Quick Christmas Snapshots

Mom and Henry in Prosper

Feeding Henry Bear while watching Football

Uncle Wes with Henry 

(I promise we also take pictures of Parker, but he is a way better sleeper than Henry, so he is usually snoozing while this little guy demands to be awake and/or held!)

 A little blurry… but Mark and me on Christmas morning

Parker’s Reindeer Bum!

Kelly and Wes

Ryan and Whitney

Ann-Marie and Henry

<3

Christmas!

Christmas Eve in our Christmas PJ's, getting ready for our first trip to Muenster to stay at Grandma and Grandpa’s house

After mass on Christmas morning, which was the boys first time attending church.  Henry slept the entire time and didn’t even know that he was there, while Parker squirmed through it all!  I think he wanted to sing all the songs.

Henry and Parker’s first Christmas was fun and festive, with celebrations in both Prosper and Muenster with all the grandparents, aunts and uncles.  Santa made a visit to Muenster and brought the boys their very first {covered} wagon!  It was so big that we had to leave it at Grandma’s house…. no room in the car with two grown-ups, two babies, two dogs and a whole lot of luggage and gear! {Thanks, Santa}

Tonight we are ringing in the New Year with these little guys, hoping we can stay up until midnight!  Happy 2014 to everyone!

Ice Apocalypse

The ice apocalypse did in fact occur today, and we’ve been iced in all day.  We lost power for about two hours this morning, but we’re lucky compared to many others I’ve heard from today, who have been without electricity all day.  Thanks goodness Mark also got snowed in and didn’t go to work today, because our two little guys have been having an off day.  Lots of tears and screams today, and very little sleeping or naps.  We may or may not have just busted open a bottle of champagne, just for surviving this far.  Which I may or may not be sipping as I type this!  Maybe the weather is causing the boys to be off today, but surely tomorrow will be better.

Yesterday, before the weather arrived, my mother-in-law came over so I could do a trial run of leaving the house with the boys.  I have yet to go anywhere by myself with them (in fact, they have only left the house twice so far to visit the pediatrician), so it was a big day for us all. We ventured quickly to the Galleria for a Christmas errand I wanted to do.  While we were making a lap around the mall, we came upon Santa’s “Workshop” and there was ZERO line.  Not a single person waiting.  Just the big guy in red sitting and waiting.  My MIL and I debated.. do we wake the sleeping babies and risk Mall Meltdowns to take advantage of this prime opportunity?

The answer was, of course, yes.

There were no Mall Meltdowns (at least not until after we left Santa) and for once Henry (on the left) was the one who wouldn’t cooperate and open his eyes.  Parker is usually the one who can’t take a good photo!  I surprised Mark by emailing him the photo at work when we got home, telling him we “ran into someone we knew at the mall today.”  He said it made his day :)  Proud Dad!

Moments like these, where we start little family traditions with the twins and get ready to celebrate their first Christmas, they make the days like today - when we are pulling our hair out and trying to reason with two five-week old babies on why it is actually good to take naps - they make it all worth it.

Operation Stocking

When Mark and I got married, I started making him a stocking.  This was in 2010.  Every year, my big plan was to have it finished by that Christmas, and every year the holidays would come and go with no stocking.  The problem is that I would get into the holiday spirit by about Thanksgiving every year, so I'd pull it out and start working on it.  Then I would get busy or get to a step on the stocking kit that was especially labor-intensive, so I would put it away for a few days, weeks.... and it would never get finished.  And who wants to work on a Christmas stocking after Christmas has passed?  Come January, it would inevitably get stashed away for another ten months.

So the stocking was never finished.  Well I recently suddenly found myself with {a lot} of time on my hands, so I asked Mark to bring the stocking kit up to the hospital.  And what do you know, in a matter of days, I have it finished!

Everyone who I showed it to all had the same idea - might as well start working on two more for the babies, while I am sitting here all day with endless time.  At first I kept thinking noooo, I won't really be here that long.  (Ha. Wishful thinking.)  I'd just get another one started and have it sit for years and years.  But then it really started to sound like I will actually be here for weeks and weeks still (tear), so Mark and I got on Amazon and picked out a couple patterns for our little babies.  Why not?  Let's see if having entire days with NOTHING on the agenda will help me get these whipped out in no time, or at least in time for the twins' first Christmas.  What do we think?  Can I do it??

Christmas at Home

Christmas Day, we drove home from Oklahoma after spending some time with Mark's family.  We had hoped to beat the bad weather, but ended up driving through most of it, making our usual 4 hour drive last nearly 7 hours  But it was worth it to spend part of Christmas at our house, with our little furry family.

I bought this wreath from a boy scout who came knocking at our door in November.

A White Christmas in Dallas... who would have thought?

Warm and Cozy

Our Christmas Card "wreath" by the snowy front door.

New ornaments this year :)

Hubs made a fire for some Christmas movie time.

She was glad to be home too!

PJ's, fireplace, movie and the iPad. Not too shabby way to wrap up the holidays, eh?

My Christmas Goose snuggled up next to me for some Christmas Vacation viewing.

Today I started taking all the Christmas stuff down and it's back to work on Monday.  I'm not as blue as I usually am this time of year, which could be due to the extra week of vacation after all the Christmas hustle.  And just think, in five more months, it's summer vacation :)

Merry, Merry! Part One.

You guys, our Christmas was out of control.  Here's how it went down.

On December 14, my little sister graduated college and our Christmas-ing officially began.  We left work and went straight to Muenster for the graduation and party.

The next day, Christmas with my family began.  Since my brother and his wife and sister and her husband were also all coming in for the graduation, we decided to have Christmas that week too, since it would be hard for us all to get back to my parents' place again in the next two weeks.  To kick off the holiday, we all went to see the Ice Exhibit at the Gaylord Hotel.  This was fun, although definitely geared more towards kids, and also VERY COLD!  It is NINE DEGREES in the exhibit, so it was also a race to see it all and GET OUT OF THE COLD!

While we warmed our toes, we took some photos around the hotel.  Please excuse the dark, grainy cell phone pics...

We got back to my parent's house late that night and had Christmas and presents, during which I took no pictures.  With one Christmas under our belts, we headed back home at the end of the weekend.