Merry Christmas!

We are having a fabulous Christmas!  The kids actually slept in until 7:30 AM.  It was a wonderful gift to Michael and I.  :)

We looked at Chritmas lights last night and Leah loved it.  She squealed with delight every time she saw a house lit up.  We read the Christmas story and had a good night's sleep. 

We are so grateful for all of our gifts.  We are truely blessed!  We wish we could be with our families for Christmas, but settled for phone calls, skype, and messages.  We love and miss you all!

We are also having a white Christmas!  Awesome!  It is the best way to celebrate Our Saviour's Birth!  We hope you are all having a Merry Christmas!  ps Leah picked our the hat and put it on. 

Work in Progress

We are working on reorganzing and redoing our room situation.  Michael just finished making the bunkbeds below.  We are adding a loft on tomorrow, so I will update if all goes well.  ;)  The boys slept on the beds all night and they are still standing!  Michael is impressive!  The boys loved them!  We were both super tired after this project.  Michael painted the room as well.  We are getting stuff done this Holiday break! 

 

 

 

This is our finished product!  Yeah, I am so proud!

Gingerbread Trains and Fish

 

Michael won the gingerbread train kit at work as his white elephant gift.  The kids had fun decorating it.

 

I also found a really good deal on a fish tank. It is just a 10 gallon one.  Michael loves fish and so I had Tony help me get it.  I couldn't very well hide a fish tank until Christmas and I certainly couldn't move it by myself so he got it early.

 

 

The kids love it as well!  They have named the fish Simon, North Electricute, South, Santiago, Bumblebee, Optimus, and Wade.  The names cracked me up.  Santiago has a mustache so that is even more funny.  :) 

 

Christmas Around the Corner

 We have been busy this Christmas season.  We set up our tree after Joshua's Birthday.  The kids had a good time. 

 We bought this tree when we first got married and Michael didn't think we would still have it 7 years later.  ha ha!  Some day we will have a bigger one, but I like our little tree.

We also went to the lighting of Downtown Garland.  It was fun.  There were fireworks and the kids loved it.  Joshua said it was better then the 4th of July because they weren't as loud.  The kids also got to go snow tubing.  They loved it.  I guess you can say it was Texas style!

 

 

Happy Birthday Joshua!

I can't believe my boy is 6!  He is getting so big.  We celebrated by going to the zoo and invited some friends. 

 

 

Joshua doesn't get to hang with his friends all that much, due to school, so it was fun to get everyone together.

We saw lots of animals and playeda the playground.

 

On Sunday we had family over.  We ate pizza and cake.  Joshua also got to open his presents.  He was very blessed. 

I attemped the Transfmormers decal on his cake.  It is hard to tell, but it was still tasty.  He seemed to have a great day!  He is doing really well in school.  He loves to play and is very independent.  He is a great brother.  We are so glad you are in our lives Joshua! Love ya!

West Family Gathering Photo Bomb Duck, NC

We had a 24 hour drive to Duck, North Carolina.  The kids did well for the most part.  Leah got a little car sick going through the mountains.  All in all we made it in one piece.  

There was a fun indoor pool that we all got to play in.  The above picture we are on our way to the Club house to play.

We played at the beach just about every day.  

Everyone all cozy on the couch.  Almost everyone who was in the house at the time is in this photo except Joshua.  I love it.  

Leah was getting over a cold and did not enjoy the beach at all.  She was cranky most of the time.  Poor Girl!

Joshua and Sarah building a castle

Playing in the ocean.  It was a little cold.  :)  Dallin actually fell in all the way.  Poor kid!  He was distracted by dogs and didn't notice the wave coming in.  

Playing on the dock near in the Sound.

Susie and Leah playing at the playground.  They look so much alike!

Boys playing at the playground

 

Kira and Jason drove down to play with us for a day.  We had a lots of fun.

The boys loved having the waves chase them onto the shore

My cute boy!

My other cute boy!

Dallin is running away from the wave.  

My kids loved playing in the sand.  Michael and I also went kayaking.  I have no pictures of that since we went by ourselves, but it was fun!

I just needed proof that I saw Max and Emily.  :)

Car ride home wasn't bad at all.  No one throwing up!  :)  Thank you Aunt Jennifer for the dolls.  Leah loves them and it entertained her on the way home.

Dallin hanging out on the way home.

We had wonderful time.  It was worth the long drive!  All of the cousins were so nice to my boys!  My boys are a little younger so I wasn't sure how they would fit in.  It all worked out great!  We loved seeing everyone and wish we could spend more time.  The food was delicious!  Thank you everyone who made it possible!!

Half Marathon!

Okay so I am going to have a little brag post.  :)  I ran my first half marathon on Saturday.  These are the lovely ladies who ran with me.  We all did really well on a really tough course.  We were either running up hill or down hill.  I am not sure why it looks like I have a huge love handle on my right side in the above picture, but no worries I am not lopsided like that.  :) 

Jenny, Elise and I all managed to place.  I don't care how old you are it feels good to win a medal!  It was a smaller race with not very many sponsers so it was fun not to have to fight crowds.

Elise did awesome.  It is so fun to have people to run with.  I couldn't have accomplished this goal without all of this support.  Michael was wonderful to take the kids for the morning and every other time I run. 

Tony was grea to come and support us.  He took good care of all of us.  Thanks you Tony!

The weather was cool in the morning and warmed up to 80 fast.