Christmas Break

Christmas break was pretty big this year.  Everyone came to town and we had a lot going on, especially driving back and forth from College Station to Austin several times.  Cannon broke his arm two days after Christmas, so that added a new dimension to things!

A few days before Christmas, Bev and the kids stayed at our house on their way to Austin.  It was so much fun to have them here and to have them all to myself for a couple days. 

Some time in December we went to see the lights at the park in College Station.  Lynn and Barbara and their family were there at the same time.  Cannon ended up playing chase with Travis and Jacob and some random kid that was there. 


 We had Christmas morning at our house with just the three of us.  Cannon got a new trampoline!

 

 

We were able to get everyone together at Yogurtland after family pictures. 



 

 

We crammed everyone into one house...8 adults, 7 kids, and 2 dogs!  Here's what a typical morning looked like: Robert doing his radio show from the living room, the little girls wanting to cuddle on the couch with the dogs, Cole and Cannon playing with Kate.  

 

 

Ryan and I took the four little kids to the children's museum in Austin called the Thinkery.  We split up and I took the girls and he took the boys. 

 

 

Grandma and Papa have a really cool park near their house.  There is a huge field, dirt mounds, a little forest, and lots of big rocks.  Cannon can spend hours there!  For the most part, the weather had been cold and rainy.  Once we finally got a warm day so I took the Cole and Cannon to go play.  They pretended that the dirt mounds were different planets in a solar system.  

 Back at our house, the kids got to enjoy some backyard play too!  Lyla wanted me to take lots of pictures of her.  She always makes me smile!

 

 

Just hanging out.  Lyla and I played Connect 4 and some other games.  Kate was content to be on the floor near everyone.  

 

 

Cole and Cannon spent the majority of their time building pod racers out of Legos and then racing them in the back yard.  

 

 

Back in Austin we celebrated our anniversary with Rick and Kristina.  Their anniversary is January 5th and ours is on the 7th.  It was their 10 year and our 9 year.  Rick surprised us with a limo complete with non-alcoholic champagne.  We ate dinner at Truluck's and then saw a movie at the iPic theatre.  I really needed to have a nice night out and this really filled my cup.