Where Did December Go?

Like said in the last post December really flew by!! Between activities at school and the start of basketball season and lots of get together I hardly had time to breathe. So I am trying to get caught up on the end of year activities before starting my new project. That will be in days to come!! So stayed tuned.

So that being said here is some pics from Christmas. I realized about half way through uploading that I had done them in the reverse order of what I had wanted, but being that it is after 10 p.m. and we go back to school tomorrow I am not going to go back and reload them all. So bare with me as I go through them and give you a little narrative on each picture.

As normal we spent Christmas Eve at Papa's house. Taryn was very excited about "hanta clause" coming to see her. She had asked that Santa bring her Dora. For a few weeks she would just say "Dora" when you asked her what she wanted, but finally we got her to tell us that she wanted Santa to bring her a Dora backpack. Well that took some doing and luckily one was found!

Here is Taryn on Christmas morning. She was excited for Christmas but was not exactly excited about being woken up. She is really a bear when you wake her up! So this is her Christmas morning face.
I realized later in the day that this was the only picture of Taryn I got on Christmas morning. I failed to get one of her seeing her Santa gift or opening any gifts. Oh well....not much to do about that now!

Rhealee really enjoyed the Christmas experience. She was very interested in tissue paper and bows. Here she is with Aunt Christina looking at one of Taryn's presents. Rhealee thought everything that Taryn got was hers also. We are going to have to have some lessons on sharing really soon!

Christmas Eve Taryn and Sydni played and baked cookies together. These two girls can play like nobodies business and both have amazing imaginations and always have something up their sleeves. Just look at those mischievous eyes!

During the day of Christmas Eve we really just kept it lazy. It was a small blizzard outside so we stayed in and were lazy. Uncle Rusty taught the girls the joys of using a laundry basket for many exciting games. Their favorite was the flying laundry basket. Uncle Rusty would pick the basket up with both girls in there and spin as fast as he could. Taryn really liked this one and wanted him to do it again and again.

Rhealee on the other hand enjoyed it a couple of times, but by the look on her face in this picture she really was a little dizzy.

Here the girls are playing in the laundry basket. Take back all the toys they got for Christmas!! I have plenty of laundry baskets for them to play in at home!

We woke up Christmas Eve to probably close to a foot of snow if not a little bit more. We went to bed late the night before and there was a couple of inches on the ground, but when we woke up we were really surprised at the amount that had fallen!

After we had opened presents and had breakfast Taryn appeared out of the bedroom with her clothes on. She had dressed herself. I asked her where she was going and she informed us she was going to play in the snow!!! She was so ready and had a hard time waiting on everyone else to get dressed and find enough cold weather gear to bear the snow! We knew it would be cold but we had no idea that we would need ski gear!! So we had to do some digging at mom and dad's for enough gloves and toboggan's.

Here is Taryn bundled up enjoying the snow! Notice the gloves, they are mine bless her heart she couldn't do anything because they were so big, but its the best we could do!

Cory and Taryn playing in the snow! The wind was blowing so cold it made it very miserable to be outside for very long. This did not stop a 3 year old. She would have stayed outside all day if we would have let her.

The snow is up to her knees in this picture as it was in so many spots. In fact she lost one of her shoes after only being outside for a few minutes. Remember she had dressed herself, so she had no socks on!!! Her toesies were a little cold!! But that didn't stop her from playing!

We have always spent Christmas Eve morning with my Grandmother exchanging gifts with her. Rhealee was introduced to bows! We couldn't keep the child away from them. She would yank them off faster than we could blink and straight to the mouth they went. She really cared less about the actual gifts, but she wanted the bows!!!

Here she goes, after a bow!!!!!! You better stop her Gramps!

The girls were so excited to see their Uncle Rusty asleep on the couch when they woke up. He had driven in from Dallas and didn't get there until after they had gone to bed. Taryn thought it would be fun to "bounce Uncle Rus" so she climbed up there and insisted that sister go with her!! That's one way to wake somebody up and who wouldn't want to be woken up to those two cute faces bouncing on you?

On December 20th we visited SantaLand with most of my family. This is something I remember always doing as a little girl and it is something I am hoping to keep doing with my girls. This was Rhealee's first experience with Santa and she did very well. Taryn on the other hand still will not have anything to do with Santa but this year she did want to talk to Mrs. Clause.

Taryn and Rhealee with Mr. and Mrs. Clause at SantaLand.

This is the only picture I got of our family during the holiday season. Here we are at SantaLand December 2009!

Here is Payten waiting in line like a big girl. We waited in line a long time and just as we got to the door Santa went on break. Taryn and Payten had a hard time understanding why they couldn't go in and see Santa!

I don't know what this face is....but don't you just love it!!!! A little Popeye I would say!

Taryn and Cory standing in line to see Santa. It was really cold, so Doakie and Gramps stayed in the car with Rhealee until we got closer to Santa's House.

December 19th we celebrated Christmas with Cory's family. This is a weekend long of event of lots of laughter and games!!! Everyone gets there early Saturday afternoon, stays the night and spends most of Sunday hanging out and playing games. We open presents and pillow cases on Saturday night.

Here is Taryn scratching her first lottery ticket!!! I am a proud mommy! To bad she didn't win!

Here is Rhealee just hanging out as we dig through her pillow case!!

Taryn was so excited to see what was in her pillow case she couldn't slow down to really see what was in there.

That Saturday while we were getting everything ready to go to Ganky's house Rhealee decided that she was ready to start climbing. In this picture notice the red and white package that she is standing on!!! She was very proud of herself. Here's the thing though, I wasn't quick enough with my camera and she feel off before I could snap the picture, so being the great mother that I am and wanting to get a picture of this I encouraged her and helped her climb back up there so that I could snap the picture!!!!The girls are very lucky to a fabulous babysitter that loves them like her own. She spoiled them rotten his Christmas including these most adorable matching pajamas!! Taryn was very excited because they have "Mermaid" on them!

I hope everyone had a very exciting and relaxing Christmas!!! We enjoyed spending time with our families and friends!!! I have started a new "scrapping" project with my friend Cathie. I am trying to take a picture a day and then journal what is going on in our everyday lives. I have pictures ready to go and hopefully in the next couple of days I will be able to start posting them on here. I will see how it actually goes with me sitting down to scrapbook something!!! Wish me luck, I tend to loose interest when it comes to scrapping!!!!