christmas

another great christmas has passed, and now comes the annual cleaning out!! re-organizing, donating, condensing...ahh....its a good feeling when its done! here's a few pics from our holiday!

we are trying to start our own traditions, and each year we read the christmas story the night before we have our "christmas". andy read it, and we used a white board to draw illustrations with the boys and try to get them involved.....they loved it!! then we open presents the next morning...

tysen trying out his new 'motorcycle'...

the clearances after halloween has paid off once again!

logan's most excited about the new playstation 2! a kind donation by my little brother is his greatest treasure....

and ian got his electric guitar with real strings. this little set is really cute and you can hear the guitar and microphone thru the little amp. i mean, its cheap, but pretty cute for their age! :)

then came the traditions with extended family. we do our 'christmas' on christmas eve morning...then spend the night with my family that evening. we have a big breakfast and then do our gifts with them....the cousins love getting to spend the night together! (though we miss aubren and milia who are with stacy's family on christmas eve)...

bible story time...

matching pjs for the boys!!

let the sleepover begin!

after naps on christmas day we load up and head the vanderveers where we have dinner and gifts with them....then we spend the night there with whoever is able to.....

now we're home!! :) and the countdown to next christmas has begun....

sleepovers

cousin max spent the night with us on wednesday...he's 7 months younger than tysen...which is just enough to make tysen feel older and wiser...and so i have to re-direct a lot of "no-no's" as tysen trys to correct anything max touches! but obviously, they all had a blast!

ian teaching max how to sword fight...

family pictures

thanks to my big brother, trey, for taking these family pictures for us!

the meltdown when tysen realized we were done, and he wasn't getting anymore smarties!

thanksgiving

my stomach is still full from all the feasting this thanksgiving. why does the food have to be sooooo good? we had a great time visiting with both sides of the family. we spent thanksgiving day at mom's house with all the family, and then friday spent the day with andy's family. we are so blessed to have amazing families with lots of cousins to play with!!

karis and i were checking out the ads for black friday, and nieces reagan and milia were hanging out too...trying to eat the paper!

winding down with movie time on the pull out couch!

then on to the cousins on the vanderveer side! we all wore brown to get some family pictures!

with ana and papaw

with everyone together. ritchey couldn't get away from work, but andy's awesome photoshop skills were able to work him in....:):) (he's the one front and center...)

just in time for christmas!!!

Logan is 6!!

well, he's six years old today. we sang to him with a candle in an orange danish roll this morning. a tradition we do with all the boys. (sometimes its donuts...they get to choose their breakfast). we surprised him at lunch and showed up at school with sonic. and we're going to attempt chuck e. cheese tonight. tysen isn't feeling great, so we'll see how that goes. logan has been asking for weeks to go, and we keep saying we'll go on his birthday! he had asked for a castle to play with his guys in, so here's him putting it together with dad.

he also loves the Cowboys! asked specifically for this Romo jersey....made me so proud!

weighing in....

i've been working a lot, ya know, same old thing and trying to get this baby weight gone...so imagine my surprise to step on the scale and it read this....

my husband is awesome...this is definitely the scale i want to weigh in on every time! :):)

(and i still don't know how he did it)