Emily, Allison, and Everett Visit!

Our friend Allison came to visit us last week! She used to live here in Texas and moved to CA last year. She's back in town to visit her family for Christmas, but was able to come stay with Laura for a few days to see all of her friends.

This little guy Everett was born after they moved, so we hadn't met him before. He's ADORABLE and SO SO good. I don't remember him ever really fussing!

Cooper, Emily, and Ben. Emily is a year younger than Ben and Cooper.

Jackson jumped in the picture! Elizabeth was at school.

Here's Allison and Everett.

Emily was serving us all cookies. Jackson loved that! :)

We had a great visit, just wish you guys lived here!!!

The Nutcracker

My mom and dad took the kids (minus Jackson) and Laura and me to the Nutcracker last weekend. My dad actually stayed with Jackson so I could go.
My mom set the table really cute for lunch before the ballet.

They each got their own nutcracker. Cooper LOVES it.

The post-show pictures! The kids did such a good job, I was impressed at how attentive Cooper was.

I had to get a picture with my Cooper!

Before we went home we walked around downtown and saw this cute stand that Santa was sitting on. It was decorated with pictures from the nutcracker!

This has nothing to do with the nutcracker but I wanted to post a picture from a playdate we did recently. This is Cooper's good friend from school, Luke. He has so much fun playing with him, I'm so glad he's made a nice friend!

Christmas Fun

We had our friend Henry over to play a few weeks ago and we made some ornaments together. I didn't get a picture when he was here but I got a few pictures after he left of my kids making the ornaments. Somehow I deleted the pictures of Cooper making the ornaments! He did make some though :).

We went to breakfast with Santa awhile ago as well. The kids LOVED it. Jackson wasn't too sure about Santa though. He had spent the night at Laura and Tom's and did not sleep very well (poor Laura!) so wasn't his most rested self. He was SO excited waiting in line to see Santa but when he got up there he would not sit by Santa, he just cried. I eventually had to sit with him and then he took the picture.

There were lots of games and face painting at the breakfast!

A cute photo op!

The breakfast part of 'breakfast with Santa!"
A fun craft.

We met some of our friends there so we got a picture of some of the kids!
It was so cute how Josh had his arm around Jackson!

After breakfast with Santa we went to G & G's house for a St. Nicholas Tea party. I had to leave the kids there so I didn't get any pictures of all the cuteness. But I came back with Ryan to pick them up a few hours later and we went over to our friends' house (janet and chris) for their annual holiday party. Here are all of the kids at the party.

The ladies at the party.

It was a busy but fun day!

My Santa and My Present Inspector

I got the boys these Christmas pjs this year. I LOVE Jackson's Santa pjs. I'm so sad they didn't have Cooper's size or else I'd have two Santas! We put a small tree with their homemade ornaments in their playroom this year.

Cooper looks SO old in this picture I think!

My little Santa!

Isn't this a fun hat? Adult sized by the way. J has lots of brains!:)

Cutie Cooper.

Both the boys in front of the front room tree. This is the first year we've done two full-sized trees. The tree in the front room my "themed" tree with aqua and red ornaments.

I LOVE this picture of them!

I thought this was just hilarious. We were eating something chocolate (I can't remember what exactly) and J's tooth got blacked out. Funny boy.

For Thanksgiving my mom and dad gave the boys this advent calendar to make. It was fun and easy!

Peppermint Party and Polar Express

Our jam-packed Thanksgiving week is coming to a close. My mom had so many fun parties planned for the kids!

The day after Thanksgiving she had a peppermint party for the kids. Another cute cute party! I wish I had pictures of the invitations. Precious.
The kids watched Frosty the Snowman and had peppermint popcorn (yum!).

Then they had a special lunch.

Aren't the headbands hilarous?

Jackson insisted on wearing his this way!

Christmas Bingo is always a hit.

Every time I looked Jackson was shoving a marshmellow into his mouth.

That night we went to the Polar Express. It was so much fun. The kids all wear their pjs and they had some fun activities set up (ornament decorating, pictures with Santa, etc...) We had tickets for 6:30 and people lined up early! They let us into this room and they had a little show for us to get us excited to get on the Polar Express!

Here are all the kids excited to start!

Getting ready to make some ornaments.

Here's Jackson's ornament.

Here's Coopers! (funny story-Santa comes on the train to meet all the kids and Cooper held up his ornament to show Santa. Santa thought he was giving it to him and very graciously took it. Cooper got a little upset but held it together and didn't cry. I think he was kind of proud but also upset that Santa had his ornament! :))

Once the show was over we walked through this Christmas tree maze to get on the train and they were blowing snow on us. The boys thought it was amazing!

Here are some of us on the Polar Express! (My big head blocked Laura in every picture, oops.)

Meeting Santa! They were SO excited.

Santa gave them jingle bells. They had the train all decorated and Christmas music playing, it was really fun!

We tried to get the kids to pose in front of the Polar Express.

The Christmas lights were GORGEOUS on all the buildings around the Polar Express so we walked around and checked everything out.

All of the kids! The next morning our out-of-town relatives got up bright and early and drove home. We miss them and wish they lived closer!