Christmas Day and the rest of December 2013

Christmas morning we woke up at Nana and Papa’s and the boys got to play with their gifts!

Lincoln was pretty excited about his new 4-wheeler.

Well, I tried to get a good shot of my 3 boys on Christmas day.  Huge fail. . .but funny bloopers.

The final product. . .I just love our Christmas Eve crafts!

As we always do, we went to Gaga’s house on Christmas day at around noon.  She had the kids traditional gingerbread man cookies waiting for them.

They were VERY excited.

Even Lincoln had a cookie.  Although he wasn’t allowed to eat it.

Of course while posing for this picture. . .he had a little snack.

With sweet teeny man.

Hmmm, not sure what’s going on here.

The loot at Gaga’s house is always insane.  There are SO many gifts and the kids open presents for what seems like forever.

Lincoln wanted to go home with Grandmommy.

Lincoln absolutely loved his trampoline from Gaga and Grandmommy.

Lennon had given Baron this cute sweater vest.  Bear loves anything from his sweet cousin and this cute vest was no exception.

A few days later Jackson wore his new batman jacket at Cracker Barrel.  Gaga bought one of these for each of the grandson’s.  They are super cute and the boys love wearing them.

One afternoon Nana took us to see Frozen.  The boys got a kick out of posing as Captain America at the theatre.

Lincoln loves to hang out with Gaga on her bed.

Back at Nana and Papa’s. . .as you can see I did not master the art of scheduling our trop to go from A to B.  Instead we went back and forth multiple times.  No biggie with 3 small kids, one of which wakes up to nurse constantly.

Jack and Nana making pancakes for breakfast.

And of course, much to the kids delight, Dufus followed us back and forth every where we went.

Lego day.

One afternoon Bonnie and Ashley and Ash’s two new puppies came over for a much needed visit. 

The boys loved her sweet puppies!

I was so thankful for such a nice visit as I have missed Ashley and Bonnie so much since our move.

More cousin fun!

Again, trying to get 6 boys to cooperate for a picture. . .no easy task.  At least I got them all in the picture.

These pictures are a little out of order but here’s Jay dutifully working on our craft.

The boys love having Nana read to them.

Poor Baron was pretty pooped by the end of the trip!

Playing spinners, Jackson’s favorite game from Nanny and Paw Paw’s house.

We are so blessed to have such a fantastic and loving family.  Our boys have the best 3 sets of grandparents in the entire world.  I just wish that we were all in the same city!

Once we got home to Austin Jay set up Bear’s puppet theatre.

The trampoline got a lot of use.

Jay and the boys playing with the remote rockets that Jackson got for Christmas.

New Year’s Eve was our Christmas Eve since Santa had not yet come.  We had our traditional NYE dinner of buffalo wings and then made ice cream sundaes.

Dufus is hugging a squirrel in the picture below.  My mom had taken us to Cracker Barrel after Christmas and gotten each member of our family an ornament.  Jackson picked the squirrel for Jay.  Jay always jokes that with his ADD he doesn’t stay on topic and randomly see’s a squirrel and attributes that to his incessant non sequiturs.  I thought it was pretty hilarious that Jackson chose this.  Clever kid.

One thing that really struck me this year was how much time has passed since we lost BJ.  I miss him with all of my heart and sometimes it’s so hard that he doesn’t know my boys and that I don’t get to be Aunt to his kids.  I know that we’ll see him again and without that knowledge I don’t know how anyone ever moves beyond a loss.  Anyway, maybe it was that I was so missing Jenna and Jeremy this Christmas that it made me think a lot about BJ.  Who knows.  So thankful that this is just the dress rehearsal.

I really wish that I would have taken a picture of our AWESOME Christmas village this year.  Gaga went absolutely crazy sending us the most amazing Christmas village ever.  The boys were SO excited every time we got a package and just loved setting it all up and seeing all of the people and the snow and all of the houses/buildings.  Next year I’ll get a great shot.

And last but not least in this crazy post that goes back and forth multiple times and in multiple directions, is some great news that we got on NYE.  Our dear friends, Bryan and Rebekah have been trying to get pregnant for 3 1/2 years and gone through 11 cycles of infertility treatments. After the 11th cycle they decided that God wanted them to stop fertility treatments and adopt a baby.  The VERY next month, they found out (on New Year’s Eve) that Rebekah was pregnant.  We were so honored and thrilled that they came over and shared the news with us that night.  Here’s the funny picture that they posted on facebook (after the first trimester) telling the world about the baby.

We had such a great Christmas seeing family and friends.  I always wish that the Osby’s, Jenna and Jeremy were with us but love the fact that we’re going to see all of them very soon.