Monday, January 1, 2018

Christmas 2017, Part 1

Our German family came to visit us for Christmas!  The boys have grown so much!  Zane and Elliot were best buddies the whole time and I'm pretty sure they ganged up on Nolan.  Poor Nolan.  But he held his own pretty good.  :)  Both are just cuties. 

Kid friendly supper!  Chicken strips!
Playing with her cousins while Zane was at school and the others were shopping.

They sure loved the train.


He wasn't quite as into the hug as I was.  Sorry Nolan.

But they did snuggle up to Grandma!
 After school one day we went to the park.  It was cold, but the kids had a grand time.  I loved how their hair stood up with static going down the slide.



 At Grandma's apartment.  Rachel started the snuggles because Elliot had a jacket right out of the dryer!





Guests at Zane's school program.

So thankful for their help in getting ready to make gingerbread houses with the church kids!
 Visited the cold animals at the Texas Zoo!


Jaguar!

 Gingerbread house making!  It was a success!



 Back at the Texas Zoo-the pictures are not in order-obviously!









 After gingerbread house building, we went to Chucky Cheese for the first time!  I was amazed at all the stuff for them to do!





We then had an early Christmas!

I think Amanda may have lived in Germany longer than we lived together!

Flannel jammies!


Getting lots of help opening presents!



 We visited Leakey!
 One the way we stopped at DQ.


I can't believe I did this, but I needed something to entertain them, so Rachel got a cone (and didn't spill it!!!!) and Zane got a cup of ice cream!
 More Early Christmas!  Sorry for the order!






Cute cousins!

With stockings!








Playing games!









Best cousins!








Finally got her to take a nap! 

Had a devo!

Andre did a lesson for the kids!

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Driveway Improvements!

The weather has gotten cooler and Jeff finally got to work on his special project!  It was really hard work digging, but it paid off because it looks awesome!
Digging out the dirt and setting the retaining wall stones. 

With the best helpers in the world.

He did such a precise job!

One side done!

ta-da!

Sooooo cool.  He had blocks leftover, so he calculated how many blocks it would take to make me a flowerbed around the flagpole! 

Cutting a retaining wall brick in half.

Ta-da!  We had one and a half bricks left!

Digging an irrigation line to it!

All family affair!

Filling the flowerbed!


All done!

Tough girl!!!!
 Thanks for my flowerbed, Jeffy!!!  I am so happy with it!


SNOW Day!

For the first time in 13 years, we had snow in our town in early December!  The kids saw snow for the first time.  It was really wet and heavy, perfect for a snowman.  We probably got about 4 inches.
Early Morning Snow!




See it for the first time!

Christmas lights and snow!


Zane didn't want to get out in it, Rachel either, but he thought riding a tractor in it would be alright.  :)














The afternoon, all was gone except the snowman balls!