We Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas #1 on Dec. 22 with Brian's family


Getting Ready for Santa. We had to put the key on the door and leave the reindeer food outside.


Look at all the loot! There was so much that it wrapped around the other side of the stairs.


The little drummer boy! What was Santa thinking!


Are we done yet?! This pretty princess is worn out already!




I hope that everybody had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did. We were able to spend Christmas at home with all our family. My parents came in town and boy, I am not sure that any of the stores in Houston had anything left. They arrived with a trunk load of gifts and treats. The kids were so excited! We were also able to celebrate with Brian's parents who live here in town close to us. It was perfect. Santa came and left all kinds of fun treats! We had a yummy Christmas brunch at our house with all the family and then enjoyed a very tasty Christmas dinner at my in-laws house. We were all sad for the day to end! Now we are enjoying all our Christmas presents and spending time organizing all the new things we got.


We are excited about the new year and all it brings. This will be Luke's last semester of pre-school and then he starts Kindergarten in the fall. I will be leaving for Orlando in February as part of our church's mission trip. (Pray for Brian as he will have the kids for 5 days and 4 nights!) Brian will start school again and will be busy coaching Luke's soccer team. Emma is going to start gymnastics and will be 3! Time is sure flying! One thing we are all really looking forward to is our trip to the East coast. We will be going to New York to see Brian's beloved Yankee's play their final season in the Old Yankee Stadium. He is so excited to show this historic place to Luke. We are counting the days to this fun trip!

Coming Home for Christmas

Here is a link to our Christmas program. You can watch the video/audio podcast or just listen to the audio version. If you watch the video, you will have fun finding Brian and me in the choir!

Enjoy!

http://parkwayhills.phsm.org/index.php?view=article&catid=36%3Ahome-for-christmas&id=141%3Acome-home-to-peace&option=com_content&Itemid=107

And there were in the same country, shepherds

abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men

Luke 2:8-14

Today was Luke's Christmas program at school. It was so cute! My pictures didn't turn out so good because of the lighting. The program was so sweet. Pastor Sam asked Luke what shepherds did. I expected him to say they watched sheep. His answer brought tears to my eyes. He said that Shepherds bowed down and worship the Lord Baby Jesus. Not a dry eye in the place. Click on the video link and you can take a listen. I will have to remember that sweet answer every time he acts like a Pistol Pete!

I will post one of my pictures so you can see his cute costume. Who knew that he could make a dishtowel look so good!

Alvin, Simon, Theodore

OK.. here is my first attempt at a blog. I was inspired by my cousin's wife and everybody that seems to blog. What a great way to keep up with everybody and what is going on in their life! Yesterday was just a normal Sunday for us. Our choir's Christmas program was yesterday and I have to say it was great. Kudos to Mark for doing such a great job organizing and putting it all together. After church we went to lunch with our LifeGroup friends and then headed off to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. My kids love the cartoon version so I figured this would be a huge hit with them. Emma actually sounds like a chipmunk! If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it. My kids loved it! It is the first movie that Luke actually stayed in the theatre to watch. We made it all the way through with no trips to the bathroom. Of course what 5 year old boy doesn't like potty jokes! It kept him entertained and laughing the whole time. Emma actually loved it too! She was singing along and dancing in her chair. So cute. I think I enjoyed the movie so much because the kids had such a great time. This will be a definite purchase once it comes out on DVD. We had such a wonderful Sunday. It was a shame that it had to come to an end. After all the adventure we came home and put on our jammies and just chilled. The kids were in bed by 7:30 and I actually got some stuff accomplished!