Finally the end of Christmas 2009!

Last post about Christmas, I think! Christmas 2009 was wonderful! The whole month was amazing. Being able to have Christmas with our families and to do so many fun things to celebrate this time of year by far made this the best Christmas our family has had! Our 25 days of Christmas went well. We had a few days where we had to catch up b/c our days were so full of other activities that we couldn't get all of the activities done. Sleeping "under the Christmas tree" was once again a success! The Jesus Birthday Cake turned out beautifully this year. Last year I didn't icing all the layers, but I got it right this year. Thank you Heavenly Father for sending the best gift we could ever receive in your son, Jesus! We are so blessed to have our families celebrate the wonderful gift of Jesus' birth as well!!! I hope you all had an unforgettable Christmas, too!!!

Jaycee's Christmas!

Jaycee Ann is growing so fast on us! She is simply precious!!! She goes through life a little bit more on the serious side than her brother, but its a good thing! This year it was amazing to see her learn about the true meaning of Christmas. The 25 days of Christmas was definitely up her alley. She can tell you pretty much the whole Christmas Story. This year my mom, sis, nieces, Jaycee, Jackson, and myself went to visit a retirement center and took them all sacks of cookies. I wasn't really sure how well Jaycee would do since she is a little on the shy side. She did great! She even performed "Away in the Manger" for them. It was so very precious! I love her sweet little spirit!

Now, like any girl she LOVES her gifts whether it be clothes or toys! She screams in excitement when she opens each gift! I can definitely tell she is maturing, because she didn't get the overwhelmed meltdown attitudes this year. She might start on one, but she would quickly pull herself back together! She did great at hugging and thanking each and every person for the gifts that she received. What a joy and pleasure she is to our family! We have been truly blessed with this precious amazing sweet and beautiful little girl!!!

Keely and Jaycee

Keely, Kiley, and Jaycee! She loves her cousins!!!

Tinker Bell and Rosetta!

Barbie clothes!!!

She loved this gift, her princess scooter!!!

Modeling her new outfit!

Jaycee with our Jesus Birthday Cake!

Jaycee in her "Princess" tent!

Opening her new jewelry box!

New shoes!!!

New Tinker Bell panties!

Barbies!Barbies!Barbies!

Sleeping Dora! (Jaycee turned off the voice box, b/c she didn't want to hear Dora speak in Spanish!) Ha!Ha!

She wants to do the spin art wheel all the time!!!

She absolutely LOVES her Great-Uncle Johnny!!! (Pretty sure the feeling is mutual from Uncle Johnny!!!)

Christmas-Jackson style!

The words of choice for Jackson this Christmas was "Oh My Goodness" and "What's it going be". Those were the phrases that he said opening ever present this year! He definitely has way too many girls around him, huh?!?! The pure joy on his face in discovering what was in each box as he opened it was priceless. After the second gift containing clothing he was done with those types of gifts. He would claim that the gift was either not his or say "I don't need anymore clothes" Ha!Ha! Next year the plan is to put all clothing items in one big sack that way he can go through them if he wants! In my book, clothes are fabulous to get!!! As much as these kids grow around here its always nice to get a new load of clothes through the winter!

I love how Jackson goes about life full speed! Christmas was no different. His 3 favorite songs to sing for Christmas were "Away in a Manger", "Little Drummer Boy", and "Jingle Bells". He has really changed over the last couple of months. I love that he is becoming a "big boy", but my heart breaks just a little knowing that he needs his mommy less these days. I know deep down I will always have a special place in his heart! Christmas was great because of Jackson's upbeat tempo to life, his laughter, his love, and his craziness. So very thankful that our family has been blessed with this little guy!

PawPaw is Jackson's official helper in gift opening!

Opening up his big Tonka truck!!!

Getting a little upset that PawPaw was trying to put trash in his dump truck! Ha!Ha!

LOVES his "Cars" computer!!!

Hiding out in his new "Cars" tent!!!

Jackson's "Cars" collection!!! These are by far his prized possessions!!!

His new gun!!!

Semi truck to transport his cars! (I really would like a big one, so if you have seen one let me know! Thanks!)

New shoes! He is now only one size smaller then Jaycee! AMAZING!!!

Gotta love new undies!!!

Our very own "singing naked cowboy"!

Sporting his new Wall-E undies!

Me with my little Bubba Boo!!! (Jaycee's a pretty good photographer, huh?!?!)

Our handsome little guy!

This would be the gift that he said "I don't need anymore clothes". Ha!Ha!

Awe, this is more like it!!!

Yay, a Firetruck!!!

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!