Christmas with Kiki and Pops

Christmas morning we woke up and headed to my Dad and Lisa's house to celebrate with them! 

 Pops had some Santa hats for us to wear, and Kendall humored us at least for a minute.

 We all had fun opening presents! It was a little crazy and we had to slow the girls down a few times, but they loved all the thoughtful gifts they got! Here is a piggy bank for Cooper. Kendall has one that they have shared for awhile, but it was time for her to have her very own!

 Granny, Donna, Maegan, and Betty (Nana) were all there! We just missed Alden, Scott! Here is Nana helping Cooper with her stocking.

 Calli got her first pair of Tiny Toms! So sweet!

 We made growth charts for all the grandparents to measure the grandkids. They all loved them!

 Kendall got a new puppet to go with her theater this year! Kiki was teaching her a cheer in this picture. :)

 Three pairs of pink glitter Toms! Can't wait for that last pair to be filled!

 

 

 Maegan got Calli a cute teddy bear! 

 

 

 We ate lunch after we opened gifts and while we were eating the rain that was falling turned to snow!! It was so beautiful! We were surprised it stuck as much as it did, and the girls loved watching it. We went outside just long enough to take a few pictures and to dance on the porch. It was so much fun to have a white Christmas!

 All bundled up on the couch, waiting for some hot chocolate.

 We had so much fun on Christmas morning with Kiki and Pops! And it still wasn't over!

Christmas with Granny and Papas

We drove straight to my Mom's house Monday night to celebrate Christmas with the Harms and the Votaws! The girls did great on the car ride up to Ft. Worth and enjoyed getting to show off some of their Christmas presents! We had a fun night with Granny and Papas and all of our family on that side!

 Four generations! This is my mom's dad, my Grandpa. We were very thankful to get to see him and Grandma on Christmas Eve! Celebrating with them on Christmas Eve has been something we've done I think since I was born!

 Cooper climbed up on Granny's lap to have some ice cream with her after dinner!

 The girls were excited to get to open presents!

 Maybe already getting tired of taking pictures?

 Cooper got a new dress-up dress that is her size! She held it up so we could see it but wasn't quite ready to put it on yet.

 She also got this baby that laughs from Granny and Papas. She loves it and has slept with it every night since then!

 Alden and Scott were in Galveston this year, but we saw them a few days after Christmas when we were at Mom's still. They got the girls these beautiful fairy wings! They love them!

 Grandma and Grandpa got each of the girls warm hats and mittens, which would come in handy the next day! They also thought of sweet Calli and gave her some money for shopping when we finally get her!

We had a fun night! Kendall and Cooper loved playing with their cousins, Dylan and Logan, who Kendall still calls her brothers. :) They are so sweet with the girls. We are thankful for such a fun Christmas with Granny and Papas and loved being with them on Christmas Eve!

Christmas Morning!

Kendall woke up at about 7:30 Christmas morning, so since I was with her, I did too. She needed a breathing treatment, so we went ahead and did that before we woke anyone else up. I told her to stay in her room, and I went to get Randy, get the video camera, and start the coffee while he got Cooper up and ready. Then we let the girls come in. They were so excited. The first things they saw were their stockings and their gifts from Santa on the fireplace: Stompies! That was all Kendall has been asking for, and Cooper had picked up on it too. So both of them got unicorn Stompies from Santa. They loved opening their stockings and seeing what all was in there. That's one of my favorite parts!

 Kendall got bath toys, gloves, crayons, a book, envelopes and tape (her two most favorite and most used things in the world), a squirt bottle, and fruit snacks.

 Cooper also got gloves, crayons, a squirt bottle, a book, bath paints, and fruit snacks, but then she got a baby bottle and a baby sippy cup to play with her babies. She loved those!

 We got each of the girls three gifts from us. Cooper got a princess bubble blower, a board book Bible, and a big floor puzzle.

 Stompies!

 Kendall got a pink and purple bag with her name on it to take her shoes in to dance, a unicorn castle with 5! unicorns in it, and an EZ bake oven.

 The girls and I got Randy an A&M Heisman t-shirt, and they got me a cute coral-colored sweater. I love it!

 Molly even got a new baby and she has already loved it's ears off.

 My pictures are a little out of order, but before we opened gifts, Randy read to the girls from their children's Bible. We wanted to remind them about why we open gifts on Jesus' birthday and why we are celebrating.

 Cooper with her presents.

We had a great Christmas morning! The girls loved all their gifts and we had fun playing with everything. We took our time getting ready and loading the van for the week and a half ahead of us, and were on the road by 11:30. We love having Christmas at home just the four of us and can't wait until next year when Calli will be with us!

