Monday, December 31, 2012

White Christmas 2012

We had a fantastic Christmas this year!  We got to see so many of our family and friends and it was wonderful!  And we got to enjoy some snow too.  
 We made a snowman with the kiddos after we got back from our Christmas travels.  It was a little one, but it was a lot of fun.
 We love our snowman.
 The kids made snow angels.  Mya loves making snow angels and Reggie mostly just lays there, but they both have fun either way.
 There are so many Christmas pictures, of opening presents and such, so I just picked a couple.  These were from when we opened our presents at our house before we left for Topeka and Abilene.  The kids had so much fun getting up and going through their stockings.
 We only got each kid three presents for several reasons.  We know they'll get spoiled by our families for one, they already have so many toys to play with, and we feel that if three presents was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us.  The kids loved what they got!
 We had so much fun playing with family.  Aunt Sissy got some good giggles from Reggie.  Reggie loved playing with his Aunt.
 Here are the cousins on Dan's side.  The Barnes babies.  Can you tell they're related?
 And here are the cousins on my side.  We love all the kiddos on both sides.
And I got to see my best friend Lindsey.  We've been friends for about 24 years now.  Crazy.  We talk all the time on the phone so it's nice to get to see her in person every once in a while.   I love my friend.

We are so blessed to have family and friends to spend the holidays with.  In a world of things, things, things, I often forget it's really about the people.  I love my people.  :)  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree

Happy December! 
This year we bought a real tree with the kids, which we haven't done since Dan and I's first year of marriage.  It was nice.  It would have been better if there was snow on the ground.  It would have made it feel more like Christmas.  Anyway...
 Here's my beautiful family riding on the tractor to go out to the tree field.  We've gone to the same orchard for two years now to pick pumpkins and we decided to try out the same place to get a tree as well.  It was nice.  The trees were huge.
 Here's my little man, helping pick out a tree.  We called him "Coach" for the day because he looked so cute in his little track suit.
 This pic is so funny of Dan carrying the smallest tree we could find.  :)
 This is the best picture I could get of all three of them.  Why is it so hard to get three sets of eyes to look at the camera at the same time? Grrrr.
 Take three on the family photo by the tree.  This one actually didn't turn out too bad.
 The next day Dan hung our Christmas lights.  I just loved that day.  It is so nice to have Christmas lights up on our first house together.
 And this is me, "helping" put up lights.  Ha ha.
 Our baby girl standing by the house.  I just love how little she looks.
And my little baby boy, decorating sugar cookies for the first time with Mommy.  I just love this picture, except I hate how big he looks.  Sad face.

Well, we're all geared up for the Christmas traveling craziness.  I'm excited to have a week off work for the first time in... ever.  We're going to spend lots of time with family and just enjoy the season of our Lord's birth.  We've really been trying to instill in our children that Christmas is not about presents, but about Jesus and family and the many ways we are extremely blessed.  And we are so blessed.