Christmas in East Texas

We spent the weekend celebrating Christmas in East Texas with Robert's family. As always, we enjoyed the time with family there. Robert's mom and stepdad (MeMe and CeCe) have a new Yorkie puppy named Krikit and she was the main attraction. She is soooo cute:


The kids couldn't get enough of her and she was constantly being held or carried around by someone.


Camden was thrilled to have a puppy that he could hold in his lap and carry around. He's always trying to pick Dixie up, but she's just a little to big for him. Krikit was just right:

We took Dixie with us on this trip and she wasn't as enamored with the puppy as everyone else was. She really wasn't sure what to make of this little furball nipping at her ankles:

MeMe had gingerbread men for the kids to decorate:

Cullen with his masterpiece:

Rhonda and her boys were down from Missouri, so all the cousins were there and had a great time being together. We got this picture of all of them in front of Tonya's tree by telling them they couldn't open presents until we got a good shot - they were very cooperative!

Camden, Cody, Coleman, Lexie, Kenna, Austin, Cullen

Merry Christmas!

We had a very low-key Christmas Day, just the five of us - though it started VERY early. Kenna and Cullen were up at 4:45! Robert got up with them and let me "sleep in" - until 6:00. By then Camden was up too.

Santa brought Nintendo DS Lites for Kenna and Cullen and they started right in playing with them - even though they didn't have a game for them. Apparently you can send text messages between them, so they are loving that. They also enjoyed all the goodies that were in their stockings that you can see scattered on the floor all around them:

Santa brought a "Ben 10 Alien Force Creation Chamber" for Camden. There are a bunch of little plastic alien parts that can be combined in the machine to make different aliens. Robert had a great time putting it together:

Camden loved the Planet Heroes Solar Station that Robert and I gave him:

We gave Kenna and Cullen games for their Nintendos. Lucky for us, Santa had come through on those!

Cullen spent a good bit of his day staring at that little screen:

Santa even filled Dixie's stocking:

After present opening, we watched the Disney Christmas parade and spent the rest of the day playing. The kids didn't even get out of their pajamas - what a great way to spend a day! I'm so thankful for this special time of year when we spend extra time with family. And I'm especially grateful for the reason that we celebrate - God loving us enough to send us His Son, who would provide the way for us to be part of His family!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Festivities

We celebrated Christmas Eve with my family at our house. Nana and Papa arrived early and spent time working a Christmas puzzle with the kids:

We had a huge, wonderful meal in the afternoon. Mom made her famous Christmas Eve lasagna, and even made a separate dairy free lasagna for Robert, who's allergic to milk. We enjoyed good food and fellowship around the table with Nana and Papa and Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Kevin; we enjoyed having Kevin's sister, Kelly, join us this year.

The adults opted not to exchange gifts this year, but of course there were still a few for the kids. Camden was very excited about his "Martian Matter" from Nana and Papa:

Even without "real" gifts for the adults, we ended up with two "Mystery Gifts". The mystery gift is a tradition that Mom and Dad started when Jennifer and I were still living at home. There was always one gift under the tree without a name, and we didn't find out who it was for until the last minute; it's always something funny. We've continued the tradition and sometimes Jennifer or I will bring the mystery gift. We never discuss who's doing it each year, but I think this is the first year we've had two.

Mom made this lovely hat for me. She used mouse ears that she still had from when we went to Disney as kids and then attached a pennant that reads "Tour Director". I think that might have been commentary on my bossing everyone around on our recent Disney trip - but I'm going to choose to take it as a compliment on my organizational skills!

Jennifer brought this lovely wooden rooster for Mom:

After opening gifts, we decorated gingerbread men and trees that Jennifer had made from scratch - yummy!

In the evening we attended a Carols, Candles, and Communion Christmas Eve service at our church. We came home and had our birthday party for Jesus. Here's Cullen decorating the cake earlier in the day:

This year I made blonde brownies for the cake. If you look closely you can see that it says "Happy Birthday JESUS" on it, but once the kids were finished with the sprinkles and M&M's, the words were a little hard to make out:

Gingerbread Houses

Yesterday we spent the day with our friends, the Woods. We carried on our 3 year tradition of making gingerbread houses together. In the past they've walked across the street to make them at our house, but since they now live an hour away (sniff,sniff), we drove to their house this year. It was a great time of visiting, playing, decorating, and eating lots of candy!

Here's the crew in the midst of decorating their houses:

Cullen, Kenna, Camden, Natalie, Ridgedon, and Emily

Adiah didn't really help with the decorating, but she sure enjoyed the candy, climbing on the table and seeing how much she could fit in her mouth at one time:

Here are the kids with their finished houses:

Our house received a nice dusting of powdered sugar "snow" last night. It's amazing how a blanket of freshly fallen snow makes everything look better:

The Woods kids made an interesting "tree" to go in front of their house - Amy W. has a picture of it on her blog, you can see her post by clicking here.

Christmas Class Parties

Yesterday was the kids' last day of school before the Christmas break, so they all had their class parties. I managed to make it to all three parties, but I felt like I was meeting myself coming and going down the halls of that school! As much as they love school and as much as I enjoy the time I have to get things done while they're at school, we're all looking forward to the break from the routine.

Beautiful Ballerina

Thursday night was "Parent Watch" night at Kenna's dance studio. They don't let parents watch the weekly lessons, to keep from distracting the girls, so I was interested to see what she has been working on. I was impressed with what she's learned in only a few months of lessons.

Molasses Cookies

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is making Molasses Cookies. I mix up the dough and then the kids help me roll it into balls and then roll the balls in sugar.

I suspect the main reason that the kids love to help is that I let them lick the sugar from their fingers when we're finished!

I got this recipe from a good friend whose mother always made them for the holidays when we were growing up. Here's the recipe if you want to make them yourself:

Molasses Cookies

3/4 C shortening

1 C sugar

1/4 C molasses

1 egg

2 tsp. baking soda

2 C flour

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

Melt shortening in a large glass mixing bowl in the microwave on low power; allow to cool. Add sugar, molasses, and egg; beat well. Add flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Form dough into one inch balls and roll balls in granulated sugar. Place on cookie sheet 2" apart. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

Here are the cookies ready to go into the oven:

And the finished product:

My food photography skills are lacking, but these are very pretty and delicious cookies. If you bake them just the right amount of time, they're crisp on the outside and soft on the inside - YUM!

Breakfast with Santa!

We took the kids to the country club near our house yesterday to visit Santa and have breakfast.

Santa asked Camden what his favorite thing about Christmas is. Camden answered "Jesus". Amen!

We took this family shot when we got back home after breakfast. I was so excited to get a picture with everyone smiling, and even Dixie cooperated!