2 days 'til Christmas...

Wow, I sure do have a lot of time now that I am off for our Winter Break! I don't know what I would do if I had this kind of time year round!! Well this year we are celebrating Christmas 4 times! We plan on making the trip to New Braunfels on Christmas Eve for family fun and food. We will return to Austin to go to Christmas Eve church, the kid's service, and wake up in our own house on Christmas morning. After we enjoy our own personal Christmas celebration we will head to Seguin for Christmas with the fam part 2. My parents will return from Granny's in Kansas on the 26th and Brandon and Lyndsey (brother and sister-in-law) will come down from OKC to spend some time with Lyla! We will have Christmas part 4 with them when they get here! Wow, busy holiday! We are also looking foward to a visit from Melissa and Valerie (cousins) on the 1st! Soon after that it will be time to go back to school and face the 2nd half of the year!

The pictures above are pics of us getting ready for the holiday! Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas past...

Here is a picture of Lyla last Christmas.... 3 1/2 months old. Here is a picture of Lyla this Christmas (15 1/2 months old)...wow! They grow so fast!

Ho ho ho!

Last weekend we went to the Ray's to see Santa!! Ms. Melanie was taking pictures of the kids as they "encounter" the old guy! What a hilarious thing to see! Most of the kids cried like someone was beating them! Here are a few pics of Lyla's encounter with Santa!

Santa is Coming to Town...

Last Saturday we got up early and went to church to go see Santa! We had planned on going to the Breakfast with Santa, but Lyla had a different plan. She spent the night with Nana and Papa the night before because Mommy and Daddy went to Daddy's office Christmas Fiesta downtown. Lyla woke her Nana up really early on Saturday so by the time TJ and I got their at 8:15am Lyla had already gone down for her morning nap. We had breakfast with Nana and Papa and waited for Lyla to wake up. After we got her ready we headed to church and proceeded to wait in line for over an hour to see Santa. I'll let you guess how that went!! Here are our photos of Lyla with Santa. We are going to do try #3 (try #1 with Ms. Laura went well) tomorrow at Ms. Kristin's.

The Twelve Outfits of Christmas...

At our house we love to buy clothes! Lyla has many cute Christmas outfits that she will be photographed in this month! Mommy is crazy! This picture is especially funny! Note the Longhorn Santa shirt and OSU sippy cup! We support our schools!

Lyla was sick over the Thanksgiving holiday so we don't have any pictures of her eating turkey...because she was too cranky to eat! She is better now and ready to decorate the house this weekend!

Lyla's first "Dede" haircut!

Lyla went to get her first haircut on Friday. Ms. Christie was getting her hair done so we barged in and got Lyla's haircut. She sat on my lap at first while Dede started cutting and then she got restless so I hade to hold her up. It didn't take too long before she started protesting so we had to sing her favorite songs to keep her distracted. Her new favorite song is the ABC's song. Daddy sings it to her while she's in the tub! She was such a good girl! When we got home we had a mini photo shoot to commemorate the day!

Happy Halloween!

Lyla had a wonderful evening of Trick-or-Treating and picture taking! After Lyla ate her dinner of chicken nuggets, peas, baked french fries and applesauce she got all dressed up in her costume. Can you guess what she was?!?! Yes, Pebbles Flintstone! She was a real cave baby in her bare feet until it got cooler outside. We went to Trick-or-Treat at Nana and Papa's house. We even stayed and played for awhile. Then we came home and put on her black pants, shoes and socks so that we could walk around the neighborhood. A couple of streets over two families had turned their front and back yard's into a cemetery. They had a haunted house set up in the back yard. It was really neat. We didn't go into the haunted house but we looked at all the decorations in the front yard. After our little neighborhood tour we came home, gave Lyla a bath and put her in her Halloween jammies before we put her to bed! She was exhausted!