Christmas Morning

Christmas is very anti-climatic. You spend all this time getting ready, shopping, wrapping presents, decorating the house and it's over in a matter of hours. It's exhausting. My hat's off to Jen who did a wonderful job making sure everything was taken care of. All I had to do was sit on the couch and watch "A Christmas Story" (Best movie EVER!) and eat Milk and Cookies. It was great. The boys had a blast ripping through the paper to discover their treasures. The big gifts this year were roller blades for Christian, a Skateboard for Brandt, and a Car for Parker. All three enjoyed themselves so much.

You'd think that Parker was crying in this one, he's not, he's pulling his "Rockstar" face.

We always let the boys open one gift on Christmas eve, it's usually a game that we play as a family. This year it was Cadoo. This is a fun game that is great for any age, you can play as teams or individuals.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wish you all the best in the New year!

Christmas Boat Parade

We went down to the Kemah Boardwalk to see the Boat Parade. Everyone adorns their sailboats and yachts with lights and decorations and they parade up and down the channel from the Marina, right in front of the boardwalk. It's something that ever since we have moved to Texas we wanted to see. Each year we had planned to go but something came up. This year we didn't think it was going to happen since Hurricane Ike had destroyed a good portion of the Boardwalk in September. But they still had it, a week later then normal, and it was fun to see. Most of the boardwalk was still closed only three rides were open and a handful of the restaurants as well. The kids like the big boats that threw candy and bead necklaces the most.

Winter Wonderland

It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. I was home with my mom making Christmas cookies all day, listening to holiday music and the sweet smell of treats lofting in the air. We looked outside and to our surprise our Christmas wish was answered early this year, but it didn't last long. On Wednesday afternoon it started snowing! Parker loved it so much, that after being outside for a while we were freezing, so we came in, and he proceeded to pound on the door to be let back outside. So I opened the door and let him rome outside freely, he thought that was great seeing all the little snowflakes. Christian and Brandt liked it as well. Brandt was mad since it didn't snow enough to make snowmen or snowballs. Christian and Brandt were at school when the biggest flurry was happening, but the teachers let all the kids outside to see the snow falling. Christian said all the kids in his class were screaming and having so much fun running around in the snow. He said it was funny to watch everybody react to the snow. Though it didn't blanket the ground, it was still a nice suprise. When Jared got home he said it had snowed quite a bit at his office that his car was covered and since we got rid of our snowbrushes when we moved here he had to use his arm to scrape the snow off the car.
There's just something about seeing snow and Palm trees in the same picture.
Brandt, though you really can't see it, there are snowflakes in this picture.

Christian freezing from the cold.

See, it really did snow! This is what's left of it.

Finished Product.

Here's our Tree, all decorated!

Wonderful Christmas Time...

So we did something that we have never done as a married couple before, we bought a real tree for Christmas this year! Not only did we buy a real one, we went to the Old Time Christmas Tree Farm in Spring, and chopped it down ourselves. It was fun, the boys thought it was neat to be able to "hunt" for the perfect tree. Parker enjoyed wandering around seeing all the trees. G-ma and G-pa Starr came with us to help select the right tree. After walking through the forest for about thirty minutes we finally spotted it. The boys signed off on it, and we begun to cut. We dragged it to the end of the row and waited for the hay ride to pick us up. It was so nice, they load it on the wagon, take it over and measure it, shake the dead needles off, and bundle it all up for and you're on your way with a fresh cut tree. They had games and rides for the kids, as well as Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Waiting to be taken out to find our tree, Christian, Brandt, Parker G-ma and G-pa Starr

Parker searching for the Perfect Tree.

Christian and Brandt looking for our tree
The only snow you get in Texas.
Sawing down our tree.

TIMBER!Taking it to the Home.