Merry Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was pure bliss for us... we were all together our little family of four in our home with excitement about what christmas morning would bring. We started our new christmas eve tradition with a yummy pj breakfast at the Barksdales where we were introduced to the moravian cake... who knew we were missing out on such a little slice (literally) of heaven?! We then went to church and came home and cooked our family christmas eve turkey dinner. Phil decided this year to cook it on the Green Egg and it was AMAZING!! The boys loved opening their one special christmas eve gift, reading the christmas story from the bible and putting out cookies, toffee and milk for Santa! We liked to have never got them to sleep as Philip kept claiming he heard reindeer on the roof but finally it was time for Mr and Mrs Claus to get to work. Lets just say that an airplane that says "assembly required" is probably NOT the best thing to wait to put together until Christmas Eve!! But somehow with the magic of Christmas and lots of not so nice cuss words... Santa got it all put together and managed to get his skinny butt down our chimney with lots and lots and lots of toys for the boys! Merry Christmas Eve!

Yay... its our PJ Christmas Eve Breakfast with the Barksdales!

My FIRST Christmas Eve

Christmas in Big D!

We had a great week in Dallas celebrating Christmas with Phil's sweet family. From great food and great company to unforgettable memories, Philip and Parker had a blast! The airplane ride was great... Parker slept of course and Philip watched his Mickey Mouse DVDs with his new and super cool headphones all while eating cookies, twizzlers and marshmallows! Whatever will keep them quiet, right?! However, Philip was so obsessed with the airplane that when we took off both times, he kept screaming... "Its going down mommy, Its going down." As you can imagine those are words that lots of people do NOT want to hear during a plane ride so we had to continually explain that we were going up not down. Guess mommy needs to do a little better job on teaching the law of gravity. And then Philip also never got the memo that when you have headphones on, you talk way louder than the norm (and for those of you who know Philip's norm, that is already very LOUD)! So he was basically screaming the Mickey hot dog dance song at the top of his lungs during the duration of the plane ride... but all I could think was at least he wasnt crying, right?! Needless to say the plane rides both went smoothly other than those couple of hiccups and we were very glad we made that last minute gametime decision to not drive the 20 hour drive each way with 2 kids 2 and under. Philip and Parker loved getting spoiled by their Mimi and Grande and all of their crazy uncles! The boys got lots of hugs and kisses from their sweet aunts and their uncles taught them to say the word "sex" and drink beer... what more can you ask for?! All Phil and I could say was that payback is hell... Philip loved sleeping in the room with Ben, his "roomie" and they became best buds after 6 nights together... they even sang a duet to Mary had a little lamb... classic! And from multiple visits to Mi Cocina, Peggy Sues, JD's, and Mimi's toffee... we ate like movie stars! The christmas lights this year at the village were literally breathtaking and the Park Cities was lit up like never before! Philip loved singing songs with his Mimi while we did the christmas light tour and Parker enjoyed being able to stay up so late past his bedtime. Philip's favorite were the horses of course that were walking by doing carriage rides... as they say you can take the boy out of texas but you cant take the texas out of the boy. The boys had a blast at the train shop in Northpark and Philip of course didn't ever want to leave!! Parker and Philip loved getting tickled and chased by their Grande and Mimi loved cooking her cranberry bread with her Philip and playing with Parker man during his baths in the sink. Philip also loved telling everyone about Christmas and how it is Baby Jesus' bday party, who Jesus' mommy and daddy are (he knows them by name), pointing out all the animals and explaining about the sheperds and the wisemans (as he calls them). It is so fun this year as he really does get it... what joy it is to see Christmas through the eyes of my child!! It was such a wonderful trip and we are so blessed to have a family that loves us so much!

Special Note: Please Mute Playlist to the right to enjoy the collage and videos :o)

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Better late than never...

Yay, finally our Christmas cards are done and in the mail!!! With 2 kids under the age of 2 running wild, multiple trips to see Santa and traveling to see our family for the holidays, our Christmas cards keep getting pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list. But finally finally finally I can say, we have shipped them out as of yesterday. I guess better to receive them the week of Christmas than not at all, right?!

Dear Santa, define good!

The boys loved coming home to Charlotte with yet another visit to have "cookies and milk" with Santa. Afterall, they wanted to make sure he knows for sure what is on their christmas wish lists. Philip has now asked multiple times for his very own airplane and even this time told Santa that his little brother Parker wanted an airplane too (just in case Santa doesn't think Philip has been good enough this year, Parker is his back-up plan)... and mommy would love one of these too but it just has the word "private" in front of it... oh well, I guess we can all dream can't we?! It was so fun to see our friends and Santa of course with the yummiest and cutest goodies I have ever seen. Thanks again to the Whites for everything... we had so much fun and can't wait to sprinkle our special "reindeer food" on christmas eve... afterall if being good doesn't get Santa here, maybe at least the reindeer food will! Merry Christmas!

