christmas break

This year, Nay Nay and Papa came to spend Christmas break with us!  We were all excited to spend some quality time together. They arrived Friday afternoon, and within minutes of being in our home, Mom presented the kids with a new stack of books.  Brooke and Colby love to have people read books to them, so it was perfect :)

Saturday morning we did haircuts, and Kevin even got in on the action.  I have been cutting Colby's hair since he was 18 months old, but I only recently started cutting Kevin's hair in an effort to save money.  Men's haircuts are expensive! I guess my Dad figured that I was qualified to give him a haircut as well, haha, but I still needed coaching from Kevin.  I didn't trust myself to scissor-cut the top, so that's where Kevin came in.  It turned out great, so we were pretty proud of ourselves :)

We then piled into the car to go see Mary Poppins Returns, but the Armada wouldn't start.  Turns out the starter went out, but on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas, there isn't much to be done.  We basically were stuck at home because we all couldn't fit in the Honda.  We totally switched plans and took the kids to the park instead.  It was a beautiful day to spend some time outside and I adore these pictures we got as we slid down with the kids.

Papa convinced Colby that if he tapped on his handlebars three times, his tricycle could fly.  I was a little nervous when he picked him up, but Colby thought it was the greatest thing.  I stayed close, just in case :)  When Papa put Colby down, Colb tapped on his handlebars again for another ride. I don't think Papa knew that it was going to be such a hit, haha.

When we were done at the park, we headed back to the garage to help Kevin with a project.  He bought some dumbbells from a guy on Craigslist, but they were all rusty.  We tried to get all the rust off a week earlier, then soaked them in a vinegar/water bath as suggested on youtube. Well, the vinegar made all the old paint start peeling up, so then Kevin had to scrape all the old paint off as well.  This project became more involved than he originally envisioned, but the final product looks great!  He sprayed a Rustoleum paint over the weights, and I painted the numbers on each of the 10 weights.

The next day was Sunday, and since we couldn't all fit in the same car, we had to enlist our neighbor Charlie for help :)  Thankfully, he belongs to our ward so he was already going to church.  And since we were all heading to the parking lot together, I asked him to take our family picture.  You gotta take advantage of opportunities like that, right??

We still took a few pictures when we got home :)

That night, as I was looking through my pictures, I noticed that Colby's hand was placed right on my boob in every single picture, haha.  I hadn't even noticed because he was just resting his hand there, but I was literally cracking up as I swiped through all the pictures my Mom took. I still love it thought because it's our family Christmas photo.

After we went in the house, Mom mentioned that she didn't get a picture with me, so we went back to the porch for a selfie.

After a delicious pot roast for dinner, Nay Nay helped the kids make sugar cookies to be ready for Christmas Eve decorating. She was so patient, especially with Colby who wanted to help with everything, but didn't want anybody's help doing each task.  This whole business of skipping naps has been interesting :/

That evening, Jerry and Bev came over as well to bring us their Tahoe.  When they found out that our car was stuck in the garage, they wanted to help us out.  We were so grateful because we didn't want to miss out on the fun plans we had for Christmas Eve!

This was our third annual Christmas Eve bowling adventure, and since the kids are getting more independent, it's getting even more fun.

This picture of Colby is pretty classic, haha.  Him and Brooke used the alligator ramp for almost every turn, but occasionally Colby wanted to throw the ball himself, and laid down on the floor to watch it roll down the lane.

After bowling, everyone came back to our house for some brisket that Dad and Kevin had smoked the day before.  That was a fun project for them, and it was cute to watch them throughout the process.  The meat was delicious, and it was fun to put the leaves into our dining room table for everyone to sit together.

It was fun to have both sets of grandparents together, and I'm grateful that it's not weird when we all get together.  I should have taken a picture of them all with the kids, but I did get one with Jerry and Bev and the grandkids.

After dinner, we opened gifts and decorated sugar cookies.

Colby is such a sugar head.  He decorated and ate one cookie, then immediately wanted another one.  I told him that he could decorate a sugar cone (to look like a Christmas tree), because I didn't think he would want to eat it.  Well, he did.  I finally gave it, but told him that was it!  I let him decorate another cookie for Santa, and when he wanted to use the icing writer,  I helped him write a C on the cookie.

A few minutes later, in all seriousness, Colby said, "I guess I want to eat this cookie.  It has a C on it for Colby, not for Santa."  We were all cracking up, but his logic was sound!  I threw all caution to the wind and let the kid eat the cookie.  It was Christmas Eve, after all :)

Brooke was very meticulous about her decorating, and I loved watching her face throughout the process. 

