Christmas 2016!

We did it! We made it to the end of the year. What a crazy year!

This year, much like any other year, we attended a TON of Christmases. Hopefully this year won't be as hectic, especially since we have a Christmas Day Texans game scheduled, but I won't hold my breath.  

We ended the first half of the school year with a holiday band concert for both my boys...Caleb and his trombone and Jansen and his trumpet. 

Then the holidays could officially begin. My inlaws came into town and we hosted them at our house. It was nice to be able to get together in our new home, with more space. Josh made his world famous chili, and I made cornbread and dessert. 

The next morning we had Christmas with my parents. We had a fantastic time eating breakfast and opening presents. 

Later that afternoon we went to the Texans game with my inlaws. 

And then it was time for Christmas morning!

We ended the holiday hosting my dad's side of the family at our house.

Abundantly blessed!

 

Missing in Action

Holy crap! I assure you that this is the only thing I can say when I realized that it has been since December of last year since I posted, and even then, I was behind two months. Total craziness. 

My only excuse was that I was working and had kids and dogs and a husband and I got way out of it. But it's really time to get back, I think. So here's the Cliff's Notes update of my life since October 2016. 

Halloween: Caleb was a Mario character, Jansen was Sans from Undertale, I was Laverne to my friend, Carmela's Shirley, and we hosted trick or treating at our house. We ate 50 cent corndogs as usual and Jansen made a graveyard cake for dessert.

 Moving on to November. Trump won the election..I didn't vote for him...I was depressed...I started Christmas decorating the day after the election. 

My parents took my camper to their house and decorated her for Christmas... (she's so cute!)

I hosted a food drive at my school to benefit the Brazoria County Dream Center which runs the Backpack Buddies program to give students food through the year. That turkey box was a labor of love for me....

We had Thanksgiving at my cousin's house. The hubs had to work and Jansen made a cheesecake. 

 

My husband took me to see The Nutcracker for the first time ever and I loved it ever so much!

 

December rolled around and we were super busy as usual. 

My kids decorated their first ever gingerbread house. I just built it and showed them how to pipe, and they did everything else.

 

The kids started with their donations: the SPCA, packing shoeboxes to send overseas, and our Foster family change drive, which enabled us to adopt 4 children from the Salvation Army tree and buy everything on their need and want list. 

We hosted the dessert portion of our church's youth group progressive dinner, which was super fun!

And we got ready for all the Christmas parties we had planned. I'll leave that for another post so it will just include Christmas festivities.