Christmas Eve 2008

Christmas eve has always been a special time for our family. We have gotten together with my mom's side of the family for as long as I can remember. The past few years the celebration has taken place at my house, which I love because I love to entertain! This year instead of heading to Hyde Park for the candle light service we thought we would try the G-town First Baptist since that is where we have been going lately. It was wonderful! After church everyone headed back to my house for some yummy Mexican food. My brother had flown in while we were at Church so he was waiting for us when we got home. I had the kids table in front of the front door and they were eating while we were all talking in the kitchen. All of the sudden Tyler runs into the kitchen telling me there was someone at the front door singing???? I thought it was odd, but opened the door to listen..... It was my aunt and uncle and my 4 cousins that are currently living in Germany!!!!! The completly surprised us, after my aunt and I had a screaming match I invited them in for food and drinks!!! It was awesome to have everyone back together again on Christmas Eve, I know my grandmother was in Heaven!!!! We finished the night with a super fun game of Catch Phrases!!!

Sea World Holiday Celebration

We decided to head south again this weekend for some Christmas fun. This time we choose Sea World. After another bday party we made our way, we had one thing on our mind, Polar Express is 4D!!!! As soon as we got there we headed to the theatre. It was packed, but we were determined since we missed it at the IMAX. We all herded in like cattle and took our seat!

The show was AWESOME!!! Exactly like I like movies, short and sweet! They took the highlights of the movie and made it about 30 min. The boys had a huge smile on their face the entire time (ok, so did I) They made our seats vibrate like we were on the train and a couple times they made it snow.

After the show we headed to Viva for a really cool Beluga Whale and acrobat show. It too was amazing!

Our last stop was Shamu of course! Carter talked about seeing Shamu all the way to Sea World! It was a really cool show too!

Carter got into his stroller right after the Shamu show and made it maybe 2 min before he was OUT!!! it was a great family day!! I look forward to Sea World Passes again next year!

Hill Country Christmas at Schlitterbahn

Last weekend we all piled into Nana and Papa's car and drove south. We started at Cabellas, the boys loved it! It is such a cool store. Then we headed west to Boerne for some shopping. The boys did not love this so much, but me and Nana did!!! Our finial destination was Schlitterbahn for their Hill Country Christmas. The doors opened at 5:00 and what a beautiful sight it was! They had over a billion (ok, maybe not that many but a lot!) of lights, Christmas music playing over the whole park, some rides, "snow", and about a bazillion people!! It as sooooo crowded! The boys had a blast and were soooo tired on the way home (did I mention before the trip south we attended a bday party at Pump it Up, yeah they were tired!!!)

Let the Christmas Festivities Begin!

I LOVE this time of year! There are always so many things going. One of our favorites is the Chuy's Children Giving To Children Parade in downtown Austin. This was our 3rd year, the boys love it. It is such a great way to teach kids about the spirit of giving at Christmas and for them to understand how lucky they are to have a home and a Christmas tree full of presents under it on Christmas morning. At the end of the parade all the kids get to run in the street to donate the present they brought. All the donations benefit Blue Santa. After the Parade we walked around the Capital and then over to Brick Oven Pizza for some yummy lunch!

Here are some pics of the parade

Tyler with Chibacca (the highlight of his life so far!!)

The Chuy's Float



They Chuy's fish


Coach Royal

Time for giving!

Thanksgiving 2008

The boys at the kid table (they are the only kids!!!)

Carter after a big Thanksgiving Feast! We had to wake this crazy man up!!!

I Believe

I hope we just started a new family tradition! Today when I was in the mix of the madness of Black Friday Shopping (I forgot to mention in my Black Friday Post that when Cheri and I were at Target we saw a girl that her shirt read " BFF ", "Black Friday Fanatic" .... Seriously!)

anyway, while at Target I picked up The Polar Express DVD for $5.00. After dinner tonite we all got in our PJ's popped some popcorn, made hot chocolate and snuggled on the couch to watch it! It was so awesome, they kids loved it and so did Brad and I! I hope we will sit as a family and watch that movie every year on Black Friday! I still hear the bell ring.... do you?

Let the madness begin!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at my house with the family! After everyone left it was nap time! After we all rested up it was time for 2 BIG games and some decorating. We got our Christmas tree up and the boys had so much fun decorating, even though we are very bottom heavy with ornaments since that is as high as they could reach it looks beautiful! I had to head to bed early since I had a shopping date with Cheri at 5 am!! Last year we met at the outlet mall at midnight, but decided that was not worth it so we thought we would try the early bird thing! NO MORE!! man that was CRAZY!!! I did get some good things, but man people are NUTS when it comes to deals!! So next year we are going to try to hit the after early bird specials!!! It was fun and we will now have stories to tell our kids when they get older about how we had to fight for all their presents!