Ho! Ho! Ho!

Christmas has come and gone.  This was our third Christmas here in Texas and we had a great time!  Nate's parents came to visit and we all ran ourselves ragged.  Kenna was so excited to have them here.  We haven't gotten to see too much of them because we expatriated from Delaware.  We took them for some barbeque their first afternoon here and then we all went and enjoyed the beautiful weather by playing at the park.  Unfortunately that was just about the last of the warm weather during their trip but we managed to have fun.

 

We took a trip to the mall to see a train exhibit.  We managed to walk about 5 miles within the same square block of the mall due to poor planning on our part.  We walked back and forth and wore the kids out.  We got to see a Christmas puppet show, take a trip to build a bear, and finally made it to the train exhibit.  Kenna and Jenna also saw a Christmas performance and sat entranced, watching it for a good 20 minutes.  It was very cool.  They had miniature set ups of most of the major US cities and trains that ran around the whole room.

 

We also went to see an indoor ice exhibit.  It was freezing but very beautiful.  This year they featured the Nutcracker as part of their exhibit.  They had ice slides that we got to go down.  They also had New Year's Eve in New York City and a truly beautiful nativity scene to finish it off.  It was fun to see but my face was so numb by the time we left I couldn't talk as fast as I wanted to.  Apparently they have to keep the ice from melting so they keep the exhibit at 8 degrees.  Brrrrrr.

 

 

 

 

Kenna also got to go see the Nutcracker for the first time.  We dragged Grandma, Lixi and Jenna along to a smaller, local ballet company.  The performance was in a high school auditorium and very close to our house.  It was perfect!  She sat on my lap and asked questions for the ENTIRE time.  She is one inquisitive girl.   She told me her favorite dancers were the Jasmine dancers (the Arabian dancers).  She had a great time and it was fun to get to take her.

 

The girls all got to go get pedicures together.  It was Kenna's very first pedicure and she giggled the whole way through, especially when her feet were being scrubbed.  She is very ticklish.  I kept telling her to sit still so that she didn't mess up her nails and she told me ,"Mom it's really hard to relax."  She ended up with red and green toes decorated with Christmas trees and sparkle finger nails.  She was so excited that she was fancy.  On Christmas Eve she wanted to wear leggings instead of tights so everyone could see her toes.

 

Christmas Eve was fun.  Kenna was exhausted by that point.  We tried to go to Lixi's house to build gingerbread houses with Grandma and cousins but Kenna had a total meltdown when Bo "growled at me".  We brought some things home and Nate helped her make one here.  After she finished she told me, "Mom, I just want to be alone.  Can I have some Ipad time in my room?"  She did and seemed to be reset by the time dinner was ready. We had the missionaries over and Kenna couldn't quite understand why Caleb wasn't going to be there.  Dinner was good and after a quick read of the Nativity story everyone was ready for bed.

 

 

 

 gingerbread housing with daddy

 cousin presents

 

When Kenna woke up Christmas morning she told me ,"Mom! It's finally here!"  She flew through opening all her presents while Callie walked around eating a roll and picking up wrapping paper.  Callie was not even the least bit interested in her presents.  She has played with then since then but Christmas morning was all about the wrapping paper.

 

 

 

 Callie also chose a roll of toilet paper over her presents...

 

We went to Jarom and Lixi's for breakfast where there were more presents waiting.  Nate got an awesome backpack diaper bag that I use when he's not around (don't tell him).  I just stuff it full of snacks and water cups because that seems to be the one thing we always need.  Kenna also found out that we are going to Disneyland with all of our cousins!  I think it's Land.  Maybe it's World.  It's the one in Florida.  I'm also very excited because I have never been.  I plan to stand in all the lines with Kenna to see all the princesses.  She can't wait to see where they all live.

 

After Christmas everyone took a trip to the zoo.  Callie and I bowed out because she was exhausted and I couldn't stand for her to not have a nap again.  There was another trip to the bowling alley which I missed as well.  Nancy sent me lots of pictures and it looked like Kenna had a really great time.  She came home and told me all about it and asked when we were going to go again.  We sent grandma and grandpa off on Saturday morning with donuts at Lixi's house.  Now Kenna is counting down days to the disney trip.

 

 

 

Nate and I rang in the new year in style.  I worked.  We met up for a late dinner at Chiptole with the girls.  Very exciting.  After all the Christmas doing it was nice to have an evening at home.  We are now headed into 2014 with a list of home improvement projects.  Nate is building shelves for our bathroom and we have some painting plans.  Here's to another great year.

Callie is taking after Kenna and starting to wear necklaces.  She has two that are her favorite and this is one of them.  She can't always get them over hear head but that just makes it even cute.

Now I’m going to go back in time a few weeks.  At the beginning of December we had a massive ice storm.  People started freaking out the day before anything happened.  I couldn’t see what the big deal was but things started closing before the rain even started.  We went to bed Thursday night to some freezing rain and woke up to what we thought was snow on Friday morning.  Kenna was sooooooo excited to see snow and spent the next few days running in and out to play in it.

We all had a little surprise when we went out in the back yard and no one, not even Nate, sunk through the “snow.”  It turned out to be several inches of white ice.  It shut everything down for two days and we got to spend time at home in our sweat pants.  It was a wonderful  break from regular life and it felt really good to have so much family time.  

We did venture out when cabin fever started to set in.  We had to drive very slowly and walk even slower but it was so fun to spend that much time all together.  Nate even broke out a cardboard box and he and Kenna tried to sled down the little slope in the front yard.  Between that and ice skating down the sidewalk Kenna giggled for an entire 30 minutes straight.  She ended up wearing her cowboy boots outside since we have no equipment for snow/ice but they have absolutely no traction we would drag her up the hill on the sidewalk and she would literally slide the whole way down.  Even Callie like to play outside with us but couldn’t figure out why all her balls were frozen to the ground.  And as always there was swinging...