White Christmas 2009!

We finally got a White Christmas. I can't even tell you the last time we had one in Oklahoma or if there is one that even exists! I am sure there is, but we haven't had blizzard conditions like we had Christmas Eve since February of 1987. Christmas plans changed due to the crazy weather, bad driving conditions, and inexperienced drivers in these types of weather conditions. Christmas Eve we spent at my parents' house with my sis and her girls. We had lunch then opened presents. By the end of the gift opening the snow was coming down quite intensely. My dad decided he better get out and see how bad things were on the roads. The first phone call he made to us was that he didn't want us leaving because Byron might have to come rescue him in the back hoe. The second one came about an hour later saying that if we were planning to make it home that evening we better go now. So thankful that we did. The roads were horrible. You could barely see anything. Byron did a fabulous job driving and so thankful that a few short months back my dad invested in a new 4x4 truck for Byron. The only trouble we had was coming up our driveway. We didn't quite make it into the carport but close enough! Jaycee was a little scared when we got a tad stuck in the driveway. I kept pointing out that we had made it home and we were safe.

Christmas Day we were suppose to be at the Sutton's Christmas at my grandparents, but it got postponed due to the weather. So we had all of Christmas day together at home. I must say it was so nice. We didn't get out of our pj's until that afternoon when we went out to play in the snow. It was a fun filled day for all of us!!! The snow is still hanging around. I think we got around a foot of snow. We have some chances to get some more today as well. Quite the unusual weather for Oklahoma, but we are enjoying it!


The front door view at my parents' house.

Byron's wonderful truck that safely got us around!

The view from my parents' bedroom window looking down to my grandparents' house.

Christmas morning! If you look closely enough you can see the lights of the tail of our reindeer in the front yard!

This is a view off the laundry room door looking towards our shop.

Scooby loves the snow!!!

Our back yard!

Saying Good-Bye!

Saying good-bye is never easy especially when its to 2 of the most wonderful people ever! Andy and Marilee aka Nana and Papa, are so special to our family of 6 (Scooby and Zoe). Seriously, Scooby smiles every time Nana and Papa arrive at our house. Its the cutest funniest thing you have ever seen. It happens for no one except them! Zoe of course, loves all the Nana lap time she can get! Memories are always made each time we are together. Every moment spent is cherished deeply in our hearts forever. We love you, Nana and Papa. We can't wait til the next time we are together!!!

Grapevine, TX

Friday December 11th Nana, Papa, and our little family loaded up and headed South to Texas. Our first stop was the Gaylord Texan Hotel home of ICE! This year's theme was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". We were all prepared with our stocking caps, gloves, and heavy coats. They also give you parkas to wear through the walk-thru of ICE sculptures. The parkas are definitely needed as the area's temperature for the ICE is zero degrees! That's right folks, ZERO!!! The ice sculptures are absolutely gorgeous. Its truly amazing how they make figures and creatures out of ice. They also had ice slides that adults and children could enjoy. The best part was at the end, they had an ice sculpture of the Nativity Scene! Absolutely breath-taking! After the ICE we walked around the amazing Gaylor Texan Hotel. They had up lots of beautiful Christmas decorations. Jackson's favorite part was watching all the trains they had set up through out the hotel. He would have sat for hours on end if we would have let him! After we finished our sight seeing there we grabbed lunch at the ever so wonderful Fuddrucker's!!! Its a great little hamburger joint! Then we checked into our hotel and had naps before we headed out for the night to downtown Grapevine. Downtown Grapevine was beautiful! It was all decorated up for the Christmas season. They had fabulous little shops, unfortunately we had the guys with us so we didn't get to venture in as many stores as we would have liked, but oh well! Then we came up on the Town Square Gazebo area and it had a light show. It was awesome! The lights were all synchronized to a variety of Christmas songs. It was quite the little treat for us. The end of our evening we watched a Christmas Music Show at the Grapevine Opry. It was a little over 2 hours long, but the kids did fabulous. We all really enjoyed our evening in Grapevine.

On Saturday morning, we watched my niece Keely in her singing debut. She did a wonderful job! We had lunch at Salt Grass Steakhouse. One of the best steakhouses, ever I might add. We spent the afternoon at the Ft. Worth Stockyards. We had fun going to all the unique "cow town" stores. Our day ended watching my other niece Kiley and her teammates win the championship in a basketball tournament. We had a fun filled 2 days in Texas!

