A busy, and WHITE Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was very busy for us, we were excited to see snow here in Texas on Christmas Eve and with the weather forcast we knew that we would have our first WHITE Christmas here in Texas this year.  We had a lot planned for the day so we didnt' have much time to play in the snow on Christmas Eve.  Brant made some cookies for Santa, and decorated them with sprinkles after Mommy iced them since putting icing on when it is cold is not very easy and we were a little low on time.  Then we headed out to go to Brant's Great Grandparent's house to celebrate the holiday with his Great Grandparents, his Grandpa, and his Uncle Chris.  Brant got to experience his first snowball fight with his Great Grandpa and he fell in love with it!  Brant kept asking to go out and play outside, and since it was so COLD I let him go out only for short bursts of time.  We opened presents and Brant wanted to open all his gifts and play with the right away, but he was told that he had to wait since we were about to head off in a while to our next stop.  We went from there to Christmas Eve service at church and sang carols and lit candles to sing silent night at the end of the service with Mommy's side of the family Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Mo, Uncle Ryan and Baby Riley (of course I didn't bring my camera in to church so I have no pictures of this part).  After service it was time for our last stop before home, we were off to Aunt Lisa's house for Christmas Eve dinner, and presents.  The cousins had a great time playing together, the food was fantastic, and the kids all loved their gifts.  It was around 9:00 by the time we got ready to head home, and the roads were really icy and awful as well as it being dark, so it took us about an hour to get home (which is only about 15 miles from Lisa's house) because of the icy roads and finding our way around cards sitting in the middle of the road.  It was a LONG but fun night and we were tired and ready to head to bed to see what Christmas morning and Santa would bring.

Climb on board The North Pole Express!

We had so much fun on the North Pole Express train ride last year that we decided that we should definitely go again this year. We had trouble finding really cute pajamas for the kids to wear last year so Tina the best friend a girl could ask for made matching pajama bottoms for each of the kids using an amazing Basic Grey fabric (they also design scrapbooking papers so of course we love their stuff). We also took a long sleeved white shirt and she went to a friend's house and embroidered some of the fabric onto the shirts so both of her adorable twin girls and my super sweet little man were all dressed in matching pajamas and they all looked too cute for words. Our intentions were to get to the area early to explore and see what they had, but we went out to dinner and didn't end up getting over to Grapevine to ride the train until about 30 minutes until our start time so there was no time to explore. The kids all got to see Rudolph and Frosty, and though the girls were really eager to see both of them and talk to them Brant was very leery and shied away from both of them. We waited in line and then went into the tent for the pre-show. During the pre-show we did some caroling and the kids played around, then we finally got to get started boarding the train. On the way they have "snow" coming down on us in the form of bubbles (since I live in Texas) and snow here is pretty rare. The girls were all over Jason this trip and wanted to hold Uncle Jason's hand and spent the train ride with Uncle Jason and Brant it was really cute seeing him with all the kids. We had fun singing on the train, the kids loved looking out the window at the lights and trying to see what we were passing by on the ride, and then Santa came through for a short visit and said hi to all the kiddos before getting back to the North Pole so we could head back home. Needless to say after all the fun the kids were all disappointed when the ride was over, and it did feel much shorter than last year but it was late and time to head home so we were off to meet the bus to take us back to our parking spot and head home. It was a fun trip, but maybe we'll try something different next year.

Christmas Program

Brant has been practicing and so excited about his program at Preschool this year.  Ms. Barbara has been working hard with the other teachers teaching all the kids songs and working on their costume.  Brant is so excited that he is going to be a king.  He has been singing bits and pieces of different songs as the weeks go on and telling us that we can't be up on the stage because it isn't for us and that only the kids and teachers can be on the stage.  We were very excited to see him perform and he did so good.  He looked so adorable in his King costume and he did pretty good singing though he didn't sing as loud as anyone who knows him knows that he can sing.  He got a little frustrated when one of his friends behind him kept messing with his crown and putting it over his eyes, but he handled it well. He got fascinated with his belt and started twisting and playing with it during the program at times instead of paying attention and singing, but he looked so darn adorable through it all. His favorite part of course was when they got out the bells and got to shake the bells while they sang the last song he just lit up when he saw the bells come out and I loved seeing that expression on his face. We were so very proud of our little King and Ms. Barbara put on a great show, to a crowded house.  Here are some pictures a a couple of short video clips that we took on one of the cameras since we couldn't get