holiday blessings :)

Can you believe it's all over? I feel like the last time checked the calendar it was Halloween, and now we're into the second week of January!

Anywho, here's a few pictures I took throughout the month of December... it's such a hectic time of year, but I try very hard to stop and enjoy the little things when I'm feeling overwhelmed. :)

1 || Sweet Meggie, who was so intent on helping with the present wrapping this year. Girlfriend wrapped about 75% of the gifts once it was said and done, which allowed us more time to relax after work (and R more time to watch "The Hobbit!"). <3 <3 <3

2 || This shirt I just had to get Richard as an early Christmas present! And it came in the same day he bought himself a bottle of Lagavulin (which is what's in the glass in his hand)--coincidence much?! I told you guys, he's Ron Swanson.

3 || Seasonal Oreos from my mommy. :) I was really wanted to have them this year but couldn't find them whenever I looked, so my mom had them shipped to me from Amazon. I mean, really. :)

4 || Chocolate pumpkin pie hot toddies to help combat sickly days. Honestly, they weren't that amazing (I just kinda improvised the recipe), but I was really proud of myself for trying. :)

5 || Going to see Jay-Z in concert with my sweet R-Z. :) He put on such a great show!

... great shot of the crowd during his Nelson Mandela tribute :)...

6 || These lillies! I have no idea what they are called, but they were at work and they were gorgeous. A lily within a lily!

7 || Christmas cookie baking with Meghan after work (while watching "It's A Wonderful Life" and "The Breakfast Club"). I also made 3 great coffee cakes and 2 batches of chocolate chip cookie dough (side note: I ended up completely botching the batches of chocolate chip cookies trying to rush, which lead in a total Christmas Eve "ugh!" moment, but in hindsight I'm proud of myself for having the stamina to do it all after work in the first place! My Holiday Stamina is officially building!)

8 || Getting to hang out with my sister-cuz, Tonya, and her sweet hubby, Stephen, the day after Christmas. They drove up to play with us after we got off work, and it was such a sweet afternoon. :) Stop living in Denver, guys!

9 || This picture of Sadie after her first shot (what an aim!) and the fact that Meghan can take/send pictures to me on her iPhone now. :)

10 || How much R3 enjoyed his pocket-knife gift (the first thing he played with!)

11 || Hanging out with my family and my family on New Year's Day, and playing Apples to Apples and Scrabble. :) (Ok, this one was technically taken in January, but it fits the theme!)

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!