Merry Christmas, 2016

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!  We hope that you have had a wonderful day spent with the ones you love.

What a beautiful gift we have all been given.
Glory to God in the highest!

Merry Christmas!

Visit with Santa!

Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum...

This is Henry and Emma's beautifully decorated little tree and their holiday glass cube made by Nana and Papa good friends the Hofers(lovely people).
One of the ornaments that Great Grandma Barbara collected for Henry and Emma. Grandma Barbara was a great lady and she knew and was excited that the kids were on the way. Unfortunately, we lost her shortly before the kids were born. I miss her and I know Daddy does too. I wish H and E could have known her. So since they won't know her, we are very careful with the things she has given us, so that they may remember her.
Henry and I found this blue dinosaur ornament the last time the kids were with me shopping. So fitting for H.
Emma and I found a wonderful pink Sleeping Beauty ornament just like this Cinderella ornament and then I accidentally broke it:( When I went back they didn't have any more Sleeping Beauty, So i got her one of her other favorites plus the princess crown also shown in this shot.
A choo choo train that Papa and Nana gave to the Little Old Man when he was itty bitty. It's still one of his favorites.
Since sissy got two new ornaments, I had to be fair with bubbie. I got lucky and found this robot, which he thinks is pretty cool.
Another from the collection from Great Grandma Barbara. The set is all of little angels and they are precious in many ways.

Trimming the Tree

Mamaw Christie gave this Little People Nativity to the kids a few years ago and they LOVE it!
Henry doing the final inspection of the decorated tree.
Emma is full of Christmas cheer this year, so she was singing while she decorated with her brother.
Our little elves doing a mighty fine job decorating their tree!
Look at that concentration...

Merry Christmas!!!

From our family to yours, we're wishing you all, family and friends, a very Merry Christmas!!! We hope that each and every one of you have a wonderful day with family and friends and the people you love. To our family in Washington and our family in Oklahoma and other parts of the states and far away, we love you and miss you so very much and pray that you are happy, safe, and healthy. And to our family here in big Tex, we love you all too and look forward to seeing most of you later today. Merry Christmas!

We Wish You A Merry Kissmas:)

If you listen very very closely, you can hear Emma singing, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".

I was unloading the dishwasher yesterday, when I heard a sweet little voice drifting in from the living room. Emma and Henry were playing in the living room and she was just singing her heart out. I snuck away for a couple of seconds to grab my camera and this is what I was able to record. Oh, and if you can't hear it, she actually says Kissmas instead of Christmas:)

Henry was in the Christmas spirit as well and sang for us too. He's our little music man. He LOVES music-singing, dancing, playing it-loves them all. So you can hear his a little better. The boy has no problem with volume:)

And here's another side note about this particular song and these two carolers, last year it was, "We wish you and a Merry Christmas and a Happy Nude Year!" I can hear it now, years in the future, one of them will be reading through this blog and come across this post and I'll hear, "Mooooommmmmm!!!! Why did you post this?!" Oh come on, it's not that embarassing. I think the cuteness factor wins out on this one!

A Little Christmas Cheer:)

This is Emma and Henry's little tree. We handmade a classic paper chain for it this morning.
Our two little happy elves. They've been running around the house with our Santa hats on all morning.
Daddy(Jason) will place the star on the top of the tree tonight.

2nd Christmas and New Years

Henry and Emma tearing through their mountains of presents.

Henry and Emma getting ready to open presents.

Papa and Nana's tree being protected by Garrett.

Emma and her cousin, Dana got married on New Years Day!--It was reported later that the marriage was annulled-Emma gave the ring back.

I would have more pictures to share, but a lot of my shots turned out blurry. We had a big day at Papa and Nana's on New Years Day. Not only did we celebrate the new year, but we also had a second Christmas. There was TONS of yummy food as usual and a lot of people. Funny how that house use to seem so big when I was younger and now(well, at least with all those people there) seems so small. Lots of conversations, lots of kids of various ages running around, and lots of laughing and having a good time.

I know I'm a few days late on this, but Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas!!!-A Little Late:)

The traditional family picture.(I had some crazy hair that day)

Christmas morning before the kids went crazy!

Brian, Charles, and Lisa. We had such a great visit with the family. So glad they could come.

Brian,Lisa, and baby Charles getting ready to do some handy work!

Henry got the Diego Dinosaur Mountain from Grandpa. This was a biiig hit with the boy! It has gone to bed with him the last few nights.

Emma had been eyeing this for months at Target -Daddy and Uncle Brian put it together. This is her new kitchen and she has been cooking up a storm.

Both of the kids were really good with their cousin. Emma was a big helper. She and Charles were buddies. Here are a couple of shots of them together.

Our nephew, baby Charles-he is soooo CUTE!!!!

Aunt Lisa and baby Charles.

Wrestling(fighting-not really) and playing choo choo with Uncle Brian.

They LOVE their Uncle Brian! Henry was sharing his goldfish with him and having loads of fun!

Helping Uncle Brian with reloading the video camera.

One of my dearest friends, Stephen, came for a visit. So we got a few pics before he had to go.

Henry took this picture of his Aunt Lisa with my camera-not bad for a three year old:)

Henry borrowed the camera and took some pictures. This is a self portrait, complete with the "cheeese"!

We made a Cookie Tree from a kit yesterday and this is the end result. A leaning tower of icing...uhmm I mean tree:)

Christmas is coming...

So this year, unlike previous, I had some help decorating the Christmas tree. We finally got a prelit tree and Jason put that up. The kids were thrilled with that alone. The next day, Mommy and her two little elves trimmed the tree while Daddy was at work. The kids also have a small tree for their room which they decorated as well. We had fun and since then any time we've seen lights on houses or any kind of holiday decoration, it's been, "Mommy, Daddy...look Christmas!!!" We been enjoying some Christmas videos as well. Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town-animated movies that I remember watching when I was little. It's so much fun to see how they react. They have been really good around the tree. They have also helped keep our cat Boots away from the ornaments-he's been busy trying to climb the tree, knock off ornaments, eat the branches, and open presents. My elves have kept him away with various ways of distracting him. They keep asking when Santa is coming and we keep answering, soon. We also went to see cousin Catie perform in a Madrigal dinner. We had a really great time! We're also counting down the days until Granny, Grandpa, Uncle Brian, Aunt Lisa, and cousin Charles come! We're so excited that some of Daddy's family is coming down to spend the holiday with us! The latest saying here is that it is going to be the best Christmas ever!!!