Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve dinner and party at Grandpa and Grandma Shelton house.  We were able to sit all of us at the table, a first in a while!

The girls by Grandpa and Grandmas Christmas tree:

We had fun dancing while we waited for everyone to arrive.

The whole clan!

Grandpa and Grandma take the kids out while "Santa" comes.  This is them all coming back into the room.

 Grandma got the girls the Barbie Dreamhouse they have been wanting for a few years.  We didn't know if we'd find room for it, but we just went for it anyway.  They were so excited!

 This is a lamp that Brad made for his dad's hunting room.  This is one of billy's skulls from a buck he shot.

 The Barbie dreamhouse fit and the girls have been playing with it for 2 hours non stop since they came home.

9th Anniversary

In honor of our 9th anniversary next week, I made this video of our memories together.  I couldn't have picked a better person to spend forever with. I love you Brad.

 (It changed the quality when I uploaded it here, so it will be blurry if  you make it bigger, sorry).

School Christmas Program

Hailey and Callie got to be in the same school Christmas program this year.  It was fun getting to see both our girls! They did such a great job.  I loved seeing how different their personalities were when they sang.  Hailey was serious, and focused and wouldn't crack a smile.  And Callie had constant eyes on mom and smiling and waving at me while she was singing :)

Ray Family Christmas Party

We had a great time at Debbie's family's Christmas Party.  The kids were so excited to see Grandma Ray, that was all they could talk about.  They sure loved the gifts that she got for them too.  There first set of "Ever After High Dolls". It was so great seeing everyon!

My nieces and nephew:

The girls loved playing with their cousins.

Christmas fun

We have a few Christmas traditions at our house and one of them is to make up goodie plates for our neighbors.  I can still remember when our neighbor Marla used to make the best cinnamon rolls for our family, and although I am not near as good a baker as her, I still love doing it.  The girls love to help and this year they wanted to carry the plates all by themselves, I was just sure one of them would trip and drop a plate, but they didn't, they did good!

There job was to unwrap all the hersheys kisses that went on top of the peanut butter cookies.

Another tradition that we have is the "Elf on the shelf."  We got him out for family home evening last week. Brad read the story to them this year, our elfs name is "Little Red". 

Our Elf has already reported back to Santa several times and been up to a lot of mischief.

Last week we had a hippy group meeting for my work and Santa came! The girls were happy to get out of school to go see him.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving break.  I got to spend a whole week home with my girls and Brad.  Brad and I slept in almost every morning and it was so nice.  I also did a lot of shopping and got most of their Christmas done, which feels great because now I can just relax and enjoy the beautiful Christmas season!  I had been really wanting to go hunting over the break and Brad took me during the break and I got a small buck.

  I still felt like their was another buck calling my name though.  I wanted to go after work yesterday, but Brad wasn't going to be off in time.  So he told me to go ahead and go by myself.  At first I was like "Myself? I can't do it alone!"  But then the more I thought about it, I thought why not?  So long story short, I ended up going and I shot a buck!  I was so excited!  It was so much more fun than having Brad load my gun, tell me when a deer was coming, etc.  I found out I really did have what it takes by loading it, changing my scope, making sure it was legal before I shot.  Such an adrenaline rush!

We also had a great Thanksgiving day with Brads family.  And of course had lots of yummy food and fun with cousins.  Here are some pics from our day: