Our real Lubbock Christmas

We headed to Lubbock the afternoon of Christmas Eve. We got there just in time to read the Christmas story from the Bible and other favorite Christmas stories, and give big hugs to everyone! We then hurried the kiddos to bed so Santa could come (again for us, but the kids were just as excited) and the grownups visited. I love this picture josh shot from the Christmas tree:
We had a wonderful Christmas morning, much different from our smaller one the morning before. There was quite the business of activity with presents for 17 people!

Everyone loved playing with their Christmas presents...

We then had a yummy Christmas breakfast and enjoyed lounging around, playing with new toys, cousins, and aunts/uncles.
Here's Jenny with all the cousins together:

We also had an enjoyable time reenacting the Nativity. In our family, Ashley was an angel with her Aunt Jenny, Zack was a donkey and then a sheep, Natalie was a sheep, Josh was a shepherd, and I was the Innkeeper's wife.
We loved seeing our new little cousin Kyle. Natalie and Ashley were particularly infatuated.

Natalie and her cousin Gracie (also 2) LOVED playing together and Ashley liked helping them in their play adventures.
We enjoyed feeding the ducks at a local pond. Some of the geese were pretty aggressive, so we had Natalie and Grace on a higher rock.

Best friends!
Ashley and Zack really bonded with their "cool uncles." Thanks for those fun times Chris, Todd, and Dave! They still talk about the hide and seek game at the Playground of Dreams. Natalie also particularly loved bonding with granddaddy. She almost took over his whole soup...

Another very special event was the blessing of the newest addition, Cheri's baby Kyle. It was such a memorable event to have everyone present for this blessing. We had this family photo afterwards, sadly it is the only picture we have of all of us! We had meant to have another, more planned picture, but ran out of time :( Zack was a little sad in this picture and I couldn't get him to turn around. For those who don't know--all of the girls are my sisters. We've all missed each other!
We also had a fabulous time riding horses. Ashley and Zack got their Christmas wish and were able to enjoy horseback riding at a small ranch here in Texas. It was their first time, but their great-uncle Al was able to spend some quality instruction time and get them up to speed on the basics lickity split! They were both leading the horses by themselves, despite my freaking out everytime their horses would speed up even the slightest bit. They did really good and can't wait to go again. They both also loved going a little bit faster with their aunt Stephanie.

Finally, what would Lubbock be without a trip to the science spectrum?

Our "early" Christmas

This year, we really wanted to go to Lubbock to see gramma and granddaddy, my sisters and their husbands, and cousins. Everyone was going to be there on Christmas morning. We found out that Santa was coming early on the night of Dec 23rd to our neighbor's house across the street and thought we would see if we could get Santa to come here as well! We made yummy Christmas cookies and put them right by the fireplace (so the smell would go up the chimney).
Here's Natalie with a frosting mouth enjoying her newly decorated cookie:

We then sprinkled special reindeer food on the lawn. We hoped both of these enticements would have Santa know we wanted him to come to our house too! When the kids woke up, they were so excited to see he did come and that he brought them presents! He also left a special note saying he knew they were going to Gramma's and would leave one present for them there as well. Needless to say, we had a fabulous early Christmas morning to ourselves with the kids opening presents and eating their Christmas goodies.
A picture of the kiddos in their new pajamas, opened the night before:

Ashley was especially excited about her new Barbie Cruise Ship. She poised all of her Barbies for this picture! Note the kids poising with Mickey and Minnie for a picture, dolls relaxing, swimming, and enjoying the buffet. She was very excited when daddy played with her for a little while, but got frustrated with him when his boy Barbie kept eating all the buffet food and was not playing like she dictated. Funny Ashley...
I had to shoot this alternate view for her of how the pool slide turns into a flashing disco ball, complete with "cool" music for the dance party.

Zack loved his new Leapster and of course, his candy :)

Natalie just loved opening any presents, but especially took to her stickers in her stocking and her new crawling Sleeping Beauty baby.

Zack's preschool Christmas program

Zack's preschool did a cute Christmas program. He was so proud to be singing songs for us and that he got to be the star of the show. He did such a great job!

Here he is waiting before the program begins:


And the cute class picture afterwards. What a great smiler!