Teeter Totter

Some backyard fun from late December.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Morning

Here are a few of my favorite snapshots from Christmas morning.  Definitely the highlight memory from Christmas morning 2011 was Santa's footprints... When Santa came down the chimney on Christmas Eve, he forgot to wipe off his boots. He tracked snow into the living room!  The kids loved it.  Lily found a Dora the Explorer ornament in her stocking, and Dylan got a Toy Story ornament.  Santa brought Dylan a semi truck hauler for his hot wheels cars, and Lily received a Cinderella doll.
 

 

 

 

Cake Balls

We made red velvet cake balls to share with some friends for Christmas.  Red velvet cake mixed with icing, rolled into balls, and dipped in melted candy coating.  Yum.  Tedious and messy, but oh so good.  Dylan doesn't like to get his hands sticky.
 

 

 

Sugar Cookies for Christmas

It wouldn't be Christmas time without sugar cookies!  As always, the kids helped me make them, and this year Lily was able to do more of the decorating by herself.  Dylan was funny, always holding the cookies upside down when he ate them.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie & Dusty

A quick picture when we were out for date night at Rainforest Cafe.

Dylan and Daddy

 

 

 

 

Silly Lily

This was Lily's idea of getting dressed for the day: A t-shirt on top of her nightgown.  Silly Lily.
 

Dylan Reading a Book

Dylan loves Eric Carle's new book, The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse.  I think we may be the only people who've checked it out from the library because every time we return it, we pick it out the next time we go back!  Of course, there are probably several copies.  Enjoy the video!

Christmas Kisses

Dylan spent lots of time playing around the Christmas tree this year, as we expected - after all, he's two years old, and the Christmas tree is VERY interesting!  On this particular day, I found him giving kisses to the bears on one of our ornaments.  He's such a sweet boy.
 

 

 

 

 

Yucky Gray Snow

When we were in Iowa, Lily had a chance to sled down a little hill that had about half an inch of snow covering it.  We didn't really think it was all that much fun as far as sledding goes, but our sweet little Texans don't know any better, so Lily thought the snow across the street from Grandma Mary's house was just about the greatest thing ever.  Well, when we got back to Houston, I found out that the zoo was going to bring in a big truckload of snow for a morning for the kids to play in.  So of course I thought it would be fun to take the kids to play.  Well, I was wrong.  It wasn't really very fun because apparently whenever there is snow (even fake!) in our city, people come in droves to see it.  So do you see that yucky gray slush under Lily's feet?  That's about all the snow they really got to play with.  The entire pile of snow was trampled down with people, with no room at all to even walk around. We'll hold off for another fun play-in-the-snow experience sometime in Iowa!  Lily enjoyed seeing the snow at the zoo, but Dylan didn't see the point.  He had much more fun visiting the animals.

 

 

 

A December Trip to Iowa

We made an unexpected trip to Iowa in December when both Grandpa Caquelin and Uncle Melvin passed away.  It was a sad reason for a visit, but we were happy to be able to see family, especially since it was almost Christmastime.

While visiting at Grandma Sue and Grandpa Daryl's house, we made Nutter Butter Snowmen by dipping Nutter Butter cookies into melted white almond bark and then decorating them with things like sprinkles and chocolate chips.