Christmas Day

There was a very joyful two-year-old boy in our house today! Here are some of the photos...


This is Shake 'N' Go Lightning McQueen number 3 for Micah, and it's still one of his favorites.

Cars, Cars, and more Cars.

...And the much anticipated 4-wheeler riding outside

There's the Honeycutt tongue. It always pops out during extreme concentration.

My happy little man on his shiny new ride.

Merry Christmas!

Rockin' Around the Christmas TreeS

If you have followed my blog for a while now, you would know that our last Christmas was spent buying a house, selling a house, packing, and moving 800 miles to the great state of Texas. There was little time and effort put into decorating. So, in honor of a missed season, I put up and decorated 3 Christmas trees. Well, five trees if you count the two 4' trees just outside of the front door. The tree upstairs is decorated in all of our typical decorations in silver, white, and clear letting the presents and wrapping paper add a bit of flare in red and green. By the way, this is also the tree that will be retiring this year. Tom accidentally broke the plastic stand this year and it leans a little to the left now.

Our downstairs tree is a tall, skinny little thing that fits perfectly next to the fireplace. It is decorated in red and green and also holds our family hand made ornaments and a few other personalized ornaments too.

Yes, Santa has already made a pit stop at our house and I'm thankful he came early. Relaxing on the couch watching a movie sippin' on some Bailey's and hot chocolate is the way we like to spend Christmas eve.

[I CAN NOT wait to see the look on Micah's face when he sees his 4-wheeler! He's OBSESSED with cars, trucks and any other mode of transportation. It should be a fun Christmas morning!]

Our third tree is actually on the landing above the front door, and I seemed to have forgotten to take any photos of it. It is decorated quite simply with only white lights and red ribbon. I'll try to remember to post a shot of it before we take it down. Tom really was a sport for putting it up for me. He had to haul the whole thing up an extension ladder and set up a timer for the lights. He's a good hubby!

Now, back to the movie of the night: Prince of Persia....Ahhhh, Jake Gyllenhaal.

Merry Christmas from these two elves!

Did You Miss Us?

We haven't been exempt from all of the hustle and bustle of the season. Between work and school and shopping and parties, we've been a tad bit busy.

To recap the week we have:

1) worked too much
2) finished shopping
3) wrapped all of the presents
4) watched lots of movies
5) eaten lots of chocolate and sweets
6) consoled a sick little boy

As for #6, Micah was sent home from school on Monday with a fever and hasn't been able to return because he came down with bronchitis. Poor little guy. His cough is so hard to listen to. If only I could trade places with him. The doctor perscribed an antibiotic and this inhaler.

Micah is terrified of this thing! When either Tom or I have it in our hands, he litterally runs screaming. To administer the medicine it takes both us to hold him down. He holds his breath and turns red in the face until finally he inhales. I really wish there were an easier way to help with his awful cough.

Jumping back up to #5, we've had lots of fun making and eating sweets. Micah was helping me make chocolate covered pretzels.

We're all really anticipating Grandpa Deen's arrival tomorrow and a visit from Santa on Saturday!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

Shenaniganz

The Encana Children's Christmas party is quite different in Texas from what we've experienced in Denver. The party in Texas took place at Shenaniganz, a bowling alley and arcade. It was geared more toward the teenagers, but our two-year-old had a blast too.

Tom jumped right into the driver's seat with Micah. Tom controlled the pedals while Micah managed the steering wheel and the stick shift.




When Santa arrived Micah was one of the first in line to sit on Santa's knee. At this encounter, Micah's reaction was quite different. Instead of latching on to Tom like a spider monkey, he sat on Santa's lap but avoided all eye contact. I guess his logic was that if he covered his eyes to avoid looking at Santa then Santa couldn't see him either. Yet again, another awkward photo with Santa...
Aren't these tiny little bowling shoes the cutest thing! His little feet fit perfectly into the smallest size they offered.

Daddy helped Micah get the hang of rolling the bowling ball.

The bowling lanes quickly turned into Micah's dance floor. Watch as Micah shows everyone how low he can go! (I have no idea where he learned this from, but it was hularious)

If I didn't know any better I'd say that Micah is the son of Ricky Bobby. The word "racecar" comes out of his mouth every day just as much has he says "Momma" or "Daddy". Riding on the go-karts really made his day!
It was a good thing that Shenaniganz was almost an hour away from home. After being strapped into his car seat, he was out like a light and took a long nap.

Christmas Parade and Dinner at Roma's

Saturday afternoon we joined our fellow Little Elm residents in the streets for the Holiday Parade. From our tailgate we waited 45 minutes to watch the 10 minute parade.


We skipped the big celebration in Beard Park after the parade and beat the dinner rush at Roma's Italian Restaurant, the best pizza place in town.
Micah loves Italian food. He ate pizza rolls, half of my ravioli, and a slice of Tom's pizza!

Breakfast with Santa

When I was little my favorite part about Christmas other than waking up on Christmas morning and opening presents was the annual breakfast with Santa party. It was my one chance to tell Santa everything I hoped to get under the tree. Afterall, we didn't have a mall Santa. Well, we didn't exactly have a mall either. But that's beside the point.

This morning our church in Frisco held a Breakfast with Santa celebration complete with chocolate chip pancakes, arts and crafts, and pictures with St. Nick. We were even greeted by a mini orchestra playing Christmas carols.

After much anticipation, Santa finally arrived on the Frico fire engine. I suppose he's letting the reindeer rest up for the big night in a few weeks.

After eating yummy pancakes we made our way to the line to sit on Santa's lap. Micah, as usual, was being shy and quite timid. He's not very fond of strangers in public places anymore. We were guessing that he'd scream and throw a fit to avoid sitting in Santa's lap. And he did. I managed to have him sit on my lap for a picture though.

Who knew it would be so hard to get Micah and Dada to look at the camera? LOL!

Stay tuned for more photos with Santa. Next weekend we'll be attending the Encana Children's Christmas party, and I'm sure we'll have more akward photos to share.



On the way home, I made Tom pull over to take some photos near our house. [I think this is their better side because I don't have to worry about either of them looking at the camera and smiling at the same time.]

I love this little guy so much!

Every Boy's Dream

Thanksgiving morning was a cold one. In fact, we got our first frost of the year that morning. While all of the girls stayed warm within the walls of our house and mostly in the kitchen, the boys set up their day camp out by the lake--bonfire included.

[Centerpiece inspired by an article in the November Southern Living Magazine]

The boys built a bonfire.

They fished on land.
They fished on a boat.
And Henry was the only one to catch a fish.

These boys will be boys.

Meanwhile, Hannah was a great cousin by entertaining Micah indoors.

When I looked over all of my pictures from the Thanksgiving holidays, I realized I didn't take any pictures of the girls hard at work in the kitchen or planning our shopping route for that evening and the following morning.

And yes, Dawne, Karen and I shopped 'til we dropped. We started our evening at 9:30pm at Toys R Us, and decided not to stand in the line that wrapped COMPLETELY around the entire shopping center. After leaving Toys R Us, we stopped by Wal-Mart to wrestle with the crowds and find some hot deals. We took a break from shopping from 1am-3am to take a nap and recharge our batteries for a long morning of shopping ahead of us. Around noon we headed home with tired feet and a packed SUV.


I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! We sure did!