Merry Christmas 2016

I love wrapping presents and seeing all the pretty packages under the tree!

We spent Christmas Eve with my family at H&Ps house as we do every year. We ate delicious appetizer foods, opened presents and enjoyed time together with our immediate family!

We take a good family picture every year and I love seeing how everyone grows and changes each year. Hudsons face in this picture is to die for!

Dreaming about opening all those wonderful presents

Ready to open his gifts

My pretty girl was ready too

Mason and Ada playing with his awesome new slot car track

We woke up Christmas morning and Santa had made a visit to our house!

She had the best reaction, about books of course!

We went back over to H&Ps house for Christmas lunch.

Cousin fun on Christmas

Then we went to Gamaw and Papaws house to celebrate with them.

Cheesing it with cousin Christian

Present time again!

Later that night we played a fun card game and enjoyed our time together.

It was such a fun holiday full of family, tradition, and celebrating Jesus birth through giving and love for others. I love Christmas and look forward to next year!

December Fun

Our December was just full of fun and Christmas celebrations!

We did our annual mall Santa pictures. Mason really did not want to do it but he humored me. Well, really he did it for the dippin dots I bribed him with.

Waiting for their turn with Santa

This little child loves Santa! She could sit and talk to him all day long!

Their Santa pic turned out pretty cute! You can tell Mason's thinking, let's get this over with already. (He is his fathers son!)

Mommy had a wonderful time at my annual Christmas dinner and Kendra Scott exchange with these sweet friends of mine!

That weekend we had tickets to the Polar Express. Luckily we were on the late train so we were able to stay in town long enough to go to our tiny friends birthday party. It was a Christmas themed pajama party and it was absolutely adorable!!

The kids had a blast and we sure do love these two sweet girls and their amazing parents!

A HUGE nasty Arctic front blew in as the party ended and we were leaving town. We got to Lubbock and got checked into our hotel.

They enjoyed checking out our view.

We went to Spankys for dinner, one of our favorites and the kids first time there. Mason enjoyed it...

As we were finishing dinner, I decided to check the weather.

It actually ended up getting down to 9 degrees by the time we left to board our train.

Ready or not, let's do this freezing cold adventure! Luckily, the train cars are heated. It was just the getting to and from the car that we were not looking forward to!

Their red faces pretty much sums up how cold it was!

Phew, all safe and warm on the train!

Me and my babies

My world

Santa!

Getting his bell

So much fun!

The next morning we were able to attend the breakfast with Santa event at the hotel. At this point, Mason was all Santa-d out! But, of course Mallory loved every minute of it.

I adore this picture of my sweet girl giggling with Santa!

The week before Christmas turned out to be a little more interesting than we had planned. We kicked off the week making Gingerbread houses which the kids really enjoyed. I had fun too but it was much more work than I thought it would be, haha.

Mason's house

Mallory's house

But then things went downhill. Mal woke up Tuesday throwing up and proceeded to vomit about 6 or 7 times that day. So we ended up having to miss our school Christmas party on Wednesday. She was still feeling pretty awful that morning and then got some energy that afternoon. Things were looking up on Thursday so we sent the kids for their sleepover at Gamaws house that we already had planned. I got a text from her at about 11 that Mason had started throwing up and Mal was having diarrhea. So D went to pick them up because we did not want to infect their cousins or anyone else out there with our germs! Poor Bubba ended up throwing up ALLLLL night, literally every 2 hours. I felt so bad for him. So Friday was spent lounging and recovering from a week full of yuck and puke. Thankfully D and I made it through the holiday untouched by the bug.

Moments like these just break my Mommy heart. She was so miserable and I felt so helpless. Luckily, the worst of it was over in 24 hours and they were both back to normal within the week.

And thankfully, we were still able to go ahead with our family Christmas plans, which I will blog about next!

Great Wolf Lodge 2016

(Warning: another picture overload post!)

Our best friends asked us to join their family for a surprise winter trip to Great Wolf Lodge. Lacye and I had so much fun planning and getting the kids coordinating clothes and pjs to wear on our trip. The best part is that we did not tell any of the kids. We both decided to tell our kids the day before that we were going to Dallas with Daddy for a work trip and that we were just going to hang out at the hotel. We had both actually done this with our kids before, so none of them ever thought twice about it!

We met at Rainforest Cafe for lunch and they were so surprised to see each other at the restaurant. We were able to eat lunch and then we gathered them outside and told them, "we are going to Great Wolf Lodge!" At first, they were a little confused and then when they realized we weren't actually there for a work trip and that we were all going to GWL together, they could not contain their excitement!

Sweet kids! Right before I turned my video on to tell them what we were really doing!

We also had planned to take them to Build a Bear before heading to get checked in, which they of course loved!

Mason picked Michaelangelo

Mal Mal picked a bunny that she named Lucy

Cleaning their new friends!

So much fun!

The sweet employee offered to take a pic of us all and I love that we have this memory!

We got all checked in and were able to go to the water park for a few hours before dinner and then we attended our first story time!

We loved how their matching Santa jammies turned out!

Ready for our first full day at the water park!

Enough pictures already Moms, bring on the fun!

Let's do this! My favorite part about the trip is that we went during the week and it was so quiet! It felt like we had the place to ourselves!

Love this picture of these 2 sweet boys! I think it's safe to say they had a ton of fun!

We were all over this water park but it's hard to get action shots considering you're at risk for getting wet pretty much everywhere you walk. I was terrified of dropping my phone in water so I tried to keep it in my bag as much as possible!

We ALL had so much fun. Lacye and I went on the big huge funnel slide together and I screamed like a scared little girl the whole time. The kids had a blast doing everything and all the boys were tall enough to do some of the big slides.

The tweedles loved their little bunk room!

Delicious dinner at Pappadeaux

I am so thankful for this lady and her lifelong friendship!

We didn't quite make it back for story time the second night but we watched the clock tower show and then went down for a late night sweet treat!

These 2 girls are so much fun and Lacye and I love sharing the experience of being girl Mom's together! I see many girls weekends and trips in our future!

This was by far my favorite memories we have made with this sweet family. Our kiddos do so well together and have a precious love for each other. So it just makes these times that much more special. We are sure hoping to make this an annual adventure together and I cant wait for next year.

Thanks again Voda family! We love you guys!