After they were sugared up, we sent them to the trampoline to burn off some energy. My kids love playing "Dead Man, Dead Man, Come Alive", and they introduced the game to Kinley and Aubrey.  I  stayed outside with them and loved listening to their happy squeals.  That trampoline has been so fun to have in our backyard!

When the kids were tired from jumping, they came inside to play with their toys.  The Peacocks were getting ready to leave when I remembered that we hadn't done the chimes yet!  They said they could stay, so we busted out the chimes and started playing Christmas songs.  The first few songs were rusty, but the kids caught on quickly and we had such a fun time doing it!  I was happy when Melanie sent this picture to me because I have so many happy memories associated with the chimes.

Growing up, we didn't live near any extended family.  Our friends became our family, and we always went bowling with them on Christmas Eve (which is why I started that tradition a few year years ago with cousins), acted out the Nativity, and played the chimes.  When Aunt Lori threw me a bridal shower, the theme was "traditions", and Sister Tilley (one of our childhood friends) gifted me a set of chimes.  I have used them over the last 6 years during our Young Women Christmas party, but this was the first time I used them with family.  Since everyone enjoyed it, this may be part of our Christmas Eve tradition as well.

Then came the moment my Dad was waiting for!  Pictures with Santa, or Papa Noel as I joked. I prefer him clean-shaven, but he did look pretty cute for Christmas Eve with his grandkids.

Mom and Dad were cute in their matching pajamas :)

Colby wanted to try on the Santa hat, and his smile couldn't have been any bigger.  He kept trying to say, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas" in a deep voice like Papa.

These two are too much!

Can you tell that the kids were excited about Santa coming to our house??  We set out his plate of treats, a glass of milk (with a straw, courtesy of Brooke), and some peas for the reindeer.  I hadn't realized that we used all of our carrots, haha.

After all the Santa business, we read a beautiful children's story entitled, "God Bless Your Way." It tells of a man who followed behind Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem.  They showed the man such kindness, and in the end, he was there for the birth of the Savior.  Of course I got choked up at the end, but I felt the Spirit so strongly and felt such gratitude for the birth of our Savior.  (I was also more emotional this Christmas thinking about how we should have been preparing for the birth of our baby.  My due date was January 6th, so I had moments of sadness throughout this holiday season. But I also felt so grateful for the beautiful family that I have. )

After the kids were in bed, it was time to set out the stockings!  Santa was very generous this year...

Colby woke up before Brooke on Christmas morning, but Brooke woke up shortly after. They were both eager to go see if Santa came to our house, but first they had to wait for Daddy to take a quick shower. When it was finally time to enter the living room, the kids went straight to their stockings.  Brooke was also interested in reading the note from our elf, Claudia.

Once Colby climbed on his bike, he rode straight towards the Christmas tree, haha.

The kids were adorable through the whole process, and after every gift, Brooke ran straight towards the gift giver and gave them a huge hug.  I was so glad that she showed such gratitude, and Colby followed in her footsteps.

Brooke was so excited to give Colby this bug vacuum, and she wanted him to open it last "since it was the most special".  He was totally excited about it, and it was cute watching them together. 

The afternoon was full of playtime, naps (Kevin and Dad), and yummy food.

Colby rode his bike all over the house, all while wearing his new Cowboys helmet from Grandma and Papa Meador.

My kids were spoiled yet again, and I swear I only bought them 2-3 things each.  They each got something big(ish) from Santa, something from each other, and then the rest is from family.  Brooke's stash...

Colby's stash...

We celebrated Kevin's 37th birthday the day after Christmas and he is officially a self-proclaimed dinosaur, haha.  Every time we talked about his birthday or aging, he kept telling me that he felt like a dinosaur.  He doesn't seem much older to me, which is why the whole idea made me really laugh every time he brought it up. We all love and adore this guy...

The next few days were spent at the park, jumping on the trampoline, shopping with my Mom, and playing at home.  The three favorite games were Duck, Duck, Goose, Hide and Seek, and Mr. Fox. Watching my Dad play Duck, Duck, Goose in the loft with us was so, so funny and I nearly peed my pants several times as he ran around the couch trying to catch my kids.  SO many fun memories :)  Hide and Seek was probably my favorite, and Kevin played with us in the evenings as well.  We limited it to either upstairs or downstairs, but found plenty of great places to hide.

Kevin won for best spot when he crammed himself on the side of Colby's bed with the blanket over him.  The only problem was that he couldn't get up once we found him.  I am smiling as I type this because he was literally stuck, but I was laughing so hard I was useless to help him get out.

We had one more round of Sunday pictures on Dad's birthday, and we even recreated a picture we took two years ago with the kids. They adore my parents, and my parents have told me several times how much they loved their time with my kids.

My Mom came to Young Women's with me, and although I loved having her there while I taught all the girls, I was sad that my lesson didn't go better.  On the drive home, she told me how wonderful I was and how lucky those girls were to have me.  I really know it wasn't my best lesson, but it's nice to know that somebody thinks I'm wonderful and I appreciate that my Mom is always building me up with encouraging words and that she genuinely thinks the best of me.  I hope my kids always feel that  I do the same thing for them.

I love these two with all my heart and feel so much gratitude for the love they have shown me and for the MANY lessons they have taught me throughout my life.

It's been a great Christmas break!!

christmas cuties

So many of the daily memories I am reserving for the chatbooks, but these pictures deserved a post on their own.  Christmas is such a fun time of year, and it really is more fun with kids. One morning, I was shopping at Target with Colby.  We found this Santa phone that had multiple pre-recorded messages about being on the naughty or nice list, or about sending your list to the North Pole.  Colby listened to all the messages, then kept trying to talk back to the phone, saying things like, "I'm on the nice list."  It was hysterical and adorable all at the same time. 

One of the first weeks of December,  Brooke wanted to wear her old Christmas dress.  It still fit, so I was okay with it.  She loved the sequins and the tulle, and was excited to wear my locket. She even requested that I curl her hair.  My babies looked precious together.

After church, Brooke wanted a picture with her "husband", as she calls our snowman, haha.

Sunday pics for everyone...

These two are adorable.  Brooke always wants Kevin to hold her for pictures, and she presses her little face right up against his.

That evening, I made a collage of Brooke in this red dress.  I couldn't believe that she's been able to wear the same dress for 3 years now!  She's getting to the stage where she isn't growing quite as quickly, which is good for the clothing budget. I was sad that she outgrew the shoes, though!

The dress really came in handy for the Grinch day at school :)  I originally thought she had nothing to wear for Grinch day, but when I saw pictures about dressing as a "Who down in Whoville", I knew we could come up with something.  The red dress was perfect, paired with her strawberry shortcake tights, a turtleneck I bought her for a dance thing, and a party hat underneath her hair.  She looked adorable, and she thought it was totally hilarious.

When we arrived at school, she started commenting that nobody else was dressed up.  As we walked towards the school, she started snuggling up next to me and I could tell that she was nervous and/or embarrassed. She asked me if I had time to walk her in to class, and I told her I definitely did. (To clarify, I always have time to walk her in, but if we're running late to school, I don't have time to check in through the office or else she would be late to class.)  As soon as we arrived at her classroom, Mrs. Hickerson told Brooke how amazing she looked.  Once Brooke walked inside her classroom, she saw her friend Riley with the same hairstyle.  I could tell that Brooke felt more comfortable knowing that she wasn't the only one with crazy hair, and that made me feel better :)  I want her to feel confident in herself, but I also know how awkward it can feel to draw so much attention to yourself.  But i'm glad she rocked it and had fun with the dress-up day.  My crazy little Who :)

The amazing part is that her hair stayed in place for the entire school day!  That simply goes to show that I used a LOT of hairspray .

family date

After filling our kindness jar again, it was time to plan our family date. The kids wanted to go ice skating, which is what we did last time as well, haha.  The day of our outing turned into kind of a mess.  We were supposed to get the boat out of the lake in the morning, but due to miscommunications, we ended up waiting around for hours, and the kids were fighting so much.  I threatened to cancel our family date probably 10 times and just the thought of doing something special to celebrate their kindness seemed ridiculous.  Kevin has been the voice of reason lately, and he mentioned to me that the whole day was a bit of a mess, and that we needed to just get out of the house and on with our day.

The ice skating rink is located inside the Parks Mall, which meant that it was crazy busy due to Christmas shoppers.  I really didn't think the rink would be busy, but I was definitely wrong. We waited almost 45 minutes to pay and get our skates.  Last time we only skated 20 minutes, so it seemed like a lot of effort for such a small time on the ice!  But the kids were totally into it and we skated for about an hour and a half.  Just look at those happy faces...

Colby looks like he's about to fall, but he was just being a goof.

The silly boy wanted his skates highlighted in every picture, haha.

Kevin and I took turns skating with the kids, and they both did much better than last time.  Brooke even wanted to skate on her own at the very end.  Of course Colby wanted to follow suit and promptly slipped, felt backward, and hit his head on the ice. Thankfully, we were about to get off the ice so I could calm him down without loads of spectators.

