Christmas in Pictures

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Jewelry Making Machines!

Some girls from my brothers youth group came to stay with at our house for a weekend retreat where I taught them how to make jewelry. I was so impressed with how great the girls creations turned out. I am a perfectionist so it takes me forever to put something together. But they whipped out necklace after necklace and they all looked wonderful! Here is our work in progress- we had to have sonic drinks to keep our energy up of course!

And here are some of the finished product! They will be sold to raise money for the youth group! I predict that they are going to sell out and have to make more very soon! But more importantly we all had a great time talking and hanging out together having some girl time!

As an extra bonus, two little cuties came along and stayed at Papa-Dede's house!

Being Aunt

I love being an aunt! So far I have 4 nieces and 3 nephews. And guess what?! I'm about to have TWO MORE nieces! Katie announced to us that she was pregnant with twins last fall and we have been eagerly awaiting their arrival ever since. Well I guess they could tell that we were anxious to meet them because they are trying to come early- way too early in fact. The past week has been quite an ordeal for Katie, Jason, and their family. Katie is now on full bed rest at the hospital and she is only at 26 weeks in her pregnancy. She seems to be stable but the doctors say the babies really could come at any time. We are all hoping and praying that those girls stay in a while longer so they can grow big and strong before making their debut. In the meantime Katie is being a good mom by relaxing in her hospital bed (although I'm sure she is about to go nuts because she is confined to one spot!) We have been trying to entertain her, for example, last Saturday night all the siblings went up and played games in her room until very late and had a great time (I'm sure the nurses appreciated that)!
I have no doubt about how cute these girls will be. Randall and I have nothing but cute nieces and nephews- if you don't believe me, take a look at our existing 7:

Our December in a Nutshell

Since we have not had internet at the house for the past month... I haven't updated in a month. Sorry. I will do a recap now and vow to be more diligent in the new year!

My brother Caleb and his wife Jennie moved to Brownwood, TX this past summer. Even though it is only 2 1/2 hrs away, we had not made it out to see them. So to make up for it we went twice this December. This first weekend was just becaused we missed them and the second weekend was for Reese's 2nd birthday!


This little one cracks me up with how much she likes her toes!


Uncle Randall found Reese some Jelly Beans........... a common favorite for the pair.



Aubrie really wanted that milkshake!

These pics were taken at a little soda shop/drugstore we stopped at for some ice cream!


Sweet boys.

Then Uncle Randall helped put up a Christmas tree for the second time this year! (Caleb had a meeting at church and we were anxious to decorate it!)

Here are a couple pics from when we went back down for Reese's birthday!

Yay firetrucks!

Watch out for this one- he is bound to be an all-star in one sport or another. Current favorites are golf, baseball, and basketball. (He will make a golf club out of any object he can find)

Grandmother and Poppy joined us for the trip for his brithday.

Somehow Grandmother and Aubrie always seem to match!

The weekend before Christmas, Randall's family came in to celebrate Christmas early! i LOVE that I love all my inlaws and that we have so much fun together. This year we finally got to play games and it was a blast (even if we had to lock the kids up in the back room in order to do it)...just kiddding, no children were harmed in our holiday fun! Speaking of...here are the little darlings:

Granny & Grandad came over and joined us for dinner.

I'm not sure if Uncle Randall is attacking Bryce, or if Bryce is attacking Uncle Randall here!

So many gifts! This isn't even the half of it!

Christmas Eve was celebrated at my Grandma Carol's house where we had the traditional wonderful enchilada dinner. My contribution were these snowflake red velvet cookies:

Mom and Dad being festive in their red.

My favorite part of Christmas Eve is the the midnight service - I love it! The church is old with wonderful architeture, the music is beautiful, and there are candles!

This year Shelby and Nate happened to come to the same service we went to! These two just got engaged and I think they are great for each other!

Christmas Day, Randall and I slept in until 11! We had nowhere to be this year and no kids of our own to wake us at the crack of dawn, so we enjoyed getting some extra rest! The rest of the day was spent having a lovely lunch at my cousin Amy's house, and then dinner at my Grandmother's.

My cousin Jordan's baby- Saniyah trying to kiss Aubrie. There are babies everywhere this year!

Poppy says that Aubrie "smiles with her eyes". It's true.

This is papadede's gift to Reese and Aubrie. Notice papa / dede is one word (dede is what Reese calls my mom). I think it takes my parents back to see these two so close in age like me and Caleb were.

The Day After Christmas we opened presents with my parents and Caleb and Jennie.

Also over the holidays I got together with some girlfriends and had some good food, and good conversation!

Overall it was a wonderful Christmas of relaxing and enjoying family and friends.