White Sands NM

The week after Christmas, the girls and I followed the grandparents to El Paso to celebrate with my sister. Theo had wanted to come but since they are really busy on some project at work, he couldn't take the time off. One of the stops we made was to White Sands, about an hour from El Paso. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold and windy, so we didn't stay long. But we had lots of fun rolling and sledding down the hills.It is a really amazing place.

Christmas 2010

 On Christmas morning, the girls woke early to see if Santa had come. They both found their stockings full of candy and a gift box. Lizzy got a make-up kit and Katie got a note. She had to search for her gift.

What she found!

When I was growing up, we always opened our presents on Christmas eve. I loved opening them by the twinkling light of the Christmas Tree. But that always made Christmas the worst day of the year - the fun was over. So now with our kids, we open our presents on Christmas night. We start with Daddy reading the Christmas story from Luke. Then the elves pass out the presents. Each person chooses a Christmas song for us all to sing and opens one gift and around and around til only the kids have gifts remaining. Then it is a free for all as they tear open their remaining presents.

 

 

The grandparents got the girls a video game Xbox that picks up your movements with a video camera.It's pretty cool and it also gets netflix movies for us. 

  Theo got a watch from me. He wasn't too surprised since he picked it out, but at least he likes it.

 The girls got both sets of Grandparents ceramics they painted themselves. Lizzy loved how it felt "soft" after it was fired.

 Same story with the purse - got to pick it out myself and then Theo and the kids wrapped it up for me.

The kids made out like bandits with a make up kit, a bike, an Xbox Kinect thing with a bunch of games, an ipod, walkie talkies, a walking kitten, new outfits, a watch for Katie, books, colored pencils...

Christmas Eve

 We enjoyed Christmas eve with family by going to the Gaylord Texan Hotel. We didn't do the ice, but the girls had lots of fun going down the snow hills. It wasn't nearly as pretty during the day so we plan to go back tomorrow to see how stunning it is at night.

 After, we went to our church's candle light service and then out to eat. The girls got some balloons made there.

 

After a sweet christmas story, The Crippled Lamb, it was time for bed before Santa came!

The Trolley and Friends

Jackie is ready for Christmas! She's been a good doggy and is excited for Santa to come!

We got together with some friends from Mops to let our kids put on a live nativity scene so we could get points for our scavenger hunt. They were so cute!

Next up on the scavenger hunt list - ride a trolley - so downtown we went. This was our first time and it was lots of fun and felt very Christmassy.

Christmas lights

Yesterday evening, we went out to look at Christmas lights in west Plano, but first the girls wanted to show off some new outfits their friend gave them. 

And here is Lizzy in her more natural state.

Here's the most Christmasy house in the area. Lots of fun, but can you imagine being their neighbors????

But we all agreed that this house was the best!

Gingerbread Houses Part Two

We've always had so much fun having our Mops friends over to make gingerbread houses that this year, we decided to have a second party with our girl scout friends.