The Tale of Four Christmases

What a wonderful holiday season we have had. I find myself saying this every year and feel more strongly about it each time; we are so very, very blessed. The love and support of family and friends, the financial blessings, the physical blessings; they are all overflowing in our lives and I cannot help but rejoice and praise God for what He has done. I recognize that all good and perfect things are from God and I give Him glory. Thank you, Lord for your overwhelming presence in my family.

We have enjoyed many holiday celebrations over the last couple of weeks. Papaw and Mamaw came to visit, followed by Christmas with the Parker clan, which is never dull, then a trip to Grandma's house and finally home for Christmas day. Wow.

I have not been as good as usual with taking pictures, not sure why. I actually made it home from Grandma's house without a single picture of our trip. I guess we will have to go back!

Here are a few snapshots of our happy holiday gatherings. We are looking forward to one more family get together tomorrow to see Danna and Trey, in town from Denver and then our annual progressive dinner with the neighbors on New Year's Eve, so there is a lot more fun in store!

wolves from Gre*t Wolf Lod*e. Papaw and Mamaw are sending us for a night at the water park!

Thanks, Santa, for bringing Soren this chemistry set...now, please don't let her do anything crazy with it!

Santa gave me money to sign up for my next race; April 25th in Galveston!

Our biggest surprise this Christmas...snow!

the craziness that is the Parker Christmas.

It was an American Gi*l Christmas for Soren and Reese. Grandma gave the dolls and sewed endless outfits for them, Nana gave the four-poster beds, cousins gave fun accessories and Santa brought a salon chair.

Pops recently bought a bike, therefore he needed some bike shorts and bike shoes. We demanded a model of the shorts, the socks and shoes were his idea.

popcorn shirts!

"Suffer the family picture" time. I did not get us to a studio like I had planned this season, so this is as good as it gets

Papaw, Mamaw, Soren and Reese

the story of the long horn: there was a random cowboy (he was the REAL thing!) who had his VERY OLD long horn at the corner gas station. He was charging $10/person to climb up and take a picture (you had to provide the camera). We were driving by, saw the bull, just happened to have my camera in the car, so we stopped, Papaw paid $20 for my city girls to sit on a cow and I took pictures. Too bad I don't know how to make the back ground fuzzy so it is not so obvious that we were just sitting on the side of the highway.

we made lots of crafts with Papaw and Mamaw. A gingerbread house, Christmas ornaments, and other various activities that we are generally too busy to enjoy. It was fun to relax and play with no thoughts of school or schedules