Too old for tire swing spins

I came home from my work on my birthday to see that Cas had assembled a new swing in our backyard.  Our kids had so much fun on a similar swing at our friends' house that he ordered one at Christmas for our family.  It's been a huge success with our kids and their friends!

So far, thankfully Maya has been good about holding on, because this swing flies through the air over Cas and my head.

Big grins for big pushes -

Silly Cas jumped on for a ride -

And the birthday girl -

Happy with the straight swings - but when Cas started spinning it in circles, I was worried I'd be throwing up on my birthday.  

Collin's the only one who likes to spin fast, but the whole family enjoys the new backyard toy!

Christmas 2015

Christmas Eve is also my grandmother's birthday, so we headed over for sandwiches and birthday cake for lunch.  Collin and Maya were on point to "help" B blow out her candles - 

And before she had released her breath, Collin had put out the flames!

Happy 89th birthday, Great Grandma Betty!

After the birthday party, we attended a service at our church and came home for as calm an evening as we could muster hours before Santa made his magical rounds.  Collin and Maya dressed in Christmas pajamas and took some photos with our elf, Holly, before trying to settle down for bed.  

I was pretty anti-Elf on the Shelf, wanting to focus on the meaning of Christmas vs. good behavior for 24 days because a stuffed elf will report bad behavior to Santa.  But kindergarten broke me, not wanting Collin to be the only one without the fun experience!  Holly, our elf, was in a different place each morning bearing a Jesse Tree ornament.  So we tried to tie in how the stuffed elf would help us worship the newborn King!

My favorite part about Holly was that she was a motivator to get Collin out of bed at 6:05 am during the Christmas season.  My kids had low expectations on her locations, so our elf did not create elaborate scenes or make any messes.  We felt quite accomplished that Collin and Maya believed she magically moved everyday . . . though some mornings she may have been hiding under a dish towel to switch spots when Collin stumbled in for breakfast!

Christmas morning we spotted Santa's footprints and were thrilled St. Nick had visited!

I was worried that Santa was more generous with Collin's gifts than Maya.  But really, Santa could have gifted Maya with 3 individual coloring pages with Frozen characters and she would have been satisfied.  A fleece blanket with their images produced this reaction:

They were slightly excited

Gloves in her stocking were worth of a dance!

The five-year-old.  He asked Santa for a compass (check), to have magic (Santa brought him a magic kit), a sparkly shirt (huh?), for it to snow, a million dollars, to go to Dave and Busters and for all the desserts in the world.  After seeing the two gifts from Santa, Collin walked around the tree in search of his million dollars.  He was disappointed his last four requests weren't granted.  We need to set better expectations in 2016!

We have lots of male super-hero dress up clothes, so we needed to beef up our girl power costumes!

Christmas Day lunch brought the family, and having four young kids together brought about a little "Whip, Nae Nae" family dance party.

Maya with cousin River -

The kid table -

This girl LOVES her older cousin, Stella, sticking to her like glue anytime she visits -

Swinging in sleeveless shirts on Christmas Day in Texas!

Some of the gang -

After my side of the family headed home, Maya took a short nap to prepare for party # 2 with Cas' family.  Grandma Libia brought this hat which was a huge hit!

The kids danced and played, we ate and enjoyed celebrating together -

We had a joyous Christmas day and season!

Counting down to Christmas

The lead up to Christmas was full of school performances, kindergarten parties, church sing-a-longs, Christmas party date nights, Christmas light tours, cookie decorations, and most of all, fun with friends and family!

Maya's school had a performance one morning.  Another class and hers took to the stage to sing "Jingle Bells" and "You Better Watch Out."  The performance lasted less than 2 minutes!  Complete with motions, Maya had been practicing at home, but she was a little more tentative on stage.  (Do you see her teacher's hand to the left, holding one of her classmates the whole time - so cute!)

Full of mischief in her eyes once she was back in her classroom feasting on milk and cookies -

Love this silly girl -

On the last Friday of the school calendar year, Collin's class had a holiday party and earned a Polar Express pajama day from good behavior.

It's always fun to see him with his kindergarten friends -

The next day, one of Cas' customers invited us to his company's party.  Cas and I both attended parties and customer happy hour events with our individual companies, but it was nice to dress up and go out together to an event!  My wonderful cousins baby-sat, and the kids wish they could baby-sit every single night!

To cap off that busy weekend, our church had all three-and-up children perform Christmas songs.  The kindergartners-and-up sang three songs, while the three-year-olds came up from one (entertaining) song.  Collin was in the first row, and the buttons on his pants were irritating him, so he spent the majority of his time front and center at our church grabbing the front of his pants (as seen in the photo below).  Classy.  Luckily the boy next to him was lifting his shirt over his head and being a bigger goofball, drawing away most of the attention.

My grandma joined us for the show, and the kids loved hugging their great grandma on a Sunday morning!

Sunday evening, I took the kids to my parents' home for the night.  We put Maya to bed, and then Collin, my mom, and I went to a Christmas train through Christmas lights.  It was a fun evening with our boy -

Monday morning, I had four of my best friends and their children over to my parents' house for gingerbread and cookie decorations.  The kids were serious about their creations, and pretty much everyone left with a stomachache from excess sugar!

The kids - 

The moms, friendships spanning 23 to 28 years - with photos from birthday parties and sports events to homecoming and high school graduation taken on this porch swing over nearly three decades!

After the cookies, Chick Fil A, and then the gingerbread houses were completed, Maya took a nap and woke up ready to indulge!

Smiles for sprinkles and Christmas fun!

Weeks after Christmas, we finally got the link to the family photos taken at the company family event we attended the first weekend of December.

Poor girl - the professional photographer got the same, sad expression as I snapped with my camera.

Teary-eyed but recovering in my lap with Cas nearby -

As the kids grow older, Christmas becomes more and more fun each year!