Christmas with Nana and Papa!

On Monday December 7th we celebrated Christmas. Marilee and I prepared our own little Christmas dinner. It was delicious. Once dinner was finished and we cleaned up a bit the kids were ready to open their gifts! Its so much fun to watch the kids' faces light up as they unveil what is under the wrapping paper! Thank you Nana and Papa for giving the kids a fabulous Christmas. Thank you Papa for your extra hard work in assembling the garage and dollhouse. What a chore that would have been trying to assemble them with 2 super excited kids in your face! We are so blessed to have shared this wonderful time of year with our beloved Nana and Papa!


Wonder what it is???

Getting there!

An adorable new purse!!!

Keeping us rooted in the Pioneer Spirit!!!

Sweet a pink guitar!!!

So proud to have his very own guitar!!!

Our little rock star!!!

What did Papa just bring in for them???

Jackson with his Deluxe Garage!

Jaycee with her Savannah Dollhouse!

She LOVES it!!!

In Jackson's words-This is awesome!!!

Baking with Nana!

Nana brought with her a lot of wonderful kid friendly recipes to make with Jaycee and Jackson. Both kids participated, Jaycee of course more than Jackson. All the treats were delicious. Nana also helped me prepare my first turkey and helped me with making my first ever pie, pumpkin pie. We loved every minute of making tasting goodies with our Nana. Its by far one of our most favorite things to do while Nana is in town. We made sugar cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, toffee, peppermint brownies, and bubble bread. They were all a great success!!! The toffee, sugar cookies, and peppermint brownies will be made again this coming week. I need to remember next time take pictures of all the finished goodies! Here are pictures of the making of the goodies!!!


Must have been super tasty!!!

Jaycee, our little mixer!!!

Finger licking good!!!

Jaycee crushing up the candy canes!

Jackson was thrilled to be asked to use his hammer to smash up the candy canes!

Nana working hard to get the icing on the cookies! We had very speedy decorators!

The finished Sugar Cookies!

Jaycee-making sure that the sprinkles were in their right spots!

Jackson wasn't so particular with his decorating! He would grab handfuls and dump them on the cookies!!!

Silly boy!!!

Making the bubble bread!

Gooey deliciousness!!!

Bass Pro Shop and the Christmas Parade!

Here are some pictures from the Bass Pro Shop visit and then the Christmas Parade in Duncan on Saturday December 5th. I don't know if I shared in previous posts, but the parade lasted for an hour and half! The kids enjoyed it all! They gathered a lot of candy! It was lots of fun and so glad we were able to watch the parade with our Nana.


Nana helping the kids with the remote control trucks!

Jackson on his dream 4 wheeler! Such a boy!!!

Jaycee got her turn too!!! Jaycee would prefer her dream 4 wheeler to be pink or purple!

Papa and me watching Jackson race on the NASCAR track.

Nice ride!

This pose cracks me up!

Jaycee waiting for the parade to start!

Nana with her babies!

Momma with her babies!

The theme of the parade was Santa's Hot Rods!

I loved this car!

The Nativity on wheels! AWESOME!

All the bikers!!!

Where do I begin???

Wow, I have so much to blog about, but not really sure how or where to start!!! So thankful I have a lot to share with you all!!! Hopefully, I will get a lot of blogging done today. Andy and Marilee are now in the sky on their way back to Washington. We had an AMAZING time with them. The time always passes too quickly. We so love having them here. I have planned nothing for the rest of the week so we can adjust back to normal life. Usually the first couple of days we all want to resist the fact that we must return to normal life! We didn't have a day that passed that we didn't have something going on around here. So each day we made extra special memories with Nana and Papa. Our house has also been transformed since their arrival! I feel like I have a brand new house!!! We had carpet installed the week before Andy and Marilee's arrival. Our living room/kitchen now have beautiful rich colors on their walls. Yesterday, we took our cowhide rug and made seat covers for our kitchen chairs!!! They look fabulous!!! Thank you Nana and Papa for your hard work in making our house beautiful!!! It would have taken me at least a week to paint the living room/kitchen and without them here the chairs would have never been covered!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Nana and Papa for your willingness to help and work while you are on vacation. We all so very much appreciate your giving hearts! We love you so much!!!

Here are before pictures!





Here are the after pictures! SO MUCH BETTER!!!