Free as a Bird

You never know what you're going to see riding a young girls bike in the middle of the day in your neighborhood.  Yes, that's a parrot and the kids were thrilled to hang out with it for a bit!

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

It was a wild morning with 4 kids all very excited about seeing what Santa brought for them.  Fortunately, we had lots of adults to help out.  Sam and Ben tore through their pile very quickly while the babies were unsure what all the commotion was about.  Graham was the funniest as Santa had brought two large tennis balls to Sadie (our dog).  But don't tell Graham that those tennis balls were not intended for him as he carried one in each hand all  morning long.  Grace was especially fond of a large tutu and diamond tiara (princess anyone?) given to her by Mimi & Pop.  Sam loved all the sports related gifts and the Harry Potter legos.  Ben was probably the most anxious for Christmas.  It was his first year to really "get it".  He patiently and carefully opened all of his gifts.  He probably enjoyed the super hero outfit from Uncle Jim & Greg the best, but he honestly played all morning with every single gift.  Afterwards, we enjoyed more food with a great group of family members.

Merry Christmas everyone!  This day will go down as one of my favorites ever!

We Caught You...Again

And we couldn't believe when we caught Santa (AGAIN!) leaving presents for all of the kids this morning.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

After laughing through a home cooked meal with some of our favorite people, we enjoyed a few Christmas Eve traditions before settling down for the night.  They included:

1.) Ben sprinkling the reindeer food that he made at school on the front lawn.
2.) Leaving carrots, cookies and milk for Santa & his reindeer by the fireplace.
3.) Reading the 2 books that we always read before going to bed, The Night Before Christmas & The Night Before Christmas in Texas.

Now it was time to get into bed and wait to for the sun to rise on Christmas Eve...

Sam & Ben's Gingerbread House

Sam and Ben worked a good portion of the morning on their gingerbread house.  Scratch that...Sam worked a good portion of the morning on our gingerbread house.  Ben worked for 5 minutes and then decided that eating the candy was more fun than sticking it to the house.  Yum!

Our Favorite Team!

Mrs. Prater's Ponies

Sam had his first field day at Mark Twain on Friday.  Scott, Ben and I came out to cheer on Mrs. Prater's Ponies.  There was a lot of excited screaming and jumping.  They didn't end up winning but they had a great time working together as a team to try and beat the other Kindergarten classes.

Christmas PJs

We love Christmas pajamas.  Sam decided to wear his new ones to bed the other night.  Ben followed his lead and then requested that the twins wear theirs too.  They looked so cute in them that I (of course) had to  snap a few pictures.  The boys were ready to ham it up, but Grace was not interested at all.  I love this time of year!

Have a holly jolly Christmas!

Christmas JOY

Days like today just make me happy.  Maybe a little exhausted too...but definitely happy.  For a full day, we had some very special people take time of their busy lives to drive (and fly) to Houston to celebrate Christmas with us.  I'm sad that I don't have a picture of Lindsey, Uncle Ronnie, Teresa, Delia & Jack here...but everyone else is captured.  Our Gigi & Granddaddy would have loved this gathering watching the big kids play football in the front yard while the adults looked on.  Happy holidays to my wonderful family.

The power of a plastic box

The kids had so much fun pushing each other around in a plastic box this afternoon.  Who needs toys for Christmas?

Make believe buddies

Scott and I had a great time watching Ben & Graham play with the Batman cave.  They both had a Batman in hand and made him fly all over the room and through the cave.  It's amazing to me that they can become good friends & playing buddies at such a young age.

Grandparent's Night at St. Luke's

Grandma and PawPaw came in for Ben's performance at Grandparent's Night at St. Luke's Day School last week.  Ben performed 2 songs and truly was the shining star on the stage.

The Undecorated Tree

Last weekend, we loaded up the kids and headed to a nursery up the road.  It was cold and windy, so we quickly agreed on a beautiful live tree, tied it to the top of our car and headed home to set it up.  For a week it sat in the front room undecorated.  Yesterday morning, Sam, Ben and I strung the lights on the tree and started adding all of our decorations that we've collected over the years.  Almost immediately, Grace comes over and starts eating the lights.  So...the lights are removed.  Graham follows her lead and starts removing each ball ornament (thankfully all non breakable) and starts throwing them  down the hallway to chase after them.  So...the ornaments on the bottom of the tree were removed.  What we have is a kind of sad tree that just makes me smile.  Every now and then, the older boys will decide to dig another ornament out of the box and add it high enough where the babies cannot get to them.  It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!