Philip still not so sure about Santa

Parker and Lawton... Boys will be boys

Ho, Ho, Ho

Get Your Merry On

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Christmas with my amazing family in Savannah, Georgia! We all went down and stayed with my brother and his family in their new amazing house that they just finished building. Lets just say my sister in law has a "shoe closet" (my dream) that is about as big as a bathroom... so so so jealous!! The boys had the time of their life playing with their precious cousins Alli Lane and "Boots" Elizabeth. And so what if they played all weekend with kitchen sets, American girl dolls and dress up tea parties... they had a blast and Phil was of course wrestling with them to keep their manhood in tact! All four little ones were spoiled rotten by their Gigi and Papa Doc with no bedtimes, cupcakes for breakfast and of course "Welcome to Moes" as philip calls it which is his absolute FAVORITE for our holiday dinner! The kids especially loved the gigantic blow up jump house that their Gigi and Papa Doc brought for them, getting their Papa Doc, loving on their Gigi and all the kids loved kissing on my little Parker man. My boys slept like it was their job (14+ hours at night)... so much that my hilarious niece Alli asked on Saturday morning to her mommy, "but what if they sleep forever?" She was very concerned and didnt want them to the sleep the day away as she had big plans to play! Afterall, at five years old, she is the oldest and in charge! And then on Saturday night... it was off to River Street for the grown kids to get our merry on as me, Phil, my brothers and their wives all went out to eat tapas at Jazz'd and did some fun bar hopping afterwards to celebrate sweet Lyd's birthday (besides who could pass up our amazing and free built in babysitters... with Gigi and Papa Doc in charge, the kids never ever wanted us to come home). We had so much fun... probably a little too much fun... let's just say lady Gaga was playing and their was conversation of an orange thong! But what else can I say, the stories are too many to be told and some of course we probably wouldn't want to be told (afterall my children will be reading this someday... oopsie)... but we all survived and it was such a fun night! Can't wait till next year... Merry Merry!

Scheming to do something they are not supposed to do Im sure!

Playing in their jammies

Kissing on Parkerman

How many more days till christmas?! Someone is ready

Parker man loving on his new Aflac duck

Working on walking with uncle Blakey

Gigi, Boots and Parker man

All four kids getting Papa Doc at ONCE

Merry Merry

Dear Santa, it wasn't us!

Something about this picture just says... BUSTED!

Not too sure about SANTA....

The boys were both in a state of shock as they sat on Santa's lap after Philip ran for his life screaming through the mall saying, "Santa, scary, Santa, scary, Santa, scary." Good thing Santa doesn't know Philips code word for ugly is... scary! Every adult in there was just holding their breath and thinking, can't they control their kids?! I wanted to look at all of them and say, "NO, we cant!" You try taking a 2 year old running one way and a 10 month old crawling the other way and get them to sit on a big fat bearded stranger's lap and see how well it works out for you!!" Anyway at least we got a cute pic of the boys with them in their holiday outfits and the boys were definitely less traumatized than Philip was last year... Tis the Season!!

Philip 2009... PRICELESS!!

Pretending to be angels... before the chaos

One, Two, Three... Smile and then run like hell

Im pretty sure you could get kicked out for this... I'm just saying

Parker making a run for it now too... oh the joy

of what one can learn from a big brother

Philip telling Parker how "Santa is just so SCARY"... sweet!!

Merry Merry

Yay... we got the perfect Christmas TREE!! It only took a few stops this year to find that perfect one, you all know how "A type personality" my husband is!! :o) We absolutely love it and loved starting our Brosseau tree search with our best friends the Harrells and the Barksdales! Philip of course loved decorating the tree this year too... He especially loved to hang all his favorites on the lowest and weakest branch possible right at the tip while Parker man enjoyed eating all the ones that Philip dropped. I think between the two of them we are currently at a 10 out of 75 broken ornament ratio! Good thing mommy loves ornaments and collects them every year! Merry Merry!!

Philip, Betsy Grace, Parker and Holden

The big boys... Phil, Kevin and Mac

I LOVE this pic... Merry Merry!!

Parker's 1st Christmas!!!

Too sweet... memories forever

Santa's little elves