A great holiday

I hope everyone had a great holiday. We had a house filled with family and it was wonderful. There were lots of laughs, food, and gifts. We are definitely blessed.

Earlier in the week we went to the Trail of Lights which is a fun part of our Christmas traditions. Local groups and small businesses put together their own little booths of decorations which include lots of lights and cute photo props.

Then on Tuesday we spent a couple of hours at the DMV. I swear it takes more paperwork to apply for a driving permit than it takes to buy a house! It was crazy. But, Addison and Wyatt felt like they were ready, so they went and took their tests and now we have two drivers with learning permits. Kirsten and Abigail are going to go on Monday. Dax and I are still a little in shock with how quickly it seems like this has all happened. It's looking like our new year will be bringing even more changes as our babies continue to grow up. How do we keep that from happening? lol

Thanksgiving

Wow! I never got around to posting about Thanksgiving.  Dax and I leave the day after and are gone for 10 days getting in a big chunk of continuing education hours. As you can imagine, it's crazy at the office when we get back. And this time of the year is always full of activities anyway.

So, we were short a few people this year for Thanksgiving. Dax's parents had an emergency come up in the extended family so couldn't be here with us. Their absence was definitely noticed. Thankfully things there are better now.

Kirsten and Grandma made these cute little turkeys.

I didn't manage to get it in the picture, but ine if those little turkeys has his head on upside down. Poor thing.....then we ate him.

After she did such a good job on the turkey's, we put Kirsten in charge of hors de vours.

She's really just slicing Little Debbie snacks. I guess we'll give her an 'E' for effort. 

I did make these crackers this year. I like to try something new each year.

They taste delicious and are super easy to make. It's a Ritz cracker wrapped in bacon with a little brown sugar on top. Then you put them in a 250 degree oven and bake them for (here's the kicker) 2 HOURS. But, trust me, they're worth it!!

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. We ate too much, but the food and the company were good.

Sweet 16

The kids turned 16!! How in the world did that happen? Times goes by so fast, but it's been a blast this far. We're so fortunate!

The day started with balloons. Lots and lots of balloons.

Before:

During:

And after:

Now that was a lot of balloons! Dax and I used little hand held pumps to blow them all up, but our fingers were sore for days afterwards from tieing all those knots.

We let the kids skip school that day so we could spend it having fun. We took them to do a little shopping, then to a favorite Chinese food buffet.

Then we followed that up with a hockey game to see the Texas Stars play. It was great. Our seats were close to where the players came out of the locker rooms so the kids got to give them high fives. They loved it!!

It was teddy bear day, so after the first goal by the home team everyone throws stuffed animals out into the ice. They are gathered up to be donated to charities for children. They collected over 3,000 animals!! Awesome!

Then they had the kids names on the jumbo-tron announcing their birthday. They thought that was pretty cool too.

All in all it was a great day.