Vacation Time....

Well at the end of '08 Bryan still had over 3 weeks vacation that we needed to burn. So he took a week off for Thanksgiving, and over 2 weeks for Christmas. We had some beautiful weather the whole time he was on vacation, and spent some great time as a family. Here are a some pics from a few of the things we did!


We decided to take the girls sledding Texas style! They LOVED it! It was a little unplanned so obviously Payton wasn't dressed for it, but she was right there with Daddy and Madie and was fearless! We sled down that hill on cardboard for hours, and only left because we all needed a potty break! LOL!

All by herself, Mommy was nervous!

Daddy and his girls!

Before their first run.

The same day we took the girls "sledding" we went on a miniature train ride. Payton loves choo choo trains, and both Madie and Bryan were upset they couldn't go with Payton and I last time we went.

Madie loved using her camcorder/digital camera to record as we were passing everything

KING TUT!! We took Madie to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. We all really enjoyed it. They had so many artifacts, most never seen before, and will never be on display again. I never realized how many items fit into their tombs. They had the canister that they stored his liver in, his baby's casket, items he ate with, and tons of other things. I highly recommend this exhibit, and recommend paying the little extra for the audio tour. It is leaving soon and won't ever be on display again, so check it out!!

Madie thought this was way cool.

CHRISTMAS....

We are extremely blessed with a large family so this year was just as busy as always. We had a total of 8 Christmas' not including our own. The hilights this year was Madie got a Wii, that we all love to play together, even Payton. Payton's favorite was her new baby set with a play pen, a new stroller, and bouncy. She got a total of 4 babies this Christmas, and plays with each of them. Santa brought Madie a new skateboard that she has been wanting, my total tomboy. Santa brought Payton a new music set with drums, tamborine, harmonica, and shakers. I didn't get any pics because she was in a mood at first. Madie woke up early, so we had to wake Payton up, and it took her a few minutes to actually wake up. We were making Santa's plate with his milk and cookies, and carrots for the reindeer. Well, as you can see below Payton got a little sneaky and was taking the carrots as Madie was putting them on the plate! We had a very good Christmas, and are so blessed to have a large, supportive, and amazing family to share it with! We love each and every one of you. Payton snuck on of the reindeer's carrots.

Playing with some of their goodies from Santa

Madie's presents

Payton's presents

It's the big one, the Wii!!!

My sweet girls, Madie gave this present to Payton

Madie just beat her Daddy at boxing on the Wii

Payton LOVES her Hannah Montana guitar from Uncle Kyle

Some Of Our Christmas Festivities..

Here are some pictures of a few of our Christmas festivities. Every year we take the girls to look at Christmas lights, and this year was no different. We loaded up the girls in their Christmas PJ's, Christmas blankets, popcorn, and some Christmas music and headed to the Interlochen. We of course had to enter a Starbucks into the GPS because you can't go without that! LOL! It was about 30 degrees outside and we had the windows down the whole time, I have learned to not forget the blankets. There was some teenagers who had a little booth set up and they were selling some goodies, they probably make a killing. Well, we were already out of snacks so we got more popcorn, and Madie got another hot chocolate.
There are also pictures of our Christmas cookie decorating we always do on Christmas Eve. Madie loves helping me roll out the dough, and cut the cookies out. Payton loves to help in the kitchen too, but this year she just decorated because we baked during nap time. We had been so busy this year with Madie having the pox, and me planning a big school event that we kept it simple with the decorating, but the girls loved it, and as you can see Madie couldn't resist biting into one. Don't worry she saved plenty for Santa.
Also we do a Christmas movie night every year the night before Christmas Eve. I am horrible because now I can't remember what movie was chosen by the girls this year. That's what I get for waiting so long to post, sorry! Movie night is always a special night here because I lay down a blanket and they actually get to eat in the living room!

Payton acting silly with Sissy.

Madie rocking out to some Christmas music.

