♫ ♫These are a few of my Christmas fav-o-rite things... ♫ ♫

Christmas for our family was indeed Merry! We are so blessed as a family to be healthy, happy and together. We enjoyed experiencing Christmas this year with our sweet girl. She was so much more into everything Christmas this year, than years past. She loved talking about her nativity set, touching our Christmas trees, checking out her stocking and unwrapping presents. She was so overwhelmed with her new toys and has been quite the busy little girl playing and playing and playing with all her new stuff!

We were very grateful to get to see all of our family this year. We are thankful for flexible family who are all willing to celebrate on whatever day that we can all get together, even if it is not Christmas day.

Rather that trying to recap our entire Christmas week...I decided I would do a quick post of some of our favorite things from the last few days...thru pictures.

Love to all---and hope everyone has enjoyed these last few days...and remembered to ponder and Praise God for the REAL reason for this most wonderful season!

Leah

These are a few of my favorite things...

My sweet Grandma Flynt who is a joy to see and be around...

Pets in their Christmas sweaters...hey it was 28 degrees outside...

More pets in sweaters..."fat cat in a little sweater"...haha!

All the presents wrapped and placed under the tree with love...

Baking fudge with precious family...

More baking...so much fun to bake Christmas-ey things...

Snow-ey, beautiful Christmas Eve's...What a white, winter wonderland!

Cute girls, in cute Christmas shirts...that say I heart Christmas! Wish I could get one in my size... haha!

Big smiles from the crib on Christmas morning!

Joy and cheer on Christmas morning, opening presents!

Love, laughter and hugs with my two favorite people!

Big smiles from my man...for surprising him on Christmas morning...

A princess all decked out in her gear...over her PJ's...ha!

A Christmas day game of "Hungry-hungry-hippo" with family...Mag got it for Christmas!

Pansy's poking thru snow...

Precious children waiting patiently to open their presents....

Pictures with my little best-friend with Christmas curls!

Cutie pies in their new lady bug tent!

Children lost in a sea of presents, wrapping paper and bows!

Beautiful pictures with my new camera (thanks husband--I got a new Nikon, can't you tell how much better the quality of pics are?!?) that show off my sweet girls profile. Love those cheeks, curls and eyelashes...don't you???


Okay....so these were a few of my Christmas fav-o-rite things!!!!!What were some of your fav-o-rite things?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Only 3 days left until Christmas!
Love to all!

Christmas Fun at the Great Wolf Lodge!

This year on my side of the family we (my parents and 2 brothers + wives+ kids) made a unanimous decision to do something different for Christmas. We decided that instead of giving gifts, we would just spend some QUALITY time together doing something out of the ordinary. So.....we decided to make a family fun trip to the Great Wolf Lodge!

We have decided it was a GREAT decision. We had a super fun time, and the kiddos had an even better time! We all live locally, which sometimes makes it harder to spend overnight times all together. We would all just drive the 15-30 minutes home and sleep in our own beds. So an overnight experience was especially fun for the kiddos. We had 4 rooms in a row. The kids all hopped back and forth from room to room. We claimed my parents room as the central room...mostly because my parents had all the good snacks and food and they brought games.

To start the trip off we all met at a yummy Mexican food restaurant for a late lunch on Monday afternoon. From there we went to the ICE exhibit at the Garlord Texan Resort. Then we went and checked into our rooms at the Great Wolf Lodge. Then we spent the evening snacking, gaming, talking, laughing...hitting up the kids arcade (3021 tickets won later--woohoo), and making memories. The next day we met for breakfast and spent the rest of our time there at their fabulous indoor water park. It stays a year round 84 degrees in the water park and we all loved it! There were slides, and rides, a lazy river and wave pool. We are absolutely hooked on this place now and plan to return for many years to come. It is a resort that is truly kid friendly.

Maggie loved her time with her 5 cousins and precious grandparents, aunts and uncles. She is a family kind of girl. Wonder where she gets that from...??? Ha!

We are so blessed to have such precious, unique, healthy and loving families on both Todd and I's sides. God is so good!

Merry Christmas! Enjoy some fun pics from our trip, below!

The 6 cousins at Cozymels Mexican restaurant


Maggie with her precious Gigi and Papa

Beautiful, huge Christmas tree in the center courtyard at Gaylord Texan Resort

This way to ICE exhibit.

My two cuties all bundled in their parkas...

The only parka pic I got of the kiddos...needless to say...Maggie was DONE with pictures. She had not had a nap yet and it was...ummm 5 o'clock. Ugh, she was a trooper...but so tired by this point. She literally fell to the ground and just layed there seconds after this snap shot. Ha.

Getting all bundled, ready to go in...

Later that night at the GWL arcade...Maggie checking out her tickets. Together the family won 3021 tickets, ha! Impressive, right? With it we got some real "made in china" treasures.

Daddy trying to teach Mag skeet ball game...there were balls flying all over. It was hilarious!

GWL Rudolph heading down to the lobby for story time and snow time. It snows in the lobby 4 times a day, there.

GWL super fun toddler slide...with our little fearless fish!

Can you tell she LOVES the water. She is a natural little water baby!

A fun view of the GWL water park.

Sitting on a "sea-doo" in the water park.

Loads of fun...splish-splash!

Christmas Jammies...are the best!

Don't you just love to see kiddos in their Christmas jammies??? It is a small tradition we have started at our house. Here is a little trip down memory lane...my oh my...how our sweet girl has changed so much in her little 2.5 years!

Merry Christmas and Love to all!
Leah

Maggie's first Christmas at 6 months old.

