new year's eve 2013

This New Year's Eve was pretty epic, if I do say so myself! We had an amazing little family party that included lots of games and music and munchies, and I can't think of anywhere else I would have rather been.

Meghan making the sacred queso. :)

Emily, who insisted on taking her picture like this.

A fun video we enjoyed watching (a few times!). For the past few years, this guy mashes up the ending-years' top pop songs, which is a pretty accurate representation of what the kittens want to play in the car 90% of the time.

R3 and Sadie put their respective hats on R3's new Christmas toys, which they drove around the house half the night. I was in stitches!

Playing Apples to Apples! I bought this as a family gift, and I didn't really feel the need to get the "kids'  version" since our little dumplings are so smart and hilarious. (As you can tell by the card selection in this picture!)

And this is what Meg and Da look like playing our new dancing game we got for Christmas! This was alot harder than I anticipated, but we had such a fun time playing this together. Richard even managed to get top score of the night, which made him very proud. ;)

Annnd, I managed to pass out on the couch at 11 that night while the family continued to play, but they made sure to wake me up at 11:45 so I could see the Dallas ball drop and get kisses before they all sent me to bed. Awesome family, much? Yeah, I thought so. :)

christmas with tha littles!

This year, we had the littles for their second week of Christmas Break which means another Christmas day in our family! We picked them up on Saturday and had a wonderful "Christmas Eve" at Six Flags, which meant our second big day was on Sunday. :) We woke up very early in the morning and opened presents, which is always so fun with our sweet Sub-4-Foot-ers. Meggie was so darling and passed out each and every present while her very tired parent and step-parent drank their morning elixirs of coffee and tea. :)

Warning: there are many pictures! I know it may be a bit gratuitous to post as many "presents!" pictures as I do, but I just look forward to the days when they're old enough to look back through the blog and say, "Oh yeah, I remember that!" Although, head's up: Sadie isn't in any of the "morning" pictures posted because she's still in her "I don't want to wear clothes while I'm at home!" phase. (Can't wait til she looks back through the blog when she's older! We have plenty of nudie pictures of you, Future Sadie, they're just not "published" on the blog because we love you.)

Emmy, who made this face for everything.

I told you! (plus R3's new Halo game and Em's new pogo-stick)

Some of Sadie's spoils...

(That's Emmy behind R playing the roll of the creeping Creeper...)

And Emmy's new slippers!

The best Family Present I could ever spend money on. Now we have 3 total gaming controllers, meaning the littles don't have to rotate time-sensitive turns to play Minecraft. BEST FAMILY PRESENT EVER. Kinda high-fived myself over that one.

Emmy's "big" this year was a Monster High high school for all her dolls. She fell to the floor!

... but I managed to pull a "real, not hammy!" smile from her afterwards. :)

R3's big were lots of Legos, but he still freaked out over this Cabela's video game we got as a Family Gift. :)

Emmy, getting straight to work with her Legos!

Sadie's "big" this year was her very own pair of roller skates! She's been wanting a pair forever, and she was so excited she actually put on clothes immediately (!) to try them on. Girlfriend was so ready!

Em playing with her Monster High high school...

R and R3 playing "Trouble!"

After the little dumplings got some good play-time in, we all got dressed up in our Second Christmas Best and went over to hang out with Granners and Jack. 

Look, it's all my favorite people!

Tried to get a good shot with Sadie, but she wasn't too smiley that afternoon...

But Emmy was much more willing to oblige. You win some, you loose some!

Trying to get a good shot of my boys. :)

And there you go! Richard thinks R3 kinda looks like his ventriloquist dummy. ;P

After Granners, the family went to hang with their Mema for a few hours which means they came home with even more toys afterwards. These kids always clean up so nicely! We were bummed to not have our littles the day of Christmas, but the silver-lining means it's Christmas for just that much longer. :) You were definitely a great one this year, Second Christmas!

our newest holiday tradition

Remember last year when we went to Six Flags with the Hafeles on Christmas Eve? Well, we all decided that was so much fun we'd do it again this year! Debbie secured tickets from work again, and we had a really righteous park crew that included both our families plus Darrah and Ryan. Like last year, we had to wait until I got off work on Saturday (sorry!), but when there's a million people around and you have free tickets anything you end up getting is just gravy. :)

Here are just a few pictures from our sweet little evening that just so happened to be on our Second Christmas Eve (ie, the day we picked up the littles for our half of their school break). Immediately after getting into the park, Aaron took all the boys and teenage girls to ride The Texas Giant (R3's first roller coaster!) so the rest of us walked around finding rides for Sadie and Emily. :)

This ride was ridiculous to get pictures of (thanks, rotating bouncy boots!), but I did manage to snap of few of their darling excited faces (as well as perfectly focused pictures of tons of riders I didn't know, of course).

