Grayson's Pet

Grayson got this large,squishy triceratops for Christmas. "She" is now the newest member of our family. "Chia" is 2 years old and Grayson is her daddy. Guess that makes me her grandma. :) Love this sweet boy and his fantastic imagination!!

Christmas!

 Christmas morning we woke up to excitement and presents! Kenny's parents spent then night at our house so they were able to watch the kids open their presents. For the second year, we gave the kids 3 gifts-1 representing the gold the wise men brought Jesus, one for the myrrh and one for the frankincense.  They also gave each other a gift. Santa brought each kid one gift and filled our stockings. We are trying hard to be more intentional in our gift giving and cut down on all of the junk that can accumulate! Here are the kids showing off their "gold gift".

The kids with Lala and Grumpy before they headed back home. 

After a morning at home we headed to my dad's side of the family gathering. Here is a little bit of chaos that occurred as presents were opened...

After that gathering we went back to my mom and dad's and did our Christmas with them (after a quick family picture!)...

Grayson said "You got me a BOX??" He was so funny! It was actually a box FULL of dinosaurs!

  

Christmas Eve

 This was our first Christmas back "home" closer to our families. We took full advantage of that and were able to see both sets of grandparents and uncles and both sides of my extended family. What a blessing to be able to see everyone that we love over the few days of Christmas!!

Christmas Eve day we spent at my mom and dad's house with my mom's side of the family. I don't have any pictures (boo!) of the festivities but I do have some pictures of my cuties and the 5 of us. 

We left my parent's to head back to our house to get ready for the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. Kenny's parents, brother and his fiancee joined us for church and festivities at our house afterwards.

A little someone swiped some communion bread after worship while we were waiting on Kenny for a picture!

 Putting out reindeer food before bed!!

 Oops! All gone!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Even though it is in the 70's this week, we are still excited for Christmas to be here! (These pictures are all from November, so I am playing catch up!)

Our house sat empty for a number of years before we bought it, so we hired a chimney sweep to come out and give our fireplace a good cleaning and inspection. Once he deemed it ready to use we had our first fire. The kids loved it and it kept us very warm that night!

 We decorated the tree the week of Thanksgiving. Brayden declared that this ornament looked like a piece of bacon! :)

 Decorating the tree!

(Please don't be jealous of the pink curtains. They came with the house and I haven't found what I like to replace them...)

The kids all have little trees set up in their rooms. Kenny came up with a genius idea to use those capsules that turn into little sponges for Grayson's tree. Dinosaurs of course!!

 Making ornaments!

Dinosaur World

 One of the things I'm loving about living close to "home" is that I am able to get together with old friends and our kids get to play together! Anna and I have known each other since we were in the 7th grade...and now our kids get to be friends. Love it!! Today we met up at Dinosaur World. We had perfect weather and were the only people there...it was a perfect day!

Waiting for our friends to arrive... (I'm thinking this kid is going to be a heart breaker someday.) 

Grayson and Owen checking our the dinosaurs...

 This might be my favorite picture...there was lots of roaring today!

Santa!

 Our town had some fun Christmas events this weekend that we were excited to take the kids too. Despite the 80* weather we dressed the kids in (somewhat) Christmas attire and made our way to Santa. Lucky for us one of our church members was the photographer so I was able to get her to email me some of our pictures. I think they turned out great! (And yes, Grayson was very happy to meet Santa despite the look on his face. That is his new picture taking face.)

(I'm pretty sure he's smiling in this one because I put bunny ears on the photographer!)

Our house is all set up, Nelf (our Elf on the shelf) has arrived, Jesse Tree/Advent devotions start tonight and the kids couldn't be more excited!

iPhone Picture Dump

Grayson got some blood drawn yesterday. He was a champ!!!

Bed head!!

Brayden's end of the season soccer party! (I think I might have been celebrating more than her!)

My mom took Brayden shopping the other day and she found this hat. Mom asked her if she would like to have it and she said, "This is just what I've been dreaming of...and sometimes dreams come true!"

Date night with some church friends to the Fort Worth Food Truck park. It was super yummy and lots of fun!

Happy Halloween!

 Little herbivores...this picture was Kennan's idea!

 ROAR!!

Thanks for the costumes Grammy!!! We loved them!!