Christmas Eve (Eve)!

Just like we've done every year for the past 5 years, we celebrated Christmas Eve on the 23rd. The girls don't know any different, and our church has Christmas Eve Eve services instead of Christmas Eve services, so it works out perfectly for us. We wake up on the morning of the 24th, have our family Christmas, then drive to Ft. Worth and don't miss any of our extended family celebrations. 

This year was a little different though. Kendall had had a slight cough all day on the 23rd, but when she woke up from her nap that afternoon her cough was really bad and she had a slight fever. We had four services that day, and I was serving in the 5:45 and attending the 7:00. I thought she might feel better when she got moving and got distracted, headed to church, so I went ahead and put the girls in their cute matching reindeer dresses and went on to church as usual. I was actually Kendall's teacher in the 5:45 hour, and then I planned on bringing her into the service with me, so I figured if I needed to slip out with her I could. 

She just started feeling worse and worse. I have never seen her feel so bad. She was having trouble breathing, she was really flushed, and she just had no energy. She sat with me during class the whole time, then we met Randy in the 7:00 service. He could tell she felt bad right away. She laid her head in one of our laps the whole service and her breathing was really labored. I was totally ready to leave there and head to the urgent care of ER, but then we remembered our sweet friend and pediatrician's head nurse Teresa was there. We caught her after the service was over and she listened to Kendall and watched her breathing and said she thought it was pretty serious. She actually called Dr. B to talk to him about it and he said he thought it was serious too and that he wanted her to take us to his office, listen to her better with the stethoscope, and possibly give her a breathing treatment. We were so thankful for both of them! I got the girls loaded up, we went to the office (right around the corner from the church, love Lake Jackson) and Teresa listened to her breathing. She said she was wheezing pretty bad and gave her a breathing treatment. We could tell that made a huge difference pretty quickly. She sent us home with a machine and told us to give it to her every four hours. Poor baby! We were pretty worried and she was just so worn out. 

So with all that being said - here's our picture we took after we set out Santa cookies:

 She just felt so bad. We got ready for bed, set out cookies, and then Randy read them "Twas the Night Before Christmas" before we put them to bed. Randy had been to our Galveston campus, Coastal for three services that morning, and then come straight back to LJ for our four services, so he was worn out from a day of 7 services! He fell asleep pretty quickly, like the girls!

 With him being asleep, I played Santa by myself. I had fun stuffing the stockings and setting out their gifts. I got in bed and was asleep for about 20 minutes before I woke up to Kendall crying. I went in and she needed a breathing treatment again. We did that and then I was so nervous about her breathing that I decided to sleep with her for the night. We had a pretty rough night. In all of the craziness though, I was so thankful that we had access to quick medical care and that there was something I could do to help my sweet baby who couldn't breathe. I don't take that for granted! I am thankful for so much - especially our three sweet girls!!

(P.S. check out our tree - we love it, but we have lost several strands of lights this year! It may be the last year for this tree, or we may be adding our own strands of lights, if that's even possible. Eeek!)

Target Date with Dad

Randy was so brave and took both girls to Target on the night of the 22nd all by himself to do some shopping! Our sweet neighbors gave each of the girls a gift card to Target to spend on something to "play with while they waited for Santa." So sweet! They were super excited about using their gift cards. He was also on a mission to take them to get a Christmas present for me. I enjoyed having about an hour at home by myself! :) 

They were a little frazzled when they got home (maybe mostly just Randy) and they were very excited to show off what they got. They ran to hide my gift before I could see it, as well as the gift they got for Molly. Then the sat down to unpack their goodies. 

 I thought Randy had a great idea to get them things they could do in the car on our way to and from Ft. Worth. He got them each a clip board, an art box and some art supplies. Kendall got a princess marker and color sheet pack and Cooper got Color Wonder pages.

I'm so thankful that Randy loves to do fun things like that with them! He is the best Dad. :)

Cookies for Santa!

We had special helpers for making Santa cookies this year! Michael and Noelle were in town and came to visit to help us make our cookies. The girls were so excited! 

We made our dough and then rolled it out to use the cookie cutters. That's where the trouble began. :) Our dough was so good but it was just a little too sticky. We had a little bit of a hard time, but they turned out ok in the end! Here's Noelle helping Cooper roll out her dough. 

 Decorating the baked cookies later that night! They were very proud of their work. It's hard to see, but Cooper is holding up her cookie to show me.

 So focused...

 And here are the final products! Can you guess which four are Kendall's and which are Cooper's? :)