Celebrating Christmas in the Hill Country

I'm catching up on my blogging...slowly but surely.  I've finally made it to Christmas - and before February!

We arrived in Boerne on the Wednesday before Christmas.  Every time I arrive at Mom and Dad's house, I remember how much I like it.  The Hill Country views are stunning, the house is beautiful, but I especially love how welcoming it feels.  While it was never my home, it certainly feels like home

 (the view)

 (Welcome home!)

When we arrived on Wednesday night, the house was already bustling.  Katy, Ian, Evan and Ben had arrived the day before.  Jack was so excited to have more cousins to play with!

 

The next morning, before the rest of the company arrived, we had a fun outing for the boys - Santa and Chick Fil A!  We arrived first at Bass Pro Shops, only to find a rather long wait to see the big guy.  We took a number to reserve our place in line and headed to Chick Fil A to grab some lunch.  We got Jack a kids meal and he really enjoyed it, and drank out of a straw for the first time ever!

After waiting in line back at Bass Pro Shops, Ben was very nonchalant about seeing Santa.  Evan was tentative, but excited to tell Santa what he really wanted for Christmas (a candy cane!).  Jack, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with poor Saint Nick:

(this was Jack's second visit with Santa.  The first, at daycare, didn't go much better, although we were able to distract him with a toy fire engine long enough to get a decent picture - one that I just remembered I forgot to post):

Late on Thursday night, our wearly travelers from Kansas arrived after a LONG day in the car.  Now, we had a full house!  It was so nice to have everyone together for the holiday!  We spent Christmas Eve visiting, cooking and eating, and of course, wrapping presents:

 

Great Grandma Dot brought a gingerbread house for the boys to construct.  Evan was very interested:

 Jack, on the other hand, was more interested in eating the candy decorations:

 

After baths, it was time to get ready for Santa.  The boys donned their matching PJs and settled down with Grandma to read The Night Before Christmas: 

 

What a beautiful Christmas tree!

I've never seen so many presents on a Christmas morning! We are all very lucky - not because we had so many gifts, but because we have so many people who love each other and love to make each other happy. Thanks everyone!

 Evan loved his new big-boy bike:

 And Jack was excited about his rocking horse:

 Ben wasn't all that interested in presents, but he sure looked cute:

 I'm not exactly sure how Grandma Dot always looks so good on Christmas morning!

 Blaise and his pile of presents:

 Courtney's present is bigger than she is!

We had an amazing Christmas feast, starring Dad's prime rib:

 Our Christmas dinner wouldn't be complete without our British Christmas tradition, Christmas crackers.  Yes, we all put on our silly hats and took pictures!

The day after Christmas, we met John, Jennifer, Bud and Marianne Davis for lunch at Chili's.  Unfortunately, Jack decided that lunch time was his nap time, so Tommy and I took our food to go and headed home :(  We were so glad the Davises were able to come by and visit for a little while after lunch and meet Jack.  Unfortunately, we somehow didn't get any pictures.

Sunday afternoon, the boys took a trip outside to try out Evan's new bike and Jack's new tractor:

We headed back to Frisco on Monday morning after a wonderful visit.  Stay tuned for our last Christmas celebration, at our very own house!!

Christmas Celebration #1 - Cajun Country

What's that you say?  It's been almost a month since Christmas?  I guess time flies when all one does is work - it also doesn't leave much time for blogging :(  Yes, once again, I'm in the middle of busy season, that exciting time of year from January through March that every auditor knows and loves.  I'll admit, its been tough so far, and I'm only 3 weeks in.  Lately, I've felt like I could work 24 hours a day and still not finish everything that needs to be done, and the guilt that I feel when I come home from work after Jack is in bed can be overwhelming.  For now, I'm managing the best I can - learning that everything doesn't fall apart if I leave work most days in time to put Jack to bed and that working from home for one day a week really helps a lot.  3 weeks down...?? to go...wish me luck!

So anyway, flash back to a month ago.  We were so lucky this year to be able to spend time over the holidays with so much of our family.  Our celebration began the weekend before Christmas with our trip to Louisiana for the annual Mhire family Christmas celebration.  The big celebration was Saturday afternoon in Lafayette and we stayed Friday night in Dallas to attend a Christmas party thrown by one of the Deloitte partners, so we didn't get on the road until early Saturday morning.  We arrived at Tom and Greta's house just in time to change clothes quickly and head the party.  There's lots of excitement in the Mhire extended family this year.  Two of Tommy's cousins will become parents in the spring and another will be getting married this summer.  Everyone attended this year - it was so nice to see everyone, especially since we missed out on the celebration in Connecticut with a newborn last year.  As always, the "Dirty Santa" gift exchange was tons of fun.  We had so much fun that we neglected to take very many pictures, so thanks to Aurie for getting this picture of the whole group together:

Back at the farm, we had a quick mini Christmas celebration on Sunday morning because Emily and David had to head back to Houston.  While we wish we could've seen them longer, we're so glad that Jack could finally meet his Aunt Em and Uncle David!

The highlight of Poppy, Jack and Lincoln's days was definitely the morning trip to feed the animals.  Both Lincoln and Jack loved riding the tractor and thought riding the pony and feeding the cows were very interesting.  Jack got a surprise on the first day when the ducks flew out of their pen and straight at him.  After being scared of the ducks for most of the rest of the visit, he summoned up enough courage to chase them on the last day.  Here he is in his farm attire, complete with cowboy boots!

Cousin Lincoln wasn't scared of the ducks at all!

And the best part of the day - the tractor ride!

Poppy and his boys (Jack, Lincoln and Buck):

Poppy was in heaven with both of his grandsons - and I think they enjoyed hanging out with Poppy and Gigi as well (sorry, Gigi, somehow you didn't end up in any of the photos!)

Poppy got Lincoln and Jack their own matching John Deere tractors and they had fun riding all around, inside and outside.  I can't wait to see these two grow up together!

The end last couple of days of our trip were dampened slightly by a case of strep throat for Tommy and pink eye for Jack.  Nonetheless, we had a great time in Louisiana.    On Wednesday before Christmas, we headed to Boerne to spend Christmas with the Bitler side of the family.  Stay tuned!  I'll try to not wait another month to write again!

Deck the Halls

Well, we didn't chop down our own tree this year like we did when we lived in Connecticut, but we still bought a live Christmas tree, just like we have each year we've been together.  Tommy tried to talk me out of it this year - he said we didn't need a tree this year since we'd be gone for a couple of weeks around Christmas.  I won out on this one, though.  I just can't imagine Christmas without a tree in the house.   We picked out a small, but beautifully-shaped tree and but it upstairs on the balcony overlooking the living room.  We trimmed the banisters with lighted garland and I really like the way it turned out!

Jack had fun helping to unpack all the decorations:

While Jack was unpacking, I hung the tinsel and ornaments:

 While Tommy wrapped the tinsel around the banister:

Jack briefly tried to help decorate the tree.  This mostly involved him grabbing an ornament, yelling "ball" and stubbornly whining when I tried to help him hang it on the tree.  Needless to say, Jack didn't hang too many ornaments this year.  Maybe next year!