Giddy Up, Giddy Up, Giddy Up, Let's Go!

Last weekend, we went on the carriage ride with Jay's parents, so last night, we went back with my family.

The weather had done a complete 180 since last weekend and instead of it being in the 30's, it was in the 60's/70's!

While waiting for the group ahead of us to return, we checked out the light display and ponies in the back.

Lights...

Truett dancing with Nannie Sarah...the lights blinked in sync with the Christmas music that was playing!

Emily trying on Frosty's magic hat...not quite so magical for her! :)

Sarah and Emily posing with the ponies

We weren't able to see this stuff last weekend because it was so cold, so it was like a new experience for us. :)

The carriages showed up and it was our turn to ride.

Because there were so many of us, we had to split up into 2 carriages. We decided that Mom and Dan would ride with Truett and John, Sarah, Emily, Jay, Emma and I would all ride together in the 2nd carriage.

It just so happened that the groups before us rode together, so both carriages were there at the same time, so we got to ride with each other, too. The only down side to that was that after about 10 minutes into the ride, Truett started yelling at us from his carriage, saying that he wanted to come and ride in OUR carriage! It was so cute to see him turn around and pop his little head out of the back and say, "I wanna ride in dat one whif YOU!"

If you look closely, you can see Truett's little head poking out of the back of the carriage

I guess, at one point, the carriage drivers no longer thought it was as cute as we did, because they decided to pull over and let Truett get in with us. John decided to hop out and go with Mom and Dan. After about 5 minutes of riding with us, Truett said, "I wanna go in dat one whif John." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? hahahah!

Christmas Comes but TWICE a Year!

After we opened gifts at our house yesterday morning, Jay and I loaded up the kids and headed over to my mom and dad's house for our second family Christmas get together.

When we got there, my mom had made breakfast for all of us...monkey bread, egg & sausage casserole and cheese grits...YUM!

After eating breakfast, we started opening gifts. My family goes about opening gifts a little differently than Jay's family. We all open our gifts at the same time, so it's a bit crazy, but so much fun. At any given moment, someone is cheering or crying because of a great gift they've received.

Truett and his Magic Color Activity Set from Uncle John

John and his LSU Christmas ornament from Mom

Emily checking out her new Tom Tom from Mom and Dan
Sarah and her pink coffee holder from Mom and Dan
Emma and her little lamb from Aunt Sarah

Danny trying to program his GIANT remote from Mom...hahahah!
It's always fun for us to see who can make my mom cry because of the gift they give. We all seemed to manage to do it this year! We decided to pull names among my brother and sisters and then to pool our money together and get a group gift for my mom and dad. Ever since I had Truett, I've always liked going to Art from the Heart (a little shop in Coppell that provides different pieces of ceramic plates, mugs, frames, etc...along with all the supplies you need to paint them. You paint the piece and they glaze and fire it for you) and painting something with Truett's handprint or footprint. They always come out so cute and make really great gifts for grandparents.

Anyway, I was going to do something there this year, but when we decided to do a group gift together, it got my wheels spinning. I was trying to think of something we could all do with our handprints or something. I came up with the idea to do a nativity scene. I talked to Emily, Sarah, John and Jay about it and we figured out the different characters. The plate came out so great. Mom and Dan were pleasantly surprised with their gift and we got at least a tear or two out of both of them!

The Nativity Scene

Truett's hand as the Angel

Emily's foot as Mary

John's foot as Joseph

Emma's foot as Baby Jesus
Jay's fist and knuckles as a camelMy fist and Sarah's fist as sheep
As we were passing out gifts to everyone, my dad came out of the bedroom with Truett's big gift...a Harley Davidson Big Wheel, complete with a radio and working blinkers! :)

Truett checking out his new gift...notice the Curious George bandaid still intact!

Truett hopped on and attempted to ride around the house for a while.

At one point, my dad took Truett outside to test out his new ride.

Of course, when Truett caught on to how excited we all were to see him ride it, he quickly changed his mind about how excited he was. Truett decided he didn't want to ride anymore once he saw I was trying to take a picture. Danny was trying to talk him into getting back on just to ride it back to the house.

From the looks of this picture, I think it's safe to say that the score is Truett - 1, Us - 0!

When we were finished opening gifts, we cleaned up all the wrapping paper, bows, styrofome peanuts, etc...,

visited...

relaxed...
and looked at all of the new stuff everyone had gotten.

Truett playing with his Diego Rescue Pack from Nannie Sarah and Sarah trying on Truett's Lightening McQueen hat from Papa

John had set up his Wii, so we thought we'd give it a try. We all took turns playing and really had so much fun. I NEVER thought I'd live to see a day when my parents would be playing video games. As you can see, I don't think it'll be the last time!

Mom showing her excitement after bowling a strike

We had a delicious Christmas dinner, after which we played games and hung out. Truett played in the box of LeeLa's costumes between snacking and playing games!MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

When Christmas Day Is Here...The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

Merry Christmas! Today was such a great day. Jay and I woke up this morning and Jay was feeling back to his old self again. He had set up the video camera the night before to get Truett's reaction when he first came into the room to see what Santa had brought. Of course, at 7:00, Truett was still sleeping...on the one morning we WANT him to be up early! :)

I stood outside of his bedroom door and rang jingle bells while Jay yelled from the living room (in his best Santa voice), "HO! HO! HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" After 3 unsuccessful attempts to wake Truett up 'Christmas style', we finally went into his room and woke him.

He came out into the living room and went straight over to his gifts. It was funny because he saw his gifts and then ran over to see if Santa had eaten the cookies we had left out for him. He almost seemed bummed out that Santa had not left any cookies for Truett! :)

He started opening gifts and each gift he opened, he'd ask us to take it out of the package/box. He wanted to play with everything and look at everything. He even wanted to watch the movies he had gotten. I guess it was a good sign that he liked everything, but it made for a long morning of unwrapping gifts! :)

He got his very own digital camera. It's really great to see the pictures he takes, too! Here he is taking my picture.

Of course, Christmas just wouldn't have been the same without some Thomas the Train trains and tracks.



Jay gave him a football...gotta start 'em young here in Texas! :)

If you closely in this picture, you'll notice the blue Curious George bandaid on his face. This was from the box of bandaids he got in his stocking. Joy (my parents' dog) scratched Truett the night before so Truett was happy to stick one of his new bandaids on his face...too bad it wasn't covering one bit of the scratch!

Emma just kicked back and relaxed while Truett opened his gifts. I guess it was good that Truett had slept in because I was able to feed Emma before he woke up. This meant that she was happy and content and I was able to enjoy Truett opening his presents.

I guess all the excitement was too much for her!

My poor baby Nugs...What a different world he's living in now! :) He got pig ears and a chew toy for Christmas and he seemed perfectly happy to go off in a corner FAR AWAY from Truett!

We had a very low-key and relaxed morning at our house. Jay and I loved waking up with (or before) our kids and being at our own house Christmas morning. We love being able to share that time together as a family. I hope you and your families enjoyed that time together, too!

Merry Christmas!