Christmas 2011

Well, it has officially been over a month since I have posted. I'm not sure if this is possible but it seems that January has been even busier than December. The girls and I were in a wedding this past weekend so January has been full of wedding preparations, a bachelorette party, birthday parties, company visiting for the Cotton Bowl, and a little bit of house decorating. We have been working on Ben's office and the breakfast nook. I will post updated house pictures soon. We have made some progress (but still have a lot to do).

Even though it is the end of January I still want to post about our Christmas. We had a great one! Mom and Dad came to Frisco so that we could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at HOME. It seems to get harder every year to travel during the Holidays so I really wanted to be at home this year. I wanted the girls to enjoy their new toys instead of opening them and then immediately packing them up to head to the next celebration. We did travel to Arkansas the week after Christmas but it all worked out really well. We had a nice relaxing Christmas Day in our new home and a fun filled week in Arkansas with family.

On Christmas Eve, we went to The Gaylord Texan. They have awesome Christmas decorations and activities. There are lots of different things you can do but we chose to do the Kung Fu Panda snow sledding "experience." It was a huge indoor slide with real snow. You slid down the hill on an intertube. Because Ava and Macy weren't big enough to do it by themselves, Ben and I rode it with them. Our tickets bought us 10 times down the hill. I think I was over it by the third time but the girls loved it and that is all that matters!

The girls were super excited about all of their gifts from Santa on Christmas morning. Especially their new swing set! Santa couldn't fit that down the chimney so he had to write a special note and wrap it up telling them to look out in the backyard. They were so excited. They play on their swing set almost every day. Santa did good!!

 Making reindeer cupcakes with Gigi on Christmas Eve morning

 The finished product

This is the sledding thing. You can kind of see the hills in the background. We really didn't get any good

pictures of us sledding.

 Opening one present on Christmas Eve.

Sprinkling reindeer food in the front yard.

 Checking out their loot on Christmas morning.

 Taking pictures with their new camera. It's a real digital camera! This is what they asked Santa for when they sat on his lap this year.

 Reading letter from Santa. There's one more present outside!

 Kitchen set from Gigi. It's the cutest kitchen ever!

Ben slicing the Christmas ham. I made my first Christmas dinner (with mom's help of course).

Using their new cameras to take pictures of their artwork that they created with their new easel and art supplies.

(these girls are so spoiled!!)

 Macy couldn't wait to get to Grammy's to see Winston.

 Presley got dress up clothes for Christmas!

 Ava and Macy with my cousin JD. I have a picture that is almost just like this with me when I was about JD's age and JD was the girl's age. Time flies.

 Traveling girls.

I feel like I have really accomplished something now that I have posted about Christmas. Hopefully, it won't be another month before I post again (but I'm not making any promises).