Christmas in a Nutshell

I had planned on making a nice long post or two about all of our Christmas events but the thought of that makes me tired.  We had a great Christmas and are very blessed so here it is in a nutshell.  On Monday, December 20th we headed down to Stockdale to spend time with my family.  We stayed there most of the week then headed back to Rockwall Christmas Eve morning.  We went to a wonderful Christmas Eve service at the church we attend.  Christmas morning Bret, Molly, and I woke up for our Christmas/Santa morning at our house then later that afternoon we headed over to Bret's parents for Christmas with his family. 

At my parents: the cousins had a movie night

Molly watched the cows (everyday)

The cousins played on PawPaw's boat

Colton yelling "No" at me.  He did not want his picture taken.

Rylan and Molly helping pass out presents.

Christmas morning at our house.  Molly enjoyed unwrapping all of the presents.

She was not a fan of the trampoline she got.  She screamed "get me out" and has not gotten back in it.  I guess she will have to warm up to it.

At Bret's parents: Bret and Uncle E frying the turkey

More presents

Her cool little bed and Elmo from Uncle E and Abby

Love this girl!!

Glitter...Oh my!

I let Molly make her own Christmas tree ornament including using glitter.  I let her have full range of globing dotting her own glue and even pouring the whole bottle just a little glitter on.  Now don't worry I made sure to put a piece of paper under the glitter pouring so I could easily get the excess back into the bottle, so really no glitter was wasted.  Well maybe some was.  I thought it turned out pretty cute!  It made me chuckle when she was pouring the glitter because it brought back memories of when I was teaching in the self contained Special needs classroom.  I had a student that LOVED glitter, and anything else small that he could throw in the air.  If there was a bottle of glitter I mean in two seconds he would have it and in one motion grab it and throw the WHOLE bottle of glitter up in the air while yelling "you have won a million dollars!"  At the time it was not so funny because for days he would try to pick the glitter out of the carpet that the vacuum could not pick up and throw it in the air, but looking back now it kind of is funny.  Oh the stories I could tell :)

Another One Bites the Dust

This is the second ornament in a week that Molly has knocked off the tree and broken.

I thought last Christmas when she was 18 months that we would have had that problem, but I guess she is so much more into this Christmas and loves all the decorations so is constantly touching the balls on the tree or counting them.  Here is her in action counting them.

I think after she broke the second one it kind of scared her so she has been better about not touching the tree or being very careful to just look at the pretty balls on the tree.  I was actually kind of surprised that she has not messed with the cookie monster ornament that we bought this year to put on the tree.

Here was one attempt to get a picture of Molly in front of the Christmas tree.  She was more interested in what daddy was doing :)

Cookie Monster in Bethlehem??

What's wrong with this picture?

Apparently Cookie Monster made a visit to see baby Jesus in Bethlehem, who knew.  I was pulling this out of the box to show Molly and talk about it and apparently when packing it up last year Cookie Monster somehow got in the box, so of course Molly insisted that he be a part of the nativity scene.  I guess if Cookie Monster was really real Jesus would have welcomed him with open arms.

Thanksgiving 2010

What a crazy and busy Thanksgiving we had!  The Thanksgiving Holiday started off by Wednesday evening having our annual Turkey Bowl with the Seidler's (family friends of Bret's).  Thursday on Thanksgiving we had lunch at Bret's Nanna's.  Friday we headed down to Houston to have Thanksgiving dinner with my Granny (dad's side of the family) and then Saturday went over to my Mamaw's (mom's side of the family) for more Thanksgiving.  I have eaten my fair share of turkey!!  It was great to see all of the family but nice to be back.  I did not do any shopping on Black Friday because we were traveling.  I heard there were some great deals but I will admit I am not a fan of crowds, they make me nervous :)  Now time to get decorating for Christmas!!

Turkey Bowl.  Molly loves bowling.

Friday at my Granny's: Bret, my dad, Ross, and Lori (my brother and sister) frying the turkey.

Yummo, it was a delicious fried turkey.

Ross and Lori were making fun of my blogging so I got a picture of them especially for the blog.

Saturday at my Mamaw's:  do a little arts and crafts with some of the little ones.

Molly's hand turkey.

Putting up Mamaw's Christmas tree.

Target Secret

Okay so maybe it is not a secret but if you don't know about this the next time you need to do a long shopping trip at Target just go over to the little food court area thingy before you start shopping and get the popcorn/drink combo for only $1.50!!!  Who can beat that and the best part is it will keep the little one entertained and in the cart the whole time.  It is a big bag of popcorn and then of course Molly gets excited because she thinks she has her own big girl drink.

Sweet Treat

It is always a nice treat when we make an unexpected trip to get some ice cream for dessert, yummy!

Trick or Treat & Goodbye

If you have forgotten about our Halloween costume experience last year well let me just remind you: click here.  Needless to say when we showed Molly any costumes in the store this year she wanted nothing to do with them, and honestly I was perfectly fine with that.  Bret's moms birthday is on Halloween so we just hung out at thier house and got Molly this scaredy cat shirt to wear so she could help pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters.  Every time the doorbell rang she got excited and yelled "the kids" but then would stand back and watch us give the candy. 

Molly sampling the candy.

Helping Aunt Abby make cookies.

Molly keeping her distance.

Just being silly.

Now for Goodbyes

This past Wednesday night I got a phone call from my mom saying my Uncle Larry had passed away from a massive heart attack.  He had just turned 60 in February.  He is my dad's only sibling.  We packed up our stuff and headed to Houston on Thursday to be with the family.  It was of course a very emotionally draining weekend ending with the funeral on Sunday.  

Uncle Larry

In between people visiting, viewing, and funeral we had to keep the little ones busy and happy, which actually wasn't hard to do.  My poor Molly and niece and nephew are deprived of having trees all over their yards, but my Granny sure does.  The kids liked to swing but they LOVED playing in the piles of leaves.  That kept them entertained every day!  It's the little things :)

If you did not see my previous post make sure you check it out. It is about FREE Christmas cards!