December Fun!

I have to say this was one of my favorite Christmas seasons yet! Christmas is so fun through the eyes of an awe struck two and a half year old who is high on life much of the time. It was so exciting to experience all the joys of Christmas with our little man. We started it off with our trip to Baton Rouge for Kyle's marathon, the Twin Living Christmas Trees at JBC, and a visit with our sweet little niece/cousin Ellie.

When we got into town we made a stop at LSU to say "Hey" to Mike the Tiger and shop in his gift shop.

This, of course, is not the real Mike.

We also stopped by the Mall of LA to return something. Here is Jacks in front of the giant Christmas tree!

My dad is the director/conductor of JBC's Twin Living Christmas Tree program. It is what keeps my family busy from October to December! They work on it a lot throughout the year, but it really gets busy in the fall. It's such a special event for JBC, and it's become a Baton Rouge Christmas Tradition for many! I definitely miss singing in the TLCT, but it's one of the highlights of our Christmas season (now that we live away) to watch it from the audience. It was as wonderful as ever this year! Bless Jacks' heart, he was tired (no nap) and slept through the second half. After the performance, we ate dinner with all the choir/cast in the gym and had fun seeing all of our friends. We then snuck out to Central to see Ellie before hitting the road. We are so proud of our beautiful niece (born 11/22/10) and love her so much!

This picture of Kayla, Ellie and me is actually from 11.23.10 (the day after her birthday.) I was waiting to post any pics until Mama Kayla got to put up her own, but now I'm going to be a proud Aunt and post a few I have. She's such a beautiful little girl! I realize that my hair is glowing like the sun in this picture. It might have looked like that in person; there's no telling. I experienced much hair drama that week.

We headed back to Houston late Saturday night with an extra passenger...BB!!!! The trip home was much more interesting with her around! Ha! We had previously planned for her to ride home with us and then fly back Monday. It was sooo fun having her around for a couple days.

Here's how we spent our time with her: We all went to church Sunday morning and then to Cafe Express for lunch...yum! I have to do this when I can because Kyle is not the biggest fan of eating at "girl restaurants" (as he calls them.) BB is a huge fan of CE (In fact, she's the one who introduced US to it since she knew about it from her time as an intern at Weatherford. I had my usual Shrimp & Avocado salad. Yummo. After naps, Britt and I got all prettied up for our date with Kyle. He took us to Maggiano's, The Chocolate Bar, and to look at Christmas lights in River Oaks. Post Oak was so beautiful with all the lit Christmas trees lining the street...it was like a winter wonderland! We had such a good time and laughed and laughed. The food was AMAZING and the company even better. Best.date.ever. We missed Ry and talked about him often, though! He was at home in New Orleans "studying"...(wink, wink, Ry!) :)

On Monday, BB, Jacks and I met Kyle at Chuy's for lunch. We were seated in another corner booth, and the food was amazing as usual. Brittany decided right then and there that if she died in a plane crash that night, we could tell everyone that she died happy because she had eaten the most amazing food all weekend. After lunch, BB and I decided to head to the Galleria. There was no line for Santa, so we stopped off to see him. Jacks' behavior for the rest of the time at the Galleria was...ummm...interesting. I think Brittany decided in that moment that if she survived the plane ride, she would not have children. Ha! In his defense, he had not had a nap. But shopping with an angry toddler + an anxious BB (she hates to fly) was not really working...haha...so we left. We took our time getting to the airport. It was super sad to drop Brittany off, but we are so glad she came to visit! We love you, BB!

Cozy corner booth at Maggiano's! (The Chicken & Spinach Manicotti was DIVINE.)

Silliness :)

Beautiful tree in River Oaks

BB brought Jacks an early Christmas present--this pop up football tent--which he named "The Secret Clubhouse." He wanted BB to play in it with him all weekend.

At Chuy's! (sidetone: The last time Britt, Jacks and I were together at Chuy's, he was four months old and Brittany was passing him across the table to me. In an effort to keep his feet from hitting the food on the table, she raised him up...and he hit his head on the sombrero light shade. We laughed so hard and feared someone would take the baby from us as we were clearly unfit that day. BB kept saying, "I'm such a terrible mother!" Haha. Oh goodness...)

After BB left, Jacks and I laid low the next few days and rested up because our friends, the Willetts, were supposed to be coming in that weekend. They ended up not being able to come because Maddox was sick. We were super sad because we had been looking forward to their visit, but it ended up being for the best. I had my usual "Christmas Meltdown" that week where all of the traveling/activity caught up with me and I felt like I couldn't press on. Of course I got over it and got excited about the weeks to come.

On Wednesday of that week Jaime and I drove up to Waco to see our good friend, Kim and her girls Caroline and Allison Jane. We have missed the Moores sooo much, and it was so wonderful to spend some time with the them (minus Eric...we missed you!) We had such a blast hanging out at the Baylor Children's Museum and Chick-fil-A. Jackson's behavior at CFA almost had me in tears that day, but as I look back I don't even remember what happened.

