Christmas Eve

We always spend Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa H's house with all the family. We go to a really early church service and then head to their house. We first got a picture of all the kiddos together - always hard to get.

I had to add this picture of Ben with his head light. We actually got that for Ben (not Santa). We had to give it to him (instead of Santa) because we actually got these for all of our cousins as well! They all love flashlights, so we thought this would be a fun one to have. As you can tell, Ben loved it.

The kids played a passing game with their presents from Aunt Nancy. So much fun!

The kids opened their presents from all the cousins and Grandma and Grandpa. They were very spoiled!

Elizabeth is opening her Easy Bake oven from cousin Maria. Very exciting! I didn't get any pictures of Ben opening presents, he got very tired and ended up laying down in the other room watching a show. One of his cousins actually brought all his presents to him and he opened them all without me knowing!! What a stinker.

It was a great evening and we got to bed fairly early so we could be up nice and early for Christmas day!

Cookie Decorating

Cooper invited us over to his house to decorate cookies over the break.
They were very serious about it - everyone was really concentrating! :)

Elizabeth tried to use all the different colors and really decorate her cookies to the extreme - they turned out really pretty.

Thanks for inviting us over, Cooper! We had a great time and had tons of cookies left over to give to Santa!

Oh Yes - Another Carnival!

We went to another Christmas party at our local high school during the holiday break. They had a ton of games and activities for the kids to do.

Ice fishing,
ring toss,

more ice fishing with our friends,

and lots of picture taking.

What cuties!

We met Victoria and her kids there,

and Janet and her boys.

Elizabeth even saw her reading buddy from her school there!

Elizabeth did some more ring toss games,

and they both had some face painting.

We then did some bowling - Ben did it 3 times and never got any down :)!! He's so funny!

We had a lot of our friends and cousins there.

We ended with some coloring (Elizabeth's favorite thing to do). It was such a busy morning - and it was a ton of fun! This is definitely something we will do again next year!

Holiday carnival at Church

Every year our church holds a holiday carnival that the kids love.
They got to ride donkeys,

it was so much fun!

Ben was VERY excited! (can you see Cooper in the background?)

We got to watch a live nativity, even Jackson loved it! This was Elizabeth's favorite part - she loved to see the baby Jesus (a real live baby played Jesus - it was very cute!)

We played a few games,

and of course ran through a few bounce houses.

It was such a fun carnival - and I loved it that it was really focused on the true meaning of Christmas.

Another fun Christmas carnival!

The Nutcracker

Elizabeth, Jessica and I were lucky enough to be taken to the Nutcracker by my mom! I wasn't sure if Elizabeth would like the show (I think it is a little long) but she loved it!
We went to see it at the Bass Hall - it really was a beautiful show.

Elizabeth is SUPER spoiled by her Grandma! She gave Elizabeth this Nutcracker doll - Elizabeth was in love!


It was fun to experience this together.

We had a great time - thanks Mom!

Christmas at Grandma's Neighborhood

In Grandma H.'s neighborhood there was a fun little Christmas carnival. It was filled with bounce houses, a "winter" hayride, and Santa!

The kids loved all the bounce houses - there was pretty much no wait for any of them - lots of bouncing time!

We had a great time on the hayride (I think they call it a sleigh ride!).

Janet and Victoria came too.

We tried to get a picture of all of the kids with Santa - but that wasn't working too well!

I was able to get a good picture of my kids. We sat on Santa's lap twice - both times Elizabeth said she wanted a drum set (yes - a drum set) and Ben wanted a head light. (Like a miner's light that goes on your head. He saw it in a magazine). Wonder if they got it for Christmas?!