Bankhead Christmas Part 1

Welp, Christmas is officially over for us this year. We had it 3 weekends in a row! This past weekend was Christmas with my side of the family. We went to Houston this year to my mom's side of the family Christmas celebration. I'm gonna break this blog down into three parts because I have so many pics! (Are you surprised?... if you don't like all the pics, I'm sorry... but I do it for my own memories to come back to later!)

So, we got down there on New Year's day (which is why Steve and I didn't celebrate at midnight!- we had to get up early to travel). Friday during the day it was just my immediate family there so we could do "our" Christmas with each other. Below are pics of that get together...

Talk about hard trying to get all of them to look at the camera at the same time... I had my camera on "burst" mode and this is the best I got...


Skip to the "after we opened presents" part of the day... we all just hung out while the kids played and ran around.





That evening is when everyone else came over for the "big family gift exchange". The kids went "caroling" with B-Mom and Pop... this is them singing to us...


And then coming in out of the cold when they were done... it was so cute!!!


We gave Julia and Mallory each a little chest with princess dress up clothes in it... jewelry, shoes, crowns, dresses, everything. Well, while the adults (the men) had their Christmas exchange, the ladies dressed up the kids in some of those costumes!!!




After the gift exchange was over, the kids just chilled. Here are the pics of all the sets of cousins...

Johnathan just chillin in PawPaw's chair...


Morgan cheesin'


Twins- Hunter and Hannah (my cousin Kevin- and Mandy's kids)


Kaitlyn (my cousin Keith- and Jana's little girl)


These cousins love each other... Julia and Mallory just chillin' in PawPaw's chair


now with Morgan...


Stay tuned for 2 more blogs with pics and updates from our Christmas in Houston...

New Year's Eve 2009 (lunch date with my hubby!)

So, Steve and I celebrated our New Year's Eve a little early today. We have to be up early in the morning, so we decided we do our celebration for lunch! We went to Gruene, TX and had lunch at The Gristmill!

I got out my camera and took some pics(of course... I mean, who are you kidding? Me, not have my camera with me... yea, right!)

We've only been there one other time and that was within our first year of marriage. It was a BEAUTIFUL day!!! It was in the 70's and the sun was shining! Perfect for being outside. We ate out on one of the decks... it's right on the river, so they have a lot of outdoor seating on multiple layers of decks!

Here's the view from our seat...



My handsome date:


Do you see anything that doesn't belong in this picture? (I'll give you a hint, it's not the lettuce, ketchup, plate, or the table)


did you see it????

Let me zoom in a little for ya...


These little unwanted guests enjoyed eating with us too!! They didn't sting us, but I was still not enjoying their company!


And here we are... the happy, in-love, unstung-by-bees couple!


After we ate, we walked around Gruene into the little shops... and enjoyed a Blue Bell Cookie's and Cream Ice Cream cone while we walked around! Fun date with my husband!! Happy New Year's Everyone!!!

Gingerbread House!!! (or not so much of a house)

We had a "gingerbread house" night with our lifegroup a few weeks ago! We bought our own supplies instead of the little kit you can buy.

Everyone's (well, almost everyone) house turned out really cute! I'd like to say this is the house we built...



BUT... it's not! Our house fell in while we were "painting" (icing) the rooftop. So, Steve and I finally just starting sticking stuff on it, drawing letters, eating it, etc. It was pretty pathetic!



Steve and Lisa and Austin and Shanna's all turned out really cute! Here's the group shot of all of us...


Steve and I laughing at our hideous house!


It was fun... but we are going to be buying the kit next time!!!

See below for another new post... (and stay tuned for more!)

Morse Christmas 2009

We had Christmas with Steve's side of the family the week of Dec 19th. We adopted a family thru our church this year instead of doing Christmas gifts with each other. We still did gifts for the kiddos... so below are pics of that.


This is Autumn's favorite way to smile when a camera is in her face!


Zach with the football we gave him

Autumn with the "tot spot" chair we gave her


We also celebrated Sherry's birthday while we were all together. Steph made the BEST CAKE EVER!!!!