We love it's a Charlie Brown Christmas

Special Treat.

We have Payton in a program called Kindermusik, yes it's with a "K". I strongly believe in the influence that music has on a child. Payton LOVES it, and she loves showing off what she learns in class at home. So as usual we had to burn some of Bryan's vacation days at the end of the year so he didn't lose them. Well, he took off on a Friday so he could go to Kindermusik with us. He doesn't ever get to go because it's during the day, so I was excited for him to see what she does. It was a relatively short class that day because we had some Christmas festivities afterwards. He did get to play the drums with her, sing polly put the kettle on, shake the eggs, and more. She loves her music teacher, Mrs. Ally, Payton calls her SeeSaw Mrs. Ally. She got that name because her favorite song is the SeeSaw song. It's funny because if I drive past music class she throws a fit because I am passing it, she screams "No Mommy it's right there, SeeSaw Mrs. Ally". Check out their website it's an awesome program, and they offer demo classes if you wanna see what it's all about before you invest! Kindermusik.com or thekornerkottage.com.

Itchy...Itchy...

Well, Madie got the chicken pox!!! Come to find out a little boy in her class came to school with them, and never told the teacher. She got them the last week before school got out for Christmas break. On their last day of the week her class was going to the Bass Hall, and having their Christmas party, well she missed it. She was well enough to go that day but her teacher called me to check on her and told me that there was head lice in the class, a total now of 18 cases of the pox, and 28 cases of hand and mouth disease. So I decided to leave her home. For her missing all the festivities I told her I would have a special day planned for her. So I got my mom to watch Payton and we went to see the Tale of Desperaux (cute movie), and had lunch at the Purple Cow, her favorite spot. She said it was much better than Bass Hall, because there they don't actually talk. LOL, leave it to Madie! All in all she did very well with them, and we didn't have to miss out on any Christmas activities with family. She only got a total of like 30 sores, that scabbed over nicely. She was itchy a lot, but we used Aveeno cream, and LOTS of oatmeals baths. We let her take her oatmeal baths in our bathtub as a special treat! She loves the big garden tub, we wouldn't let her use the jets though because of the pox. So I am glad that's over, and in a way we wished Payton would've gotten them so we didn't have to worry about them anymore! I am just so grateful she was so good about it, and didn't scratch or pick at not one scab. So one down one more to go!!

Family Pics 2008

Here are our family pictures that we had done. We used an AWESOME photographer, Holly Stover with Mom and Me Photography. We chose to do our shoot at the canal in Las Colinas, and they turned out wonderful. We had something like 235 pictures to choose from, so I just chose a few to post here. The morning we actually had them scheduled it was like 32 degrees outside, and Payton wasn't thrilled, but I think Holly was still able to get some amazing pics. I can't wait to do them again in the spring. I am going to do one sitting with the whole family, one for Payton for her birthday in all her tutu's, of course all girly. With Madie for her birthday I told her she could pick out what she wanted to wear, within reason, and do what she wanted to do for hers. So we should have lots of pics posted in the near future since the girls birthdays are only a week apart. I hope you enjoy!

A Night At The Races....

I can't believe I forgot to post about the world finals. Well, in October we took Madie to the world finals in Ennis. Madie hadn't been to Ennis since Bryan and her went to top fuel a while back, so she was SUPER excited. We were able to go down through the pit and take a look at all the cars. Of course once we got to the junior dragster she begged for an hour for me to let her start racing now. For some reason I don't think she is going to accept no forever, ugh! Bryan's friend Scott was there so he made Madie a "tar ball". Basically he got under a car and wiped the tread off from them doing burn outs, and he made it into a ball for her. She thought it was super cool, and that thing sat on our bar for weeks. It was a very long night, I think it wrapped up around 2am, but we all had a blast.

This was Madie and Bryan's favorite car. The "ball"

My attempt at getting a pic of the jet car, I knew there was no chance.