Christmas Season 2011 has begun!

The Christmas season is here & decorating has begun...

Each year, the girls each get at least 2 new ornaments. 1 ornament is a specific theme for each of them. They also get an ornament that represents their year or them at this stage of their life.

Gracie's theme is stocking shaped ornaments. Her ornament to represent her year this year is a pair of "Ugg" boots!

Katie's theme ornament is gingerbread ornaments. Her ornament to represent her year this year is a robot...because of her Halloween costume!

Ellie's theme ornament is bells because we sometimes call her "Ellie Belles." Her ornaments to represent her year is a big Hello Kitty because she loves "Hollow Kittycat!"

Today, she & I went to 'Cocoa & Crafts' at church. Cute crafts & lots of fun with friends.

Trying to get these 2 to be still for a picture is quite the task!

Making her glitter snowflake...

Handprint Santa...

Candy Cane reindeer...

cutting the pieces to a memory game...

Such fun for my sweet 3 year old! After this, we went to Katie's school to read to her class. We read "Moosletoe," "Santa's Stuck," and "Snowmen at Christmas." We also took a trip to the Book Fair!

Tomorrow is Breakfast with Santa at school....

Thanksgiving 2011

We went to New Mexico for Thanksgiving, and the girls were very excited!

They hung out with their grandparents...

They colored with cousins...

Enjoyed the weather & scenery...

played with cousins...

Ellie played with Nana, her 90 year old great-grandmother...

We visited with Chris' grandparents, both 90 years old & married almost 70 years.

They enjoyed talking to the great-grandchildren...

Katie showed off her baseball cards...

Cullen liked having Gracie read to him...

and he liked jumping on Katie...

They looked for snow...

and were excited to see some! Not much, but some!

We saw a rainbow...

Gracie comforted Katie when she was sad...

They about froze since they're not used to it being so cold..

We saw snow on the ground when leaving...

a favorite steak house in Tatum, NM (ate there on the way)

endured dust storms, lots of wind, and really cold temperatures on the way through West Texas...

ate lunch & ice cream in Brownfield (appropriately named) even though the wind was blowing sooooo hard and the wind chill was in the 30's...

stayed in Abilene on the way home and thoroughly enjoyed eating at Joe Allen's! :)

Friends visit!

Melissa & Mary Beth came to visit last month..yea! It was a whirlwind trip, as usual, but fun too...as usual! I am blessed they continue to still want to come visit!

Cindy & I picked them up at the airport and we headed to Nutcracker Market, a huge Christmas craft type show. We then ate at Maggiano's Little Italy...yum!

The girls were so happy to see M & MB!

We took lots of pictures of course!

We ate breakfast here at home Saturday morning and took our time getting ready. We then headed out for pedicures and some shopping. We ate dinner here that evening.

Sunday, we went to church and then headed to Cindy's house for lunch and more shopping before heading back to church that night.

Monday, we ate lunch & shopped at Brookwood, a neat community outside of Houston. That afternoon, I did the usual mom stuff of picking up girls from school and violin lessons, before fixing dinner that evening. We then headed out to a movie.

Tuesday morning, we had time for a Starbucks visit before taking them back to the airport. :( It was a fun time together again. Another one for our memory bank! :)