Steve and I have made a tradition to always get a card with a butt crack on it(no matter what the occassion... bday, anniversary, whatever). So, this is Sherry's b-day card... (if you knew how modest Sherry was, you would know these just embarrass her to death! In fact, I think it is hard for her to have her pic taken with the card!)



So, for actual Christmas Day... Steve and I went to Temple. We went up there on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed our trip because on the way to see them, we stopped in and had lunch with Titus and Michelle (remember Steve's volleyball friend from HSU that I blogged about here). They are such an amazing family! I am honored to get to know them and can tell that I'm gonna have a great friendship with Michelle! Oh, and by the way... as we were leaving their house we got to see some snow flurries!! YAY!!! That's as good as it gets for us!

So, we got to Temple and chilled with Ted and Sherry that evening. (Steph went to Ed's family celebration for Christmas, so we didn't get to see them Christmas day). Christmas morning we got up and had a YUMMY breakfast... waffles, bacon, and sausage!


We all went to see "The Blind Side" on Christmas day... it's such an AWESOME MOVIE! If you haven't seen it... YOU NEED TO! It will bless you!

The day after Christmas we drove to Lake Belton to check out some Christmas lights. Here are a few...


We had a very relaxing and WONDERFUL time during our Christmas celebrations with the Morse side of the family! I'll update my blog after the Bankhead side of Christmas celebrations (which take place this weekend!). Hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

I'll leave you with Autumn wishing Sherry a "Happy Birthday!" So precious!

Thanksgiving 2009 (late with pics)

I'm really behind in my blogging! I was wanting to update for each little event or whatever... but since I am behind I'm just going to download a bunch of pics of what we've been up to. I'll give a brief summary and will put a few comments by the pics, but other than that, it's all pics/videos! Enjoy...

Thanksgiving day we had lunch at Steph and Ed's house (Steve's sister). His parents came to town and some of Ed's family came over too. We had all kinds of WONDERFUL food!!! Here's a pic of all the delicious stuff...


The decor...


This is okra (FROM OUR GARDEN!) as it's being fried... it was GOOOOOOODDDD!!!!


I made armadillo eggs...


Ted made these little desserts... how cute are these???!!!!!



We went to Burk the day after Thanksgiving (after I got off work). On Saturday, we went to the little park in Burk and TRIED to take some "family" pics (Me, Steve, and our dogs, Briley and Landry). It was SO STINKIN' WINDY the pictures didn't turn out very good. Briley and Landry aren't in this pic very well because they were looking around at the ducks and everyone else at the park!


Mom and dad look nice don't they!!!!


I got to sing with my childhood friends (Mindy and Hillary) at church that Sunday morning. Here are some videos of us recording ourselves before service. I love these girls and wish we all lived closer so we could sing together more often!



We left Burk and went to stay the night with my brother (Jason) and his family!!! It was so much fun since we don't get to see them very often!!!! We got to play with the kiddos a little bit before dinner and bed time. One thing that was so special to me was getting to put both of the kids to bed!!! I got to "read" to Johnathan and then say a little prayer over him after I put him in his crib... he's such an awesome little boy!!! Quick funny story about him was that when we got there, he wouldn't come to me at all, but dove right into Steve's arms! Then, we were all in the playroom and Steve was sitting on the floor and Johnathan would just run and jump into Steve! At first, Steve wasn't expecting it, so he barely caught him before he busted Steve right in the chest! It was adorable! You can tell he loves to play and wrestle with his daddy!

I got to tuck Julia in for bed too! She has a little tradition where she picks our her animals, books, and then climbs into bed. We read stories (she made them up while looking at a book... something about French man with French pants, with French socks, with French flowers!! LOL!!! It was so funny!) Then I got to hear her say her prayer and then I got to pray too... so special!

This is what we saw when we walked in the door to their house...


Playing in the playroom




Wish we lived closer so we could see them more often!! At least now they only live about 3.5 hours away!!! YAY!!!!

Stay tuned for more posts!!!!