car match up.  The song "Let it Go" from the Frozen sound track came on and we all sang AT.THE.TOP.OF.OUR.LUNGS every single word from that song.  We laughed for a while about that.

Mikey; Week 3

Week three started off treacherously for Mikey.  He was tied to the tracks by an assortment of hoodlums who wanted to watch the train run over him.

Somehow he survived and spent the next day relaxing by the window and sipping on some hot cocoa.

  

Thursday, Mikey was getting excited about Elle's band concert that night, so he brought out his own set of drums!

Friday it got real.  Mikey climbed into our Good News Jar and reminded us that we were down to the 7 day count down till Christmas!

Saturday, Mikey set up his very own fireplace (in our fireplace) complete with a stocking hung by the fire.

Sunday morning, we found Mikey in the downstairs bathroom trying to rope a loose steer while on his way to church.  The kids thought that one was quite funny.

Monday, he thought he'd be "puny" with the toilet paper roll.  Only 3 more days of Mikey's antics!