All smiles...so precious!

Christmas 2008...18 months old. She was not too sure about the hat....haha!

This year...Christmas 2009...2.5 years old

Intelligender......said......!!!!!!!!!

Intelligender..............is.............worthless! A total sham, waste of $$$$$, jip, rip off, joke and BIG disappointment!

It had some mixed reactions. At first it said GIRL, yay I have a GIRL feeling :)....then with one small turn of the specimen cup....it said BOY???? Since we are 100% sure that there is only 1 baby in there, we were a bit confused by our results. Girl and Boy, what????

To say we were disappointed is a truth, but we know the REAL truth is only about 5 weeks away. Our doctor said he would likely be able to reveal the sex of our babe at our 16 week visit/sono. Every great thing is worth a wait, right?!?


So, although the anticipation and thought of knowing the gender this early in our pregnancy was a thrill...I will not be recommending this $3o purchase to any of my expectant momma friends! Oh well...lesson learned!

Love to all,
Leah

It's begining to look ALOT like Christmas...♫ ♪!

Oh, how I LoVe this time of year! Cold weather, extra time with family, holiday shopping, Christmas decorations, time off and most of all celebrating our Lord and Savior's birth! I am a Christmas kind of girl! This last Sunday we, and I do mean WE, not just ME...like usual...put up our Christmas decorations. Todd was so helpful and sweet to assist me this year!

It really looks like Christmas around here now. Tree up, mantle decorated, stockings hung, banister draped in garland...now all we need are presents under the tree. Next, task to tackle---no doubt!

This year, much more than last year...Maggie was really excited about all the decorations...especially the tree. She was almost mesmerized! She talked about it, touched it and explored every ornament in her reach. Because of this excitement, I decided it was time for her to have her own tree, too. A tree that was her size, and one that she could touch and mess with all she wanted.

I had seen some PINK trees in some sale fliers, and decided she had to have a pink one. She loves it and could not wait to show Todd when he came home from work last night! It is just soooooo fun to have a girl and a girl who gets excited like her momma!

Also, last night we---well more Todd---well all Todd....put up our Christmas lights. He did a great job, and Maggie was thrilled to seem them after her nap.

Below are some pics of all of our Christmas fun, so far!

Love to all,
Leah

P.S Stay tuned...I plan to take the "Intelligender" at home urine gender test this week...to get an idea if we are having a girl or a boy. It is not 100% accurate, but about 70-85%. Just for fun, don't worry we will not be painting the nursery just yet. You can go here to check it out...pretty cool, huh! :)



Our family tree...

Mag's "pretty pink" tree...

Todd and Mag...celebrating our lights!

Mag pointing to the lights...she was soooo excited!

My 2 most precious people!

Our little butterfly...well...sort of!

Our Maggie's sweet little imagination is really begining to bloom. This last week, one evening Maggie came into our living room after disappearing into our closet with a pair of my silky PJ pants on...her arms. She proudly announced that she was a butterfly and fluttered around our living room. It was so cute. I had to capture it on film! What a precious age Maggie is right now!



Hope everyone is having a great weekend!



Love to all,

Leah





Butterfly PJ pant girl ready to fly...haha!

So proud of her costume!

An early Thanksgiving!

This last Saturday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family. My brother the fireman and myself both work on Thanksgiving so our family was kind enough to celebrate a bit early. We had a wonderful time. We went to my brother Jason and his wife Lindsay's house out in Bridgeport. We decided to do some alternative Thanksgiving food this year and instead we had some yummy smoked chicken, beans, potato casserole, salad and rolls. We decided to keep with the Thanksgiving-y desserts though, and had lots of cookies, pumpkin and pecan pie! We were all stuffed!

The kids had a super fun time being outdoors. My brother and wife have a great home with lots of acreage for the kids to run around on. They jumped on the trampoline, road 4 wheelers, played on the "playground" as Maggie put it (a swing set), played with the 2 dogs and 3 cats and just ran around together. There are 6 sweet children on my side of the family...ranging from 9 to 2! They all play really well together. I am so blessed to have such precious nieces and nephews, and Maggie sure loves her cousins.

Macy (7), Mag (2) and Morgan (9) all enjoying the trampoline, oh how I see one of these in my NEAR future...no we did not all plan to name the girls with "m's" it just turned out that way!

Nana & Papaw, Melissa & Justin, and my Grandma keeping the fire going in the shop...my bro has a huge shop attached to his house...we kind of hung out here to enjoy all the kiddos being out side...we are an indoor/outdoor kind of family! Ha!

Jackson (5) and Mag still enjoying the trampoline...

Us girls, decided a girlie picture was a must....these are all immediate family ladies...so fun right! From left to right, back to front...myself, Maggie, my sis-in-law Lindsay, my mom Ginger, other sis-in-law Melissa, front: Nana or Sue (my mom's mother), Macy (Lindsay's daughter), Grandma or Juanita (my dad's mother) and Morgan (Melissa's daughter). It is just not very often that we all get a picture together. I will treasure this one always!

All the cutie pie cousins....from back to front, left to right....Macy, Morgan, Jerod, then Maggie, Jackson and Joushua. So cute, I could squeeze them!

Morgan and Macy riding the 4 wheeler!

Maggie loving on little "CiCi" the cat. They were besties by the end of the day. Poor cat, Maggie had carried her around by her neck about 25 times!

Thanks family for being so wonderful! We love you and are especially grateful this Thanksgiving season to have such a complete, united and Godly family!

Love to all,

Leah