Christmas with the Scogins

Friday we spent the afternoon with the Scogin Family. First things first: gifts!


Grant and Grayson opening their presents from us...



I made them both blankets and matching house shoes. I think it was pretty cute...

Elijah's turn...

This is an awful picture...he wasn't really looking like this...just one of those weird timing things. Aime made him a pirate costume...

I had Katy make this sign for Gary. It says "These are the children God gave me. God has been good to me. Genesis 33:5" I love this saying. When I'm done having babies I want one of my own (hint hint)...

After an early dinner we headed down to Galveston for the Festival of Lights. It was actually a little cold, so not as enjoyable as years past, but we of course still had time...

We had a great time!!

Bibby, John and Raggedy Anne

Thursday When the kids got out of school we headed down to Alvin for our Annual Alvin Christmas Trip. We headed straight to the adoptive grandparents...Bibby and John. We couldn't wait, we had to open gifts that night!

Elijah helping John...


Elijah and Sadie's turn. These bags are like Mary Poppin's bag, they just keep pulling stuff out!!

One of the neatest things Elijah received was this giant Animal Encyclopedia. I can see many hours of reading in our future...

He couldn't wait. He made Bibby open hers...

I think the best gift was Sadie's giant Raggedy Anne doll. It was handmade and Sadie loves it!

Its about twice the size of her but that doesn't stop her from dragging it around everywhere...

Sweet kisses...

and hugs...

and more hugs. They are best friends...

Block Party

Elijah's favorite show right now is Dinosaur Train. I don't know why, but he really loves it. Anyway, a few months ago one of the episodes was called "Block Party". The main dinosaur family invites all the other dinosaurs over so they can better learn about all the different dinosaurs. Since then Elijah has been fixed on having a block party. He keeps asking if we can have one, says he wants a "Block Party" Birthday (great) and so on. So when we got our invitation to our neighborhood's Christmas Block Party I ran straight to Elijah. He was pumped!!! He talked about it for days before we actually went.


Waiting for our hosts to answer the door, the excitement is overwhelming!!...


We were the youngest people there by about 30 years or more, but there was table of food, punch and a house decorated to the nines in Mickey Mouse Christmas so Elijah was thrilled. He headed straight for the food...

At one point some one came up and asked what their names were. I pointed to this one and said, "That is Mr Perfect"...

"...and that one is Little Miss Attitude" She was in rare form.

The problem was Red Punch and no sippy cup. One taste of the punch and she wanted nothing else. The problem was that I didn't have a sippy cup and she wanted to hold it herself. She can drink from a cup just fine, but with the punch if anyone even came close to her (and her brother sitting right next to her counts) she would jerk around and spill the punch. We were at a very nice house and she was sitting on a cream colored upholstered bar stool. No way. So when we took away the punch there was a melt down.




Where did Elijah go? Oh yeah, Mr Perfect is sitting quietly in the corner admiring the Mickey Mouse tree...

If we ever get invited back after Sadie's attitude I know Elijah will be excited!!

Surprise!!!

Do you know how hard it is to throw a surprise party for some one who lives with you!?! Well Beau turns 30 next week and I for one think that is a huge birthday. I'm very excited to turn 30. I feel like I will be so grown up!! Ha! Being 30 is so much more sophisticated than being in your 20's! Anyway, so I wanted to have a party for Beau. We had about 20 people for a Mexican Fiesta and I think it was great!

I am so glad that Janice took some pictures because I only took about 3.


I wasn't going to be able to cook for 20 people while Beau was home all day and he thought we were only having our parents over for dinner. I picked up a lot of the food including this awesome cake!...

And of course Beau's favorites...Oreos!

It was so good with the homemade ice cream...yumm-o!

I couldn't keep Beau out of the house long enough for people to show up then yell "Surprise!" So we just got to enjoy his face when he opened the door to more and more people. It was kinda a backwards surprise party.

My little cutie pie. She did great considering that she came down with a fever during the evening. Poor kid. We stayed home all day today just laying around and watching movies...

Such an entertainer. I never saw him all night. He was busy being life of the party...

My lovely Mamacita...

The Ballard Family...

The Thomas Family...

It was a great night.

Thanksgiving Firsts

This year we were able to host Beau's family's Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I have been looking forward to being able to do this for a long time and now that we finally live close enough and have a big enough house my wish came true.

Wednesday Janice took the kids to Rosebud for me so I could get some errands ran and work done around the house. It was a huge help.

The collected pine cones for me...



I love Sadie's expression in this picture. It looks like she is really excited about whatever she found...

I'm sure they were having a very deep conversation...

Then they decided on a movie...

Brad took a little time to swing the kids...

Sadie waiting patiently for her turn...

Apparently her turn was taking too long...

Having lunch on Thursday...

Yup, that's the only picture I got from Thursday and I got none from our Friday trip to Stephenville. Guess we were having too much fun.

Saturday we went to Homestead Heritage. It wasn't our first trip there, but it was our first time to go to their Thanksgiving Festival. We had a great time.

Elijah was able to hold a baby chick...

Sadie needed in on the action...

Precious.

Watching the Sheepdog Presentation. Apparently Elijah thought I needed to keep quiet...

It was really neat to see how these dogs do this. They talked all about how they are trained and showed us how they get the sheep in the pen.



We also watched how they use mules to plow their fields...

Enjoying some homemade ice cream...

Love it.

Yum.

Sunday afternoon we decorated our tree.

Such good helpers...

Seriously! Elijah took this picture. Isn't it just perfect?!

Fun times.