Holidays of 2013

Unfortunately, the holidays this year did not include any of our family. We were unable to travel due to work schedules which was a real bummer. However, we are lucky to have wonderful friends that are like family here in Austin.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Dustin, Caden, Carly and myself over at our friends Stacey & Alexis. Stacey absolutely loves hosting dinner parties so you can always count on having a nice, decorated, all out dinner experience when going to their house.

Later that weekend, we went and cut down our family Christmas tree! We found just the right tree to fit perfectly in our house. Caden was especially excited to be part of cutting down the tree. We are so lucky to have an awesome Christmas tree farm here in Central Tx when they don't actually grow naturally here. Although, they are still nothing compared to the beautiful trees in Colorado or Oregon!

Then one of the other great joys of the season! Baking Christmas cookies!! Just a quick picture I captured of Caden & Carly anxiously waiting for them to get done.

The weekend before Christmas, we were invited to another party over at Alexis & Stacey's. This time was an Ugly Sweater Party! We all had to come up with ugly sweaters and the winner received a prize. Much to my surprise with my lack of creativity, Dustin won the contest of the ugliest sweater! Check him out on the left along with the rest of our friends in their awesome Christmas garb. (Left to right - Dustin, myself, Carol with arms around Hendrix, Kelly holding Roscoe, Trey, Eric, Stacey, and Alexis)

Christmas Eve Dustin and I watched the all time classic It's a Wonderful Life. I had never seen it before and I was told it was a must see. I'm very glad we watched it and I think it might just become a Christmas tradition to watch every year! Christmas morning, we got up and had our coffee and just hung out enjoy each other's company before we picked up the kids at 2. This was not our year to have them on Christmas since we had them on Thanksgiving, so we were very blessed being able to spend the afternoon and evening with them until their mom picked them up the next morning. When the kids made it over, the immediately made it over by the tree and opened their stockings and presents to see what goodies they got this year!

Later in the day, Dustin deep fried his first turkey in the backyard. It's literally amazing how fast that thing cooks - 45 minutes and it was fully cooked! No more slaving away in the kitchen for hours on end to make the big dinner happen.

That now brings us to New Year's Eve. We rang in the new year with our neighbors Ryan & Heather for the second year in a row. We got to play games and just hang out and have a good time. 

2013 has been a year full of amazing blessings for our family. I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for us! 

God bless