I'm a sucker for fuzzy twinkly light pictures, what can I say?

Darrah and the girls!

Not pictured (but completely worth remembering) are... 

| the looong lines... it was crazy! they just never stop letting people in!

| Emmy's adorable  Batman cape she scored and her and Aunt D holding hands through the Yosemite Sam ride. :)

| all the beloved fire-pits throughout the park (it was so cold!)

| the Texas Skyscreamer which is a 400-foot tall version of the rotating swings (Veronica and I just had to go on it! It wasn't the best time to try it out with the freezing temps, but it was still awesome!)

| and R3's face in his hands while he was on the Rodeo and watching Meghan carry him off the platform -- the sweet boy rode two roller-coasters that night, but that was just not his thing.

| the fact that both Meg and I passed the hell out after we got home, leaving Richard to set-up Second Christmas all by himself... whoops! We're still so sorry about that, sweet angel!

christmas day!

As far as Christmases go, our Christmas Day this year was amazing! We spent Christmas Eve's at mumsie's (meaning lots of snackies and adult beverages of choice) and opened all our prezzies there on the big fat morning. Meghan cleaned up decently this year, with lots of new archery equipment (that target looked so impressive all wrapped up!), hair dye, and an iPhone among other things. Richard got his obligatory toy (so help me, that's always stressful to pick out--and I forgot batteries!) and I just got spoiled to put it simply. :)

Afterwards, the 4 of us went to the hill to hang out with the family. After the Secret Santa rounds and sugar cookie decorations, a few of us went outside to play in the backyard. Turns out Stephen is a certified archery instructor, so we had to get him and Meghan together! 

After a few instructions, Stephen upped the ante by taping a $5 bill to the target. "If you can hit it, you can keep it!" And then Meghan gave Lincoln a tracheotomy. Pretty epic, if you ask me. ;P And then Uncle Danny got in there... I just love discovering all the secret talents of our family!

Then we played with the potato launcher. A potato launcher. That Stephen made. HE MADE IT. I was freaking out, it was just the coolest thing ever! I couldn't get any pictures of it in action because I was so "!!!" the entire time.  Son-in-law of the year? Yes. 

After a very hard farewell (why isn't Christmas day 72 hours long? that would help so much!), we went over to Darrah's for Christmas dinner. We had such a lovely time there--D made the most beautiful decorations and we watched stupid teenager comedies while the cooks were making our wonderful meal (steaks and salmon!). She got us the most thoughtful gifts (a Keurig for Richard and a reusable Keurig cup for me... girl's got smarts) and looked so beautiful. I'm just sad I wore out by the time we got there (thanks, retail job!) or I would have taken more pictures. But that's what this here blog's for, right? I can do words and stuff, too! 

Like I said, super amazing Christmas Day. We're so fortunate to have the most precious of families who are so fun and silly and crazy and warm and inviting and fun and silly. They totally make all the driving and early mornings throughout December worth while (and then some!).

grandpa jim's 90th (!) birthday party

Our sweet, adorable, amazing Grandpa Jim turns 90 this year! Fortunately, most of our family was in town for the holidays so we all got together for dinner and cake and presents and hugs and laughs. :) Note: the table-cloth was very festive and red, so I found black/white pictures to be most appealing to the eye.

The birthday boy sporting kisses from me and mumsie on each cheek!

The feast! (And my vegan soup in the bottom-right corner. ;P)

After cake (carrot annnd red-velvet, thankyouverymuch), we brought out the presents, which included a Jim-sized magnifying glass and a laser-projected keyboard that can be connected to your computer and phone!

Probably the greatest picture of the night!

Looking at his phone while Kenzie types on the keyboard on the other side of the table (miraculous!).

Kenzie, helping Grandpa Jim practice on his new keyboard (which you can't really see in this photo, but it's there!).