Soren's 14th Birthday

Happy 14 to my sweet Soren!  I cannot say it enough - I am so proud of you and blessed beyond anything I could ever imagine to be your mother.  What a joy you are.  Everyone who spends time with you makes the same comment.  It is amazing how many complements I get from other adults about you!  And you have chosen a wonderful group of friends who seem to have the same values and friendly characteristics as you.  It was so much fun to see you play at the trampoline park on your birthday and your friends were a pleasure to have in our home.  I hope you had a great birthday and look forward to many, many more.  I love you!

Tori, Soren, Riley and Tana

 BFFs

 Soren said she would not mind if Reese brought some friends along, too.  She is the sweetest big sister ever!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Given the fact that these are the best kids ever and they love to put on shows, I decided to ask if they would like to surprise their parents with a play on Christmas Eve.  They eagerly agreed and I chose to do the story of the first Christmas.  Thanks to the internet, finding a script was a breeze and we started practicing.  We had so much fun!  We painted back drops and had costumes and karaoke; it was the best Christmas pageant ever!  Thanks, guys, for working so hard.  It was awesome!

Christmas

This was an amazing Christmas.  It was about family, and family there was!!  18 of us ascended upon Pops and Nana's house for 2 days of food, food, food, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, and tons of fun with family.

We started it off right.  With fried food :)  Christmas Eve dinner was chaw bread!  Pops even let me help make the dough!  Maybe one day I will get to see the secret recipe!

Did I mention there were gifts?

With 18 of us in the house, we slept anywhere we could find a spot. 

A framed fox picture to Danna with love from Parker

Anna helps Reese sing some karaoke 

A White Christmas!  In Texas!  We woke up to wonderful rain (we are in a pretty bad drought) and mid-morning it changed over to big, white, fluffy flakes of snow!  The kids were beyond excited and HAD to be out in it even though they did not have the right gear to play in sopping wet snow.

I love this.  Pops made prime rib for Christmas lunch (it was amazing!) and I snapped this pic so that I could post this:

"And the Grinch carved the roast beast"   haha :)

Oops.  Slight mishap while playing with the helicopter

This is how Texas kids water proof their shoes for playing in the snow...