I enjoyed seeing Kim most of all, but touring Baylor and experiencing Common Grounds were an extra special treat!! The kids loved seeing the Baylor Bears (the 2 live mascots.) On the way home, we stopped off to drive the boys through a park that was all lit up for Christmas. Somewhere around Bryan/College Station. They boys were more interested in watching the movie in the car, but Jamie and I enjoyed it. Ha.

Playing on the water table at the museum...they LOVED it. OK, I did, too.

Looking at the Baylor Bears. Sic 'em!

Baylor's campus is absolutely gorgeous! I enjoyed hearing all of Jaime and Kim's stories about their time in college there. And I must say...Common Grounds lived up to its hype! Loved that place! Wish it wasn't so far away! I'm so sad that Kim, Jaime and I didn't get a picture together!

That weekend we focused on having fun as a family in Houston! Our usual "holiday" travel schedule keeps us from doing much in town, and there are so many fun things to do. I'm always torn because I want to be in both places...experiencing Christmas with everyone at home but also experiencing it here in this other city that I love! I was so excited that we got to do a mixture of both this year. On Friday night, we went ice skating in The Woodlands with the Cochrans. Jackson got super excited about it then took a few laps and was done. The rest of the time he ate popcorn on the sidelines and watched everyone else skate! He had a blast, though. I expected him to want to skate more since last year he was obsessed with it, but this year he played it cool. After everyone was done skating, we had dinner at Berryhill's at Market Street. Market Street was all decorated for Christmas, and the boys had fun running around after dinner. We attempted a family picture in front of the big Christmas tree, but Jackson was more interested in playing cars in the dirt below the tree. I don't blame him.

Very excited to have his skates on!

That little face just slays me.

Precious

Daddy stopped by for a pic!

Silly friends

Family pic!

Pretty lights outside the rink

Saturday afternoon we headed to College Station with the Smith's to visit Santa Land. It was absolutely amazing and so much fun! It was so chilly that night, so it was just perfect! We chose to do the hayride through all the lights/displays (my recommendation if you go to get the full experience.) The displays were AWESOME!!! Jacks & Maddy loved it! After our hayride was over, we got dinner and enjoyed sitting by the bonfire in the little Town Square area. Polar Express was playing on a big screen nearby, and it was such a fun atmosphere. I HIGHLY recommend visiting Santa Land if you're ever in/around Houston during Christmas!!! We definitely want to make this a family tradition.

On the hayride. We made sure to represent LSU in AggieLand. :)

Hanging with Frosty

Cute boys

Sitting around the bonfire

Jacks & Maddy have quite a thing for each other. They are too cute!

Leaving Santa Land

During the week leading up to our trip to BR, we wrapped presents, had a cookie play date with some friends, and enjoyed doing nothing! That weekend we spent time cleaning, cleaning OUT, and organizing our house. We stored away toys that Jacks has grown out of as well as clothes that no longer fit him. Big sad face! On Friday night, we had a double date night with our friends, the Lees. They took us to several yummy places in River Oaks that we'd never tried! Ragin Cajun and Crescent City Beignets. Yummy! I kept saying..."We can bring our families here when they come!" Ashley pointed out that it would be silly to bring our families to cajun/LA restaurants when they come to visit Houston. Oh. Yeah. True. Ha! I guess I was just so proud that we had found some! It was such a fun night! We enjoyed Matt and Ashley's tour of Christmas lights and learning all about the homes in River Oaks. Super fun time! (Jackson enjoyed playing with Roslyn (his babysitter) at home...although before we left he told Kyle that he wanted Roslyn to go with Kyle and for me to stay at home with him...lol. Kyle was hoping I would be his date.) :)

Crescent City Beignets...yum!

Jacks enjoying the leftovers the next morning...:)

We left for Baton Rouge on Sunday the 19th, so on Saturday night we decided to exchange gifts as a family. It was really fun and special to do it at our house. We kind of decided to do this spur of the moment, and when we told Jacks he started jumping up and down...

...and running in circles!

He knew which present underneath the tree belonged to him, so he grabbed it and...

...kissed it.

It was a Melissa and Doug food cutting set. He loved it.

I'm not sure there's anything he wouldn't love.

A few other random Christmas tid bits...

Jacks was handed down this train from his cousin, Jacob, and he looooooved it. He had a blast playing with it and watching it spin around and around. Of course it required a lot of work to keep it on the track, but it was worth it to see how excited it made him.

Jacks and I got in the habit of taking walks right when it got dark each night (right before Daddy got home) to see all the Christmas lights on our street. He loved that this house had Thomas the Train in front of it! It was like it was just for him. :)

Jacks also loved snow globes, his Little People Nativity Set, and reading Christmas books and singing Christmas songs.

Well, that ends our Christmas fun leading up to Christmas week in Baton Rouge, which I'll Blog about later! I can't believe I'm actually Blogging. I must be slowly getting over my Blogging-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Here's to keeping better track of memories in 2011!! :)