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!

Ice! at the Gaylord Texan

Yes, it's after Christmas and I'm just now catching up on blog entries from just after Thanksgiving.  I won't give excuses, but I'm sure you will all forgive me when you see the cuteness contained in this entry.

Each year, the Gaylord Texan Hotel in Grapevine (just north of Dallas) puts on an Ice! exhibit and I've always wanted to go.  The Gaylord is a massive hotel/conference center - owned by the same people as the Opryland Hotel and quite similar for those of you who've ever been there.  Each year, they bring in ice sculptors from China who work for months to create an amazing exhibit entirely out of ice.  This year's theme was A Charlie Brown Christmas and it was really pretty amazing.

The tour starts with a brief film on the making of the exhibit.  Then, everyone heads into another room to bundle up in giant winter jackets to walk through the exhibit.  Now obviously there are tons of kids who come to see the exhibit, but I think Jack was the smallest in our group.  We got him the smallest jacket they had, but the tour evidently doesn't plan for one-year-olds because he looked like a jacket with a little head on top.  For those of you who've ever see Monsters, Inc., he reminded me of Boo when they dressed her up in the monster costume as he toddled around the exhibit.  Of course I might be a little biased, but he was definitely the cutest thing there!

Here are some pictures we took from around the exhibit. Remember, everything is made out of ice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the last room, there was a giant ice slide.  I took Jack to the top of the slide, planning to slide down with him, but I was told that I wasn't allowed.  The man at the top of the slide assured me that he would be fine, so we send the little jacket-with-a-head down the huge slide all by himself.  I excepted that he might be upset, but he got right up and toddled off.  What a big boy!

 

 

And yes, of course they talked me into buying the $15 family photo at the end of the tour:

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Our Little Family's Thanksgiving

Given the excitement of Jack's birthday party the weekend before, we made the decision to take it easy for Thanksgiving.  It's never easy for me to be away from family at Thanksgiving, but we decided we really needed some R&R and a chance to start our own family traditions.

On Thanksgiving day, we got up early, watched the Macy's parade, and started making dinner.  We tried to make most of our favorites: turkey and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, rolls and pumpkin pie.  I wasn't brave enough to attempt Granddaddy's famous stuffing, and immediately regretted my decision.  Our storebought cornbread stuffing just wasn't the same!  Here's our turkey cooking in the oven:

 And a shot of our delicious meal:

And finally, the pumpkin pie (I may have filled it a little too full):

On Thanksgiving a year ago, Jack was just over a week old and smaller than our turkey.  It's amazing how things have changed in a year!  Here's Jack sampling his first Thanksgiving meal - his favorite was the green bean casserole - Mommy and Daddy liked it all!

Unlike most people, Jack didn't immediately succumb to the effects of tryptophan in the turkey and take a nap.  On the contrary, he decided he would rather get into some trouble.  I'm sure I don't even want to know what else he has in store for me as he grows up!

On Friday after Thanksgiving, we were so excited to get a visit from cousin Emma and her husband Dave (and their dogs Jack Jack and Luke).  They came to Dallas to watch the Cowboys take on the Saints in the traditional Thanksgiving Day game.  Even though the outcome wasn't what they hoped, it was great that they got to stop by on their way back to Louisiana and meet Jack.  Here they are with Jack:

 And here I am with my sweet cousin and my little boy:

Emma and Dave weren't able to stay long, but we loved getting to see them and Jack was so excited to finally get to meet them.  We hope they'll come back soon! (and I hope to get to visit them in their new home town, New Orleans, very soon) :)

We've been busy in the weeks leading up to Christmas - stay tuned for more soon!