Merry Christmas!

So, last night, Roman led the group back out to play some more in the snow. He was DETERMINED to take advantage of every last moment! It took everything I had to wrangle them for this picture. Me in short sleeves (like a gooberhead) running to and fro trying to get them to stop throwing snowballs long enough to get the shot.

Then Dane figured out everyone was outside again. He looks like a blob in the snowsuit (mainly because bending at the waist was out of the question), but he was LOVING every snowflake. So, I ran around like a mad woman (in my short sleeves because I'm a slow learner) AGAIN and wrangled them for one more picture with the little guy.

We came inside, watched a movie, ate tamales, and gorged ourselves on popcorn and candy. The boys brought the presents they'd bought for everyone else and put them in under the tree. Then, we did our advent time for the last night this year and tucked the boys in at the top of the stairs in their sleeping bags.

And, presents descended....

6:30 came and little boys bounded in our room asking to open gifts. I'm not sure what this picture was, but it was cute. So there.

This, on the other hand, I have even LESS idea about. Like I didn't even realize grumpy Dane was here this morning until I was looking back at pictures.

And then grumpy Dane moved on and we got "Don't Mess With Me" Dane. And he's got his finger out waving like he's giving me the what for. Who knows? Maybe it's because I got him ZERO presents. Because I'm a bad mom like that. Seriously, he's 10 months old. He has no idea what Christmas is (or maybe he DOES and that's why I'm getting "the look"). He won't be scarred, promise. Roman got the same treatment and he's turned out to be a somewhat normal child. :)

Elijah with his remote control car. Super excited boy!

Dane with his "laptop" from Grammy & Papaw. Maybe he'll leave mine alone now!

Playing in the paper and trying to sneak Roman and Elijah's stocking stuffers.

Obsession.

So, since Ernie and I have been married, we've always spent Christmas with only us. We get together with extended family later, but we knew we wanted to keep family at home once there were kids, so we just started it out that way. Those first couple years were, uh, well, a little different than we'd been used to, but since Roman joined the club, it's definitely been a great thing.

One thing we've kept from those first years we spent eyeball to eyeball, was going to Waffle House for Christmas breakfast. Bet you didn't know that EVERYTHING is closed on Christmas morning (or maybe you did), we didn't either. As we drove around and around and around desperately trying to find a morsel of food (there wasn't much in our teeny tiny kitchen), we spotted a Waffle House. And, we've been going ever since!

Came home, put the littlest down for a nap and I went down for one too. That's the beauty of having no where to go. Next thing I know Ernie's waking me up just a few minutes before our Christmas guests, our newly engaged friends Ahren and Matt, were to arrive. AGHHH! I called Ahren and asked for a few more minutes because I had been lazy and slept more than I anticipated. Ernie headed outside with the big boys to have snowball fights with neighbors, I jumped in the shower, and then got Dane up and dressed and went out to join them.

We woke up to a completely White Christmas, but by noon the snow had either melted or been made into this totally Texas Snowman by our neighbor Brad. I contributed nothing but the carrot mouth and the cute kids. Didn't he do great!?

What a wonderful year! Great times with family. Fun playing with neighbors. And a blast playing games and eating 10,000 peanut butter hershey kiss cookies with Ahren and Matt.

A good day of rest and celebration of family and our Savior Jesus Christ!