Merry Christmas!

A Hill Country Christmas

Tonight we made the 30 minute trip north to New Braunfels, TX to the home of the World Famous Schlitterbahn Water Resort. It had been transformed from a summer mecca to a winter wonderland!

The water slides were transformed into sledding hills and the swimming pools were open for ice-skating. Isabelle wore the smallest ice skates available, and although they were still two sizes too big, she braved the ice and took her first trips around a rink. She mostly liked to hold onto me and let me skate while she just glided along. She sat on both Santa and Mrs. Claus' laps and made sure they knew she lived in San Antonio, TX so that they could find her house on Christmas Eve. She played in giant gingerbread houses and saw thousands of lights. One of the funniest moments was when Isabelle saw a few girls join the carolers for a round of Rudolph and quickly made her way up front to sing along.

It was 70 degrees at 8:00pm so we were plenty warm but with fake snow falling and everyone drinking hot wassail, we almost felt like it was really cold outside.

On the way home, way past Belle's bedtime, she only had one regret..she forgot to tell Santa so many of the things she hopes he brings her this Christmas. Thank goodness Santa is full of magic!

We need a little Christmas, RIGHT this very minute!

This is exactly the spirit that has been in our home the last several days. With a 2 year-old, decorating for the holidays is really exciting and very urgent! Jelly and I spent several afternoons this past week slowly getting out a few decorations every day. She especially loves the advent calendar where each morning she finds a chocolate bell which she quickly eats. She asked me who places the candy in the calendar every night and without even thinking about it, I replied the snowmen! When Ben got home from work that night, Jelly exclaimed Dad, did you know this is my special calendar and snowmen-fairies come in the night and bring me candy! (Somehow it always turns into "fairies.")

After much anticipation, we finally put up the Christmas tree this evening. We of course wanted to wait until Ben would be home to help and it seemed like the perfect activity for Sunday night. We turned on the Christmas music and I believe it was everything Belle hoped for. We had fun telling her the story of each of our ornaments and when I showed her the 2001 Doves ornament that Ben and I received for our wedding, she said Oh, this was for your wedding? And I was still in Heaven with Baby Jesus and Joseph and Mary, right? She placed about half the ornaments on 3 or 4 branches and thought they were simply perfect! After her bath, she wanted to lay under the tree for just a few minutes before she hopped into bed. Christmas is magical when you are 2!



*Notice she is finally wearing the dress Aunt Tara bought her last year for the holidays. It is a size 2 and was so big last year...now it fits!

Come ye thankful people

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in Houston surrounded by family and friends. Isabelle nearly drove us crazy as we packed for the trip asking "is it time to go" every few minutes. She was so anxious to get to Grammy's that we were on the road by 10:00am Wednesday morning.

We started our Thanksgiving morning early participating in the annual Coles Crossing Turkey Trot. We all ran in step and Belle was thrilled with her winning medal. We spent the day cooking and watching football and once Chris, Colleen and Max arrived from Ohio we enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner. Ben particularly loved the sweet potatoes, Belle thought the mashed potatoes were delicious and I was quite impressed with the salt-less stuffing! After dinner and a much loved Thanksgiving puppet show, we gathered around the newspaper and planned our attack for the highly anticipated Black Friday shopping spree.

At 4:00am my mom, Tara, Alee, Nick and I headed out for our first store and by 7:00am had successfully spent money in 4 different major stores. Once Belle awoke, she and Ben met us for a few more early morning shopping hot spots in their pajamas before we headed home to shower and get ready for the day. (We bought Belle a JEEP which we had no plans to buy, but one became available at 5:00am and I jumped on the opportunity. There was a line waiting for the JEEP's to be unloaded but Alee got a tip on the store's plan, so we walked straight to the back and picked up the last pink JEEP available. I almost got beat up but I successfully got it back to the check-out counter and Nick and Alee ran it home in between stores since we had already bought too much to fit it all in the car. We do not want to spoil Jelly, so we will probably save it until her birthday in March when it is Spring and pretty outside.) Once we were clean and "rested" Tara, Belle and I headed for the mall and were there just in time for a few more sales that lasted only through noon. Finally at nearly 2:00pm we had shopped and spent all that we had planned and made our way back home.

Grandma and Grandpa took Max and Belle to the movie BOLT while the rest of us watched Four Christmases. Isabelle was thrilled to go to the theatre, one of her favorite things, with her grandparents and cousin all by herself! Saturday was spent preparing for the Newlyweds open house. The backyard was beautiful and the food was delicious. We were threatened by rain but the evening turned out to be lovely and we had such a nice time visiting with so many friends. Nick's parents, Paul & Lynette, were able to make the trip from Colorado and we enjoyed getting to know them better and learning more about our newest family member. We were even surprised by a long-lost friend, Ryan, (and relative) who relocated to DFW and made the trip down to celebrate with us. We also loved seeing Ben's brother Sam and his wife Heather and Belle's only girl cousin Anna over the weekend at both the movie and reception.

Sunday and the end of the break came too quick and Belle was in tears saying goodbye to her favorite people. Max turned 4 years old on Sunday so we had a quick party and then packed our bags. Unfortunately, our usual 3 hour trip turned into more than 5 hours on the road as were constantly needing to stop with Belle who surprised us with a stomach bug. The poor baby started getting sick about an hour into the trip and spent the next 12 hours crying in pain and emptying her stomach like clockwork almost every ten minutes. It was an awful ride home and the three of us spent the night awake lying all together on the living room floor.

Despite the less than perfect ending, we had such a wonderful time celebrating with our family and we cherish every chance we get to spend with each of them. We are grateful we are so blessed and we are eager to get out our Christmas decorations.