You Will Find the Baby Wrapped in Swaddling Clothes Lying in a Manger...

Is that not the cutest little shepherd you've ever seen! This was Hunter's first year in the Christmas play at church. He was a little apprehensive about dressing up like a shepherd, but once he got there and saw that everyone else was dressed silly too, he jumped right in. He didn't do a whole lot of singing up there. He mostly spent the time pondering sitting down..which he finally did. There was also that time he hollered out "These shoes are making my feet hot Daddy!" He did mouth a few words and do a few hand signals. Mom and Dad enjoyed it no matter what! I threw in a photo of Thomas's birthday and somehow it ended up right in the middle of the others. No, Thomas didn't want a pink cake, but his favorite is strawberry...so he got a pink cake. Hunter and Haley were both soooooooo excited to make Daddy feel special on his birthday. Haley was even saying, "happy, happy, happy" to him over and over again.

It Snowed In Houston!

Ok, so I know the grass is still green here and it doesn't look at all like winter, but this was exciting for us in south Texas! We haven't had snow here since Hunter's first Christmas Eve and it was gone before sunrise Christmas morning. Hunter has been watching all the Christmas shows on TV and notices snow in all of them. He keeps telling me, "Mommy, when Christmas comes, it gets real cold and then the rain turns to snow, and it will snow Mommy when Christmas comes!" We keep trying to prepare him for no snow since there my likely be no snow here for many years to come, but he's not having any of that news. So of course now, he was right and we are just the stupid parents. What do we know?!!! We weren't expecting the snow to come as south as Houston on Wednesday, but low and behold I noticed rain outside that was falling silently and floating down like leaves. After a closer look, it was snow! Hunter was soooo excited! He ran around the yard for a while and was asking "when will it be enough to build a snowman?" I told him it doesn't usually snow enough here to build a snowman. That night all he could talk about was "when I wake up in the morning I am going to go outside and build a big, big snowman and throw lots and lots of snowballs!" Again, doesn't matter what we say, what do we know? However, just like it always goes in the bayou city the snow was gone by morning and 2 days later it was 70 degrees outside today. I'll have to check out my mom's pictures. Apparently the snow stuck on the ground for a while at her house (and she's even closer to the coast). Guess we REALLY need to send Hunter up to visit all his his relatives in Colorado. That's where the real deal is.

Trimming the Tree

So the Wednesday before thanksgiving, Thomas and I are done with work (outside the home that is)...and Hunter is already busting our tails to get the tree and it's entourage down from the attic. He had to wait a while. At least until Haley had gone to bed for the night. Hunter and Thomas put the tree up. It's quite the pain in the ... as you have to spread the branches and assemble one branch at a time from the bottom up. By 10:30pm we told Hunter we would put the lights on Thursday morning. He was pretty upset since he thought we would finish all the tree decorating and outdoor lights that night. So Thanksgiving morning we put the lights on the tree while we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. We hadn't really thought about it, but Hunter had never seen a parade. He didn't even know what a parade was! Terrible parents...I know! We've always been on the run to someones house or busy cooking and preparing for guest. This year was so nice. Low key, nothing at our house...not much to cook. So we got the lights on just in time to head out for our Thanksgiving feast at Aunt Diane's house. We had fun with our cousins. They may not have enjoyed us too much as Hunter told them (all Aggies) "It's not a good day to be an Aggie!" Never the less we had fun. Each holiday we realize there are more and more babies in the family. Pretty soon the little people will rule the roost! They kind of already do. So Friday we got the tree finished after a day of horses and four wheelers at Grandmommy's house. Finally last night we got all of the outside lights up. For those of you who don't know how obnoxious we are...we have a lit up longhorn pulling Santa's sleigh in our yard with a lit Texas sign. Hunter loves his Christmas Bevo. He now wants to go out and feed Bevo every morning and evening and let him in and out of his (pretend) barn. He looks out the window and checks on him a lot because one year he looked out there and found Bevo upside down (one of those Aggie cousins). The rest of you better get your lights up because Hunter's already asking to go out looking at Christmas lights in the car. He doesn't understand why there are not many up yet. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope you all are enjoying as many singing Christmas toys (Rudolph's, singing sleighs, jingle bells, talking nativity scenes- thanks Grandmommy, barking singing dogs and lambs- thanks Joanna)as we are!