Christmas Time and Family Fun!

Christmas has come and gone again. I am always amazed at how much we look forward to the season, and then how fast it is gone. We had a wonderful holiday season and feel very blessed to be healthy, happy, and safe. I don't have great pictures, because we were in between cameras (we bought one and then Ragnar ended up winning one from work, so we took ours back), anyway, I am grateful for the ones Chira took for us.
We started our holidays with having my sister Marisa fly in with her husband Ethan and their son Liam. I was excited to see them and their sweet little boy. On Christmas eve my brother Chris flew in with his wife Chira and their sons, Caden and Coleton. So, with them and my other sister Natalie who lives here, my other brother Corey and his family, and my parents, everyone on my side of the family was all together in Texas for Christmas! It was great. Christmas eve we met together and had soup and caught up and read the Christmas story from the bible and then everyone went home to prepare for Santa! Christmas morning, just like last Christmas, it happened to be one of the few mornings the kids slept in, so we started to go in and check them often to see if they were awake! We were excited! This is what we found....

Ella got a box full of dress up clothes and she was ready to try them on!

Cavin loves trains, so he got a new train set.

Ragnar's co-worker bought them Lincoln logs which they love!


They were excited, but children always fascinate me. Out of everything they opened, they were most excited about coloring, their silly yo-yo's and slinky's! Next year maybe I will just spend the 50 cents and call it good!

We enjoyed Christmas at my parents house. They bought Ella a new dollhouse and Cavin more Thomas the trains. They generously bought Ragnar and I an ipad which has been a really fun gadget. We are very grateful for their generosity. On Sunday night we had a nice dinner together again and the kids loved playing. Cavin and Ella were SO excited to have Caden in town. Poor Caden had to endure Cavin endlessly following him and saying over and over.."hi Caden, hi Caden"!!!

Games...and fun

Hiding under their pretend tent!

On December 27th I went with my brother Chris and Chira, and my sister Marisa and Ethan and of course Ragnar to the Rockets game. It was Marisa and Ethans second anniversary, so we went to dinner and enjoyed the night!

A couple days later we took family pictures and went with the cousins to The Children's museum. My kids loved being with their cousins. I am not sure they really understood a lot of the museum because most of it is for a little older kids, but they loved being with the cousins.

Caden in a car pretending to drive

All the cousins...minus the two babies :)

Ella was being the cashier and Cavin and Caden were bringing their goods to buy.



All in all we had a wonderful time with our cousins and spending time with our parents and my siblings. We are so glad Caden, Coleton, and Liam got to come into town and that John and Madi already live close :) We have a great family. The only thing that would have been better is being able to spend the holidays with Ragnar's family too! We also appreciate their support and kindness. We are glad that they had a nice time in all the snow in Germany, and hope to join them again soon!