Christmas Recap...

We had a great Christmas, making the most of visiting family and friends while we were there...as always, there were many more people I would have loved to see, but time always seems to move too quickly!







The first weekend the kids and I were in Texas, we headed to Houston to catch up with the college roomies! Since Brody was born in May of 2006, three of my college roomies have also given birth to baby boys, the youngest being Mr. Cameron who was born in July of 2007! Alexa managed the evening with "all boys" pretty well, proving what a capable "big sister" she is!




At one point or another during the weekend, each of the boys ended up with the wire wisk...I'm not sure what the fascination was, but here's Brody's moment with the wisk! Girls - if any of you have photos of the other boys, post 'em or email 'em!







This was Brody's other form of entertainment for the weekend - reorganizing Emily's Mary Kay products, which, if anything like college, I guessing before this moment they were either in carefully coordinated numerical order or in color groups! I like to call this photo "Mary Kay Mayhem!"

Our dear friends from Columbia, Juli and Kirby, (ok, so they're FROM TX, but we met them as neighbors in Columbia - gotta love the military!) drove all the way from Tyler to Orange so we could spend some time together - of course, now, more than ever, Alexa has no concept of distance since her 'neighbor' was at Grandma's house! Here's a few photos of Karis and Alexa, and Brody and Karson - the boys were not as willing to cooperate as the girls!











I was also thrilled to get to catch up with a few friends from High School (and before!) Jenny and I have known each other since we were two and it was a surreal experience to see our children playing together! She and Mark (and their four kiddos) drove down from Livingston to spend the Sunday before Christmas with us! My brother's best friend from childhood, Nathan, and his family also came over Sunday, so it was truly a flashback reunion!










And, Misty Stutes (ok SMITH) and her hubby and mom also came out for a visit since they were in town from California for the holidays. All this in addition to spending time with John and Misty, the grandparents, and all of my extended family! Here's a few more super cute photos from the holidays!


Our Utah family shipped gifts to Texas, and the kids seemed to think the shipping material was part of the gift..."snow" from Utah! (little did they know less than one month later, they would have all the snow they could ever want...)






The kids also got to spend lots of times with cousins, cousins, and more cousins! Alexa loved getting to spend so much time with Haylee, and as you can see from the photos below, neither girl is very camera shy!


























we managed to get a group shot of most of my dad's side of the family - no small feat!!






And, with my mom around with her camera, we managed to get photos of Misty with her baby (since she is typically behind the camera at her house) and Billy with Brody for the same reason!