New Year's Getaway

Andy took a little over 2 weeks off around the holidays. He does that every year and it's very nice! It helps us get ready for not seeing him much... We decided to drive up to my parents' place for New Years. We actually drove up on the Friday before New Years and came home the Wednesday after, January 2nd. It was a nice amount of time and was very relaxing. It was definitely colder than Thanksgiving, so we hung out inside quite a bit. We drove down to Longview on Saturday to do some shopping and go to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. We did church on Sunday. Monday and Tuesday we just relaxed. My mom made her fabulous clam chowder, which rivals any trip to Pismo Beach. I believe on New Year's Eve we played games, watched the ball drop in NYC, and then went to bed. We celebrated at 11 pm! Here are a few pictures of our little getaway.

Ian's most favorite spot:

Fooling around after a long car drive:

 

Fun at Chuck E. Cheese:

  

Getting stronger and driving everyone crazy with the sound of the chair scraping along the tile:

Fun with the teether:

 

Audrey and Ian playing:

  

Ian and Papa Michaelson:

 Audrey as Snow White:

This picture cracks me up (and it's not because of Misty's green eyes)! Every night when Grandma would give the girls their bath these 2 would hang out together outside the door waiting for them to be done.

 More fun with the teether:

 Rachel and Ian just chillin':

 

Ian's first taste of ice cream, courtesy of Papa:

  

Our last morning there both Papa and Grandma were back to work. While we packed up, Ian discovered the toilet paper:

 

Lots of pictures of Ian this trip! It was so nice to go up and relax. It was a great way to say farewell to 2012, which was a good year for us. We feel extremely blessed and are looking forward to what 2013 has in store for our family...

Christmas Day

We had some very excited girls Christmas morning!!! Here they are before we headed out to see what Santa had left:

Ian was even excited:

The kids loved their stocking treasures and their gift from Santa. The girls got exactly what they asked for. Audrey wanted a play pizza set and Rachel wanted a vet set. Ian got a train set. It was a Christmas of sets! :)

Ian super-excited about the light-up, bouncy ball:

We then switched to the presents from us, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our kids sure get spoiled! The kids took turns opening one present at a time. I like doing it this way, so Christmas isn't over in 5 minutes. Plus it's fun to watch the excitement on their faces and you miss it if they're all going at it at once. Here are each of the kids with their pile of presents:

 

Here are a few photos of the kids with various different gifts:

The rest of the day was very relaxing. We spoke to quite a few family members on the phone, took naps, watched movies, and had leftovers from Christmas Eve. It was very nice!

Christmas Lights & Christmas Eve

On Sunday, December 23rd, we went with a drive with some friends to see some Christmas lights. Our first stop was a house in Brightwater that has Santa riding a roller coaster in their front yard. The kids love it! We were excited they set it up this year. Some years they take off... Watching Santa on his roller coaster:

We then drove to another neighborhood, Pecan Grove, to check out the Christmas decorations there. Even Ian got quite excited about checking out the lights. 

Jace & Rachel in front of the most decked out house you'll ever see:

 Merry Christmas Y'all!

 

Christmas Eve was a very busy, fun day. I actually worked out that morning. My fun cycling instructor had us jamming out to Christmas music. Shortly after lunch we went ice skating. A family from our church rents out a local ice skating rink on Christmas Eve for 2 hours and invites everyone to come. This was the first year we made it and it was so much fun! Andy's work didn't do their usual family Christmas party, so it was nice to have this option. And it was much better than his work party in that all our friends were there! I was grateful to have the excuse of tending to Ian. So, I didn't bother getting skates. Andy was a good dad and took everyone out on the ice.

Ian even went ice sledding:

They had interesting skates. We've always really like the double blades. But these ones were weird. We just strapped the double blades on to the girls current shoes. It worked though, so that's all the mattered.

I love this picture of two friends just chatting away:

A picture of all of us:

 

A video clip of the girls skating:

Cute skaters!

Ian and I behind the glass watching:

We got home around 4 pm and had some friends over for Christmas Eve dinner and cookie decorating. There's a few of us around here who don't have any family around and we've made a tradition of getting together on Christmas Eve. We take turns hosting and we took our turn this year. The kids love decorating cookies to leave for Santa.

 

 

The whole crew decorating away:

 

Happy, smiley Ian on Christmas Eve:

 

By the time our friends left the kids were all tired enough to collapse for a good night's rest.

Merry Christmas!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

In our home, 2012 will be remembered as the year...

• Ian was born on 1/12/12.
• Of doctor's appointments - well checks, allergist, dermatologist, optometrist, and ENT.
• We went to Utah in June and also made it up to St. Charles, ID.
• Met the whole Michaelson bunch in Tennessee for a week.
• Got rid of all the wallpaper in our house.
• Audrey started Joy School (preschool by mommy and friends).
• Rachel lost her first 2 teeth.

We hope all is well with you and yours!

With love,

Andy, Laura, Rachel (6 1/2), Audrey (4), and Ian (11 months) 

Gymnastics

Rachel's extracurricular activity of choice this year is gymnastics. She did ballet last year, but wanted to switch to gymnastics this school year. After her first week of gymnastics she declared, "Gymnastics is so much more fun than ballet!" I'm so glad she's found something she enjoys. And she has the perfect little petite, yet strong, build for gymnastics. Last semester she was at Gymtex and on December 17th they held a Parents Night so the children could share with us what they learned. For about an hour Rachel did different routines. At the end she was awarded a medal, which she was thrilled about!

Here are some pictures (it was really hard to get decent pictures from where we were sitting and where Rachel was normally doing her stuff, but we did our best):

 Stretching:

Receiving "the medal":

Andy was able to get one decent video when one of her routines was right by where we were sitting: