Fishing at Lake Fayette

Lily is quite the fisherman.  She almost always catches a fish, even when everyone else is getting skunked.  She's like her Uncle Mike like that.  In the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, we spent a day at Lake Fayette with the Turners.  Lily's lucky fishing pole brought in the best fish - or rather, the ONLY fish!  David helped her set the hook and bring it in on shore.  Lily was quite proud of her catch, and she was sad to put it back in the water.  Dylan wanted in on the action too, so he picked up Big Sister's pole.  I suppose it won't be long before he'll need one of his own.  We spent the night at the lake in Mr. and Mrs. Turner's camper and came home the next day.

Christmas Evening

After Dylan had a nap on Christmas day, we went over to David's house to celebrate.  The kids played with their new toys, and Daddy and David took Lily to try out her new Fishin' Buddy boat.  Unfortunately she managed to fall into the lake on their little fishing trip, but the water was shallow and she was fine.  She had fun with the boat.  There were a few very serious games on Hungry Hungry Hippos, and we had a delicious turkey dinner.  We had a great time celebrating with Mr. and Mrs. Turner, David, and Charlene!

Christmas Morning

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Lily came to Mommy and Daddy's room at 5:45 on Christmas morning! She had been dreaming of Santa during the night, and she said he had come into her bedroom to see if she was sleeping, but she wasn't sleeping, so he didn't leave any presents! Hahaha! Poor girl really thought Santa had flown his sleigh away from our house because she didn't go right to sleep at bedtime on Christmas Eve. She really took it to heart when we told her Santa wouldn't come if she was still awake! So she was obviously upset when she was explaining all this to us early on Christmas morning... The funniest part of all was that in order to get to our bedroom, she had to come downstairs and walk right through the living room where all the stockings were stuffed and Santa had left presents!!! She was clearly still a little drowsy when she came to our room, so we told her to go back out to the living room and see if Santa left any presents. She went to look and came back shortly, still saying that he hadn't left anything! After a few more hugs and slowly waking up a little more, we sent her back out there to look again, and THEN she noticed what Santa had left for us! It was so funny!

Dylan was not awake yet, so we decided to let Lily open her stocking. She found some fun things like a princess projector flashlight (the picture below is of Lily having the crown image from the flashlight shown above her head, but the flash from the camera made it so you can't see the crown shadow. Pretty cute though!) and hair clippies, Silly Bandz, a toothbrush, and even some new ice packs for her lunch bag for school. There was also a princess cell phone toy that had a hidden compartment of lip gloss! Santa chose a gingerbread house ornament for Lily this year because she loves to look at homes decorated with Christmas lights to make the houses look like gingerbread houses, and also because she had so much fun decorating her own gingerbread house with Daddy. Lily enjoyed opening each little thing inside the stocking, taking her time playing with everything. When she was finished opening them, we ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Dylan woke up.  When he opened his stocking he found his Little Drummer Boy ornament and some matchbox cars.

Dylan was a little groggy first thing in the morning too! Next Dylan and Lily opened their smaller wrapped gifts from Santa; they each received a new movie! Dylan got the Fox and the Hound, and Lily got Beauty and the Beast (which is precisely what she had asked Santa for - "a Belle movie.")

The  kids helped Daddy open a gift from Santa.

Dylan absolutely loves Rexie!  When Rexie roars, Dylan roars right back at him, with an equally meek little roar.  It's very cute.

After opening some of the presents from each other and from family, it was time to open the larger presents from Santa!

He brought Lily a set of golf clubs! Lily has been asking for awhile to go golfing with Daddy.

And Santa brought Dylan a basketball hoop!

Mommy and Daddy gave Lily some ballerina clothes for her new dance class that she'll be starting in January, so she decided to show us how to do ballet.

And Daddy and Mommy gave Dylan an Andre Johnson Texans t-shirt! We thought he would like that, since he knows how to say "football."

We had a Christmas morning scavenger hunt!  Here is Lily with her first clue, which led her to the train table.

The clue she found on the train table led her to her "Uncle Mike Book" (the princess storybook that Uncle Mike gave her when we visited him in Mississippi).

And the third clue led Lily to the bathtub, where she found the telescope she received from her cousin Ashlie!

Dylan also had a very quick scavenger hunt, where we asked him to show us where his shoes are.  His present was in the same drawer as his shoes, inside the bench by the door.  He didn't really catch on to the excitement on finding a present in a hidden spot, but it was fun for Lily to see that Dylan got to have a scavenger hunt too.  After the kids found their presents, Daddy had a quick scavenger hunt to find his last present too - a new golf club!  So he and Lily are all set for a date on the golf course as soon as it's warm enough.  After the scavenger hunts, we had leftover ham balls and green bean casserole for lunch... Dylan was so tuckered out, he fell asleep at his tray!

Gingerbread Cookies

This is the first (and most likely only) time I've ever made gingerbread cookies. It turns out that we don't like the smell of molasses. And three out of four of us don't really even like the finished gingerbread cookies, either. Of course Dylan will eat almost anything, so he loved the gingerbread men! I don't know why I don't have a picture of the finished cookies, but they turned out really cute. They were large, thick cookies, and we frosted the whole cookie with white icing and used m&m's for buttons. We just didn't like eating them. hahaha!

I feel like a bit of an unfair mommy when I look at these pictures, though... This is as close as Dylan got to helping with Christmas cookies this year. When Lily was this size, she was right in the thick of it, sitting on the countertop covered in flour from head to toe and loving every second. I just don't know how in the world I could have managed it with Dylan this year... Lily still needs close supervision when she's helping, so I can't help her and have Dylan on the countertop at the same time. And I certainly can't have Dylan helping but not allow Lily to help, she would be heartbroken. So Dylan missed out. I don't think he minds, but I'm a little sad about it.

Bubble Gum Playland

Reindeer Cupcakes

The Morrows, Swans, and Cornings celebrated Christmas on December 23rd this year!  We had chili for dinner, and then Dusty and Benjamin played a board game and the moms helped the kids with their Reindeer Cupcakes.  We missed David and Trinity, who stayed home because Trinity was sick.  Each kid decorated one cupcake to look like a reindeer, and I found out later from Dusty that he and Benjamin were waiting for more reindeer to appear so they could have some cupcakes too -- I don't know why they didn't jump in and decorate their own!  After their reindeer dessert, the kids opened the presents they had gotten for each other.