Christmas Eve 2009

We got the gruesome twosome ready and headed out to spend Christmas Eve with my sister and her husbands family.

Amy and I (and baby Ryder in her belly!!)

Tearing into the Christmas presents

Auntie letting Brynne play the piano

Future musician?

Auntie Amy and Uncle Nate got Brynna a Minnie Mouse doll and it was LOVE at first sight!

Landon was SOO excited about this remote control helicopter...little did he know it was a gift for Daddy!!

Landon and Uncle Mike

Landon helping Brynne open a gift

Landon decided that playing in this VERY big gift bag was much more fun than any of the presents he was given, HA!

I HAD to take this cute picture of Brynne from behind! She was playing with Auntie and had no idea that she was flashing the room, LOL!

Christmas Eve 2009

We had such a fun time spending Christmas Eve with Nathan's family. We are so blessed to live near so many people who love our kids so much and who make us feel like part of their family.

We got home on Christmas Eve at about 9. Only an hour past the kids bed time. So we got down to business...

Daddy helps Landon pour some milk to leave out for Santa

Landon leaves Santa a cookie

Brynne leaving Santa a cookie

Ready for bed and SO excited for Santa!

Brynne also excited for Santa...and super attached to her new Minnie doll!

Minnie even made it into Brynne's crib

Our Christmas Eve was perfect! Up next, pictures and a post from Christmas day!

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday with your family and friends!

Christmas Lights!

On Friday we took the kids to a HUGE, wonderful, neighborhood Christmas lights display. There are 2 or 3 streets FULL of houses like these. Every house is decorated. Every house is amazingly beautiful! It is a tradition in the area of Southern CA where we live to visit this neighborhood during the weeks before Christmas. Some people wait in their cars in a long line just to be able to drive through and see the beautiful decorations. We decided to park, load up the kids in the stroller and just walk. The night was perfect, not too cool. We walked, and looked, and admired, and felt the Holiday spirit for an hour and a half. There were Christmas carolers, kids selling hot chocolate, even a young boy playing Christmas songs on his keyboard. We had SUCH a fun time and will definitely be back year after year!

Thank You Thoroughbred Lane!!

this one is funny, look close!

Our budding photographer took this one!

Our sweet cookies <3

Decorating the tree

These pictures are from Thanksgiving weekend, but I just realized that my scheduled post never posted!

This year I managed to ignore my OCD long enough to actually let the kids decorate the tree. We ended up with a some areas that are completely bare, and a few more areas that are far too crowded with ornaments. They had a lot of fun doing it though, and I was glad to create new memories for them. Brynna really got into it and helped Mama until the tree was finished! Landon, who sadly has his Daddy's attention span, abandoned the tree decorating and opted for riding his bike!

SUCH a fun memory! I can't believe Christmas is a week away, and then Brynne's 2nd birthday only a few weeks after that! It's about to get busy around here!!!