To complete the date, we ate in the food court and rode the carousel.  We all really enjoyed the family time, and it was so refreshing to get out of the house and do something fun.  I love being home, but I also know that getting out of the house is good for my sanity.  The change of scenery does everyone good :)

We are holding off on the kindness jar for the rest of December since we are working on filling the manger with straw to prepare for the birth of baby Jesus. Each kind deed means one more straw in the manger.  This is a tradition we did in my family growing up, and it's definitely a favorite as it helps focus on the true meaning of Christmas and showing love for your family.

teaching service

Since my kids love raking (and playing in) the leaves, it only made sense to rake our neighbor's leaves for the Worldwide Day of Service the church hosted.  We have befriended an older couple that lives 2 doors down (Linda and Butch), and Butch has had a lot of health issues lately.  He is recovering from cancer, but he also had a hip replacement in October. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to teach Brooke and Colby about the importance of service.

So, despite my hurt back (see previous post's sidenote), we decided to rake the leaves when we got home from visiting Santa.  We walked down to their home and rang the doorbell.  I wanted to first check in with them and make sure it was okay for us to rake the leaves.  They didn't answer, so I made the executive decision that it was fine.  As we were about to get started, their teenage grandson (who also lives down the street) walked past.  He informed us that his grandpa was in the hospital for a potential stroke, so I was really glad that we were doing this service for them.  

Everything started out well, but Colby quickly pooped out. In his defense, it took a lot longer than I thought it would because there were so many leaves!

About an hour in, I could see the end in sight, but my back was killing me and the kids were starting to fight about who was messing up whose pile.  My patience was wearing thin, and I was getting frustrated with my kids.  Then I was frustrated with myself that I was feeling such negative thoughts when we were supposed to be having an amazing experience serving our neighbor.  I tried to snap out of it and told my kids that we could hurry and finish, then head home for the Sparkling Martinelli juice they've been begging me for. It worked to give them a little boost, and they seemed pretty pleased with their efforts as we stacked all the bags together for a picture.

In total, I think we spent almost an hour and a half at their house, then dragged everything back to our house. When Brooke saw our other neighbor's house, she wanted to go rake their leaves as well.  I was not feeling it, but how could I deny her an opportunity to serve when she was so excited about it?

Well, turns out I really should have told her that we'd do it a different day, because it was a bit of a disaster.  These neighbors are capable of raking their own leaves, and have probably the biggest trees in our neighborhood.  Big trees equal a million leaves, and their leaves were covering their entire driveway as well.  We started getting all the leaves off the driveway and onto the lawn just to make the bagging easier, then moved onto the side yard.  By this point, the kids just wanted to go home, but how could we leave when we hadn't really made much visible progress?  (This is why we shouldn't have started in the first place!). I made the kids stay and help me at least bag up all the leaves on the side yard, and then I texted the neighbors that we would finish another day that week.  They responded with gratitude that we did any of the work, and let me know that they hired a guy to come get all the leaves the next week.  At least we were off the hook for that house, haha!

I went home very frustrated, but as soon as I rested in the house I was able to see the great lesson my kids learned and was grateful for the experience.  Next time, I just need to set limits so that I can be more reasonable in my expectations for the kids.

A few days later, Linda came down to thank us for raking the leaves and asked if I knew that Butch had been in the hospital.  I told her that we knew once her grandson told us, but that we had planned to rake their leaves for the day of service.  She commented that God really knew that they needed the help, and that they were so grateful for our family.  It was all worth it, haha :)

I need to be better at serving with my kids and teaching them how important it is to minister to others! That's definitely something I want to work on in the New Year.

bass pro santa

On December 1st, I took the kids to Grapevine to see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop.  We waited in line for 30 minutes before the store opened at 10, but it secured us a spot to wait in the 10:30 Santa line. We checked out all the taxidermied animals, warmed up by the massive fire, wrote letters to Santa, and checked out the 4-wheelers in true Texas fashion. 

(My favorite picture of Brooke.)

When it was finally time to meet the big guy, Brooke took Colby's hand and they headed down the red carpet. These are the kind of moments that I adore.  My kids can pester each other to no end, but they also have the sweetest love for each other. Brooke takes her big sister role very seriously, and she is so attentive and protective of her little bother.

When Colby was acting shy, Brooke quickly put her arm around him.  They are too cute, and I'm glad they have each other.

After telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas, it was time for their picture.  They both gave beautiful smiles, received their candy canes, and moved on to the activities. 

The whole idea of shooting a cross bow and a rifle after seeing Santa is pretty hilarious, but they were excited to do ALL the activities.

We couldn't leave without taking a picture with the giant bear, either.  Their expressions are the best.

As we left, I saw a sign that kids ate free at the restaurant, so we headed over for some lunch.  Since Kevin was still in Utah at the funeral, we made the most of our special outing together. (Side note: As I stood up to leave the restaurant, I could hardly stand up straight because of shooting pains up and down my back.  I had tweaked it somehow the week prior carrying boxes of decorations upstairs, but it was progressively getting worse!  I could barely hobble to the car, but thankfully we made it home safely.)