Christmas 2011

You mean I only took one picture of the girls on Christmas morning?!  What am I becoming??  Maybe it was because I had to speak in church at 10:00 and I was kind of nervous?  We have a very small ward and this year all three wards in Longview were meeting together for Christmas.  Got really anxious when they opened the overflow - yikes!  It was a beautiful day - had my whole family with me at church!

Can't leave Gus out!

Ready for Church

We had our usual ribeyes and baked potatoes for our Christmas dinner.  And those gosh awful Rolo cookies that my friend Sarah Harwood introduced me to.  Everyone must be making them because Wal-Mart hasn't had Rolo's this entire Christmas season!

On December 28, the cousins came to Longview (BB guns and all!)  Here are some pictures of our fun day!  Disclaimer:  I did not dress any of these kids :)

Keelie, Brooklyn & Mallory

One of the cousins got a tattoo kit.  I do not in any way encourage tattoos, so of course all of the girls were covered in them!

It was Mallory's idea to play in the leaves.  She told Brooklyn they didn't have leaves in Dallas (Rockwall)!

Taylor & Kelci making cake pops!

Kaden, Tristen & Kamden

I promised the boys I would only take one picture and this was right before they headed home!

Speaking of the boys, we hardly saw them this visit.  They were outside with their BB gun and the sling shot around Kamden's neck!  I even warned the uncle's that we had put the broken glass that was on top of my dining room table, behind the shop and to let the boys know to be careful.  I was worried that one of them would cut themselves on it.  No one was injured, but we did find a bullet hole through a piece of the glass.  Yikes!

This brought on the conversation of how as when we were kids, we would be outside all day playing - doing crazy stuff that I would never let my kids do - riding dirt bikes (no helmet), jumping off the roof, climbing all sorts of trees and just going deep into the woods where anything could happen.  What if we had been bitten by a snake or fell out of a tree and was seriously injured?!!  Not to mention the many trips to Lake o' the Pines riding in the back of my aunt and uncles truck hanging onto our floats for dear life!  But we survived!

Good times!