ICE at the Gaylord Texan

Craig's parents let us use their suburban to get back all of the Christmas loot we acquired over the week. Thank goodness too...there's no way we would have been able to get it all back in one of our cars. Then they decided to come up on Christmas night in our car and stay at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine. The hotel was running this special for Grandparents where they could stay for 2 nights and get 4 tickets to the ICE! exhibit and a complimentary photo. So they decided to bring up Coltin and Dustin and have Sydney stay in the hotel with them as well. (you can see who got the better end of this deal!) Craig and I went up to the hotel on Christmas night so we could go do the ICE exhibit with them. It was soooo amazing! The theme this year was "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." I was just amazed that everything in there was carved from ice. They give you giant parkas to wear through the exhibit so you don't freeze. We even wrapped Harper up and took her through it too!

Christmas Extravaganza 2009

It's official...we have survived another Christmas! :) This year was great because Craig had the whole week off before Christmas. We went to Katy on Monday and did Christmas with my family the first half of the week. On Tuesday, my sisters, brother, and grandma came over to my parents house and we had lunch and opened gifts. It was so great to see everyone!! Then we drove to Magnolia to see some of Craig's friends from high school. After that we drove to Craig's parents house. We had Christmas with his immediate family that night. Then on Thursday we did a Christmas lunch with his mom's family, and then Christmas dinner with his dad's family. This was the first year that we decided to drive back to Dallas on Christmas Eve so we could wake up in our own home on Christmas morning. Of course, as luck would have it, Dallas got a rare snow/ice storm that night. Craig started suggesting that maybe we stay in Houston and I was so upset. We decided that even if it took all night to get home, we were making the drive!! Luckily, it wasn't too bad and we got into Dallas around 1:15am. Boy were we tired! Santa came through and Sydney got the pink bicycle she wanted!! She also got clothes, games, a dress up box full of dress up clothes and jewelry, a baby highchair, a princess vanity and tons of other stuff. Harper was spoiled too!! I spent all day Saturday cleaning out Sydney and Harper's old toys to make room for the new stuff. What a fabulous Christmas we had! We hope your family's was as well!

First Annual Daddy/Daughter Christmas dinner!

Craig decided this year that he wanted to do something special with just him and the girls for Christmas. How sweet! He took Sydney on a date to Macaroni Grill and then to look at Christmas lights. Harper was too young to go this year but hopefully next year! Sydney talked about her "Christmas dinner" for about a week before they even went. She was so excited!

Santa comes to visit!

This was the second time Santa came to our house to see Sydney. Last year she was completely terrified and glued to us. This year, she was still a little weary but she at least smiled and talked to him.

Keeping her eye on Santa!



















Love this picture of Harper!

Sydney's Christmas party at CLC

Sydney had her class Christmas party on the last day of school before the Christmas break. Craig was out of town that morning, so I left my class to run down to hers so I could be there for the party. We decorated sugar cookies and then her class sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and Jingle Bells. It's so funny how kids get really quiet when the parents are watching...prior to this performance, Sydney sang Jingle Bells at the top of her lungs all the time.



















Placemat they made with pictures of her













Decorating her cookie













She's supposed to be singing here but just kept her fingers in her mouth instead. :)

Almost sitting!

Harper is soooo close to sitting! Well, she sits, just only in 20-30 second intervals right now. I have a feeling we'll have a full time sitter by Christmas! :)

Sydney's Prayer Tonight

This was too funny and I have to write it here so we don't forget it.

Sydney: Thank you Jesus. Thank you for this wonderful day. Thank you for Jackson licking his bottom. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for Daddy. Thank you for my family. Amen.

(Jackson is our dog for those that don't know)

Holiday fun at Northpark Mall

Now that I'm a stay at home mom, I see how important it is to a) get out of the house and b) figure out how to do something fun for FREE!! This past week we discovered all the fun FREE things that Northpark Mall offers during the holidays. On Wednesday we went and saw Santa Claus in the morning and he does a storytime for all the kids. And it's not even like he's sitting down reading them a story book, he is telling them a story from memory and has all these fun hand motions to go with it so the kids really get into it. They also have these puppet shows every half hour. There's one about Scrooge and one about Santa's Toy Factory. Those were really cute but Sydney was kind of scared of the puppets. (she's scared of a lot of stuff lately) We also got to see Santa and Sydney seemed so excited to see him until it was our turn and she didn't want anything to do with him. The only way we could get her picture with him was for me to hold her. Maybe one of these years she'll actually sit on his lap!

Mommy and her girls!












Scrooge puppet show



















Sydney hiding behind my leg from the puppets



















Toy Shop puppet show







































Santa!

A happy happy baby!

Harper is getting so BIG! I can't believe she is almost 6 months old. We have been so blessed with such a happy baby. Harper is rarely fussy and if she is, it's usually for a reason (like she's hungry or tired). In general though, she is super laid back, giggly, smily, and sweet. Here are some sweet pictures of caught of her recently.

Snowy day and a fun craft!

We had a first day of snow this year last week and it was really the first time Sydney saw snow that she actually remembers. It was snowing in the morning so that's why she's still in her pajamas...she couldn't wait to go play in it!















































After playing in the snow, I thought it would be fun to make a snowman out of marshmallows. Sydney had fun doing this and it was REALLY EASY!