Christmas...Part 1

Our Christmas celebration started with both Tim and I's work parties, the week before Christmas. The only pic worth posting is the one below, taken at Lamar . When Santa came in, Carter was totally cool with him! Gave him a high five...followed him over to his chair. And then when I asked him if he wanted to sit on his lap - he gave me a very loud "No!" So he wouldn't sit directly on his lap - he would sit with me or with Tyler and Cody (Stephanie's sweet Grandsons).

On the 23rd, we drove to Houston to celebrate Christmas with the Pollard family. We had tons of fun...decorating cookies for Santa, taking a trip to see the Prestonwood Christmas lights (a neighborhood famous for their fantastic Christmas decorations), and of course we opened about a kazillion presents! (And yes, there is a picture of Pappy with Alex's helicopter box ON HIS HEAD! Silly Pappy!!) We had a wonderful visit!!



Sweet Grandma...so thankful for her gifts!

Ahhhh....the beautiful madness that is opening presents...

Smartie Pants!

Believe it or not, it is sometimes hard to get this little stinker to perform for the camera! I know, kind of shocking. Anyways, he has known his ABCs for several months now - but I couldn't ever get it on camera! He would start them - then get distracted and stop - again, shocking, I know. But we got a pretty good video of it the other day in the backyard (Although around "g" he gets distracted and asks if we are outside?! Lol!) He is definitely our little smartie pants - he also knows his colors & can count up to 15 (and has made it up to 19 a few times before! 19, I know, random!)

Carter...Future Dean Martin!

So I think with the 124,327 times we watched Elf this Christmas season, we have all been singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" quite a bit! Now Carter is doing the same...Hilarious!! ;)

Family Pictures...

My good friend Stephanie took these pictures of us, at the Frisco Heritage Museum a few weeks ago. It was FREEZING outside!! But we had such a good time. She is AMAZING!!!!! Obviously several of these pictures were on our Christmas card...but here are those, full size, and the rest of the pictures we took.

In the picture below, he was trying to put his foot up on the door behind him. It was so cute.

I think the picture below was one of my favorites of the whole day! Adorable.

Talk about a cheesy grin!

Everyone is asking about the picture below. Carter had chapstick in his hand - all day. And we were worried it was going to appear in every picture! So Tim took it from him, and put it in his pocket. So this is him trying to take it out! Haha!

Primrose Christmas Program...

Last night, Primrose had a Christmas program for their kiddos, 1 year and up. Oh my gosh...as you can only imagine, it was eventful! These poor little ones - they just stare out into this vast audience with these blank looks on their faces. Thinking, "Who in the world are all these people?!" So Carter is in the Early Pre-School 1 class. He and another little boy are the only ones who are not 2 yet, so he is one of the little ones :) In the video, the first minute is pretty uneventful. His sweet teachers are just trying to corral all the kids, keep them on stage, keep them from melting down, trying to get them to participate, etc. He is in the back, by the teacher in the blue, Ms. Stauber (they are all wearing red shirts - his says "I'm on the nice list, trust me"). I think he spent the first minute messing with the display of stockings ;) But he soon makes his way to the front. He is swaying / twisting to "Frosty the Snowman," getting a little excited at the part of the song where they yell "stop!" He then gets distracted, noticing a Christmas tree in the room, and then comes the "jumpity, jump, jump..." portion of the song. Oh my. Needless to say, one of his obsessions lately is jumping. So he got a little over-excited at this point of the song! But it was just ADORABLE!! He did such a good job. We were very proud :) What a fun memory!!

Christmas Cookie Fun!

DD and Pops came over Sunday evening to hang out, have dinner & decorate Christmas cookies! How fun!

Christmas is near!

We have our house decorated...Christmas lights are up everywhere around town...We've watched Elf...You know Christmas season is upon us! :)

Our Christmas tree before...and after.



These stockings are hand-made by Tim's Grandmother, Emma. Tim has had his since the year he was born!




Carter loves this Santa choo-choo train. But it is HIGH up on a shelf - so he can't get to it! ;)




Our new Santa tree topper.




Jake could care less that we are decorating...




And clearly Tyson is exhausted by it all...




Deerfield, a neighborhood just north of us, does an AWESOME display of Christmas lights every year! So we had to take a drive through the other night. I tried to take pictures of some of the highlights. Boy does Carter LOVE Christmas lights!!!!

The bowl in the below picture ended up out the window at some point...I guess it's smashed on the street somewhere in Plano! Haha!

Tim has put Christmas lights in our front yard too! Carter likes to sit at the window and look out at them. So sweet.

All the boys on the couch together, even Jake!