Christmas Celebrations

We had a fun and busy Christmas season spent with family and friends. We decorated the house, outside and in and the kids even made a whole bunch of paper snowflakes for the dining room. The kids and I visited a live nativity at our friends church and enjoyed the nativity village as well as a great petting zoo! Levi had his first Choir concert and they did a great job singing a large number of songs about winter and holidays. As is our tradition, we made cookies for the neighbors and the kids helped me deliver them. They might have fought during the decorating process, but the delivery went well. Ha! Joel had his Third grade Christmas program and it was so fun to watch! I was lucky enough to squeeze in an afternoon of lunch and Christmas shopping with Tamara, and help out with Levi and Joel's Christmas parties at school.

After all that fun it was time to have all of our family celebrations. First we headed to Rockwall for a soup lunch and gift exchange with our Knochel family. The food was delicious and all the cousins had a blast spending the day together. Next we drove out to Abilene for 2 days with our Boyer family. We opened gift, shared yummy meals and went to a fun walk through light display. It was a sweet time together for all of us! On Christmas Eve went had a lazy day at home, went to a candle light Christmas church service and had a tasty tamale dinner. Christmas morning the kids were so excited and up right at 7am (the time we said they could wake us up!). They all loved their gifts and enjoyed playing with them in their pjs a while. Once things settled a little we shared a "fancy" brunch, made ginger bread houses and then headed out to Papa and Nana D's house. Once there we celebrated with Papa, Nana D, Uncle Colten and Aunt Erika with a tasty dinner and reindeer games. The kids LOVE the games Aunt Erika and Nana D plan for them and look forward to them every year. It was a fun evening together!

Thanksgiving at the Ranch

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Ranch with my side of the family. I worked on Thanksgiving day helping bunches of babies into the world and then hopped into my car and headed to Cross Pines to meet up with the rest of the family. Of course, we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving lunch the next day, as well as other yummy meals that weekend. The cousins had fun spending hours playing outside, fishing, riding the horses and playing games. Saturday we celebrated sweet little Naomi's birthday with a simple party and yummy cake! Unfortunately, a bout of the stomach bug ended up going through several members of the family, but despite that we had a lovely time together with family and left feeling thankful to God for all that we have.