2016 Christmas Season Fun!

First FHE after Christmas is ALWAYS set aside to decorate the Christmas tree. This is a favorite tradition of everyone's - especially when they get to hang ornaments that belong just to them.

This year was L's year to top the tree - Lillie we'll see you here again when you're 16!

I love our house at Christmas!

My toddler Mr. I. reading underneath the stockings - this is a favorite place for him!

 Bass Pro Santa with the Zufelts 
Ashley and I have determined that even if we don't see each other for an entire year (hasn't quite happened yet) and no matter how old our "littles" get - we will always meet up for Santa at Bass Pro.

These boys LOVED the ball pit!

...and the Merry Go Round was a favorite for Mr. I.

Everyone loved target practice but they were all over the place so I. is the only one I grabbed a pic of 

L and her girl Madison

I. and his Grammy chillin' for the 1st Presidency Christmas Devo

 

Here is the 1st time both Tim and I were able to be at youth baptisms with Lillie. It was such a beautiful time to all be together in the temple. Lillie was able to take family names and it was so wonderful to have her dad and her perform the baptisms! We are so proud of you Lillie for living your life in a way that allows you to receive the blessings of the temple!

 Sonterra Ward Christmas Party
Tara Collette and I were in charge of the ward Christmas party this year. It was fun but mostly stressful and as always I am grateful for anyone who volunteers to put one of these on in the midst of the holidays. Our theme was Christmas morning and everyone had a lot of fun at it. We had an option to wear Christmas jammies, a fun photo booth (thank you to a very pregnant Sarah Jacobsen for putting that together!), Christmas brunch, and gingerbread house decorating.

L and Hannah

Some friends! I figured I should document something like this so years from now I can remember at least some of the people I used to hang with!

me, Nikki Rudin, Angie Conrad, Rachelle Wright, and Tara Colette with Blakely

We spent a fun day at Sea World sponsored by T's work Harland Clarke. Awesomely we ran in our friends the Meadows family right as we walked in! They snapped this Christmas card photo for us and then we hung out for the rest of the day. Sweet!

Group pic while taking S present shopping for his siblings

Auntie Katie and Isaac enjoying the nice TX "winter" weather

Class Christmas Parties
And now it's time for my last year with 2 with elementary Christmas party's to attend. I cannot believe I am already to this point in my life! From here on out I'll only be going to one party at a time until Isaac graduates to middle school.
The rooms moms for S and G planned two great parties and it was so fun to be there with the boys before school let out for the break.

Mom and G in Mrs. Mulroy's 2nd grade

 

G with his friends: Kenny, Danny, and Finnley

S with his 5th grade crew from Mrs. D'Ambrosio's class 

S and his BFF Teancum

with Mrs. D.

 No class Christmas parties for 7th graders so these girls made their own!

They spent the night at Ava's house, drove around and looked at Christmas lights,and made and decorated Christmas cookies.  

Here are these 4 awesome chicks in a little chapel in someone's superbly decorated yard

Kenya, Ava, Lillie, and Hayley

Thanksgiving/ 2nd Thanksgiving

Like I said, I'm having phone camera issues. Hence I have exactly one picture of actual Thanksgiving. Here it is:

The Burwell women...checking out Black Friday ads after we've stuffed our faces!

2nd Thanksgiving

Because Tim and Samuel were at the Cowboys game on T-giving we did a 2nd one! Two delicious dinners on two different days? Yes, please!

Here's Isaac helping T with some dinner prep. Mr. I is loving being a kitchen helper lately!

We were so happy to have Nana over to share a Thanksgiving meal with us!

Getting down to some GoNoodle.com videos to make room for pie!

Here's Lillie with her 1st homemade apple pie. This girl is so good at whatever she tries! 

(And of course this pie was delicious!)

Dad and Grant at the Snake Farm

Next was Grant's turn for a day out with Dad. His one true love for the past few years has been snakes. All things snakes. So Tim took him up to New Braunfels for the day to the World Famous (c'mon it's been featured on the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe) Snake Farm and Zoo. Grant totally loved it and came home with all sorts of stories of the creepy crawlies that he got to see.

Dude - your hair totally rocks.

Dad and Samuel go to the Thanksgiving Day Cowboys game!

Samuel and Tim love the Cowboys. Tim wanted to take Samuel to experience a game in person so we got tickets to the Big Thanksgiving Day game and T surprised S. He was so stoked!

 Here they are ready to head out to Dallas:

Outside AT&T stadium

This is freaking awesome!!!

Of course they had a totally great time AND to top of the days excitement, the Cowboys won! 

They beat the Redskins 31-26

Happy 35th Mom!

I turned 35...yay! It was a great day!

However, no other pics of this day and sadly no pics of fall or pre-Christmas fun. My iphone camera had something funky happen and it wouldn't focus the camera. Sad days!  Rest assured though that even though we can't remember what they were, we had a fabulous November and December!

Here's one cutie I managed to capture though!

Surprise Hooky...

The 2016 Presidential Election (Clinton vs. Trump) has been.....contentious.....heated....nation dividing....and a ridiculous display of childishness to say the least. The early voting polls (while fine for the most part) made the news with stories of violence breaking out as voters in hours long lines broke out in fights. And my kiddos elementary school is a voting location. And the line to get in goes like, 2 centimeters from my kids walking in a line to the cafeteria. While I knew the odds were in my favor that nothing bad was going to happen I didn't want to take any chances. Thus I planned a day of hooky for the two boys (unbeknownst to them).
We got ready for the day - as normal. Dropped Lillie off first - which was not normal. (I made up some excuse about needing to go into the elem. school and not wanting to make her wait.) Once I dropped Lillie off I turned around to the boys and said: "guess what?! You're not going to school today! I'm letting you stay home and we're gonna have fun all day + go to Chuck E. Cheese!" In case you couldn't picture their reaction a photo is posted below:

They even got to play H-E-Buddy bucks on a trip to the grocery store!

Another bonus: turns out Tuesdays at Chuck E. Cheese are half price so they got to play twice as many games!

The day was a total blast and totally worth it! I love you guys!

Redland Oaks Bike Rodeo 2016-2017

     Well it's Grant's 3rd bike rodeo and Samuel's....pause to wipe a tear away...last. This is such a fun tradition that the elementary schools do around here. Grant went to school sure of himself as usual. He's won 1st in Kinder and 1st and was certain he'd win 1st again this year. Samuel on the other hand went to school excited and hopeful. He had one last chance to win that 1st place trophy and a chance to compete in the city-wide bike rodeo.

G with Mrs. Alyson Mulroy

Aaaaaand the results are in!
Samuel came barreling up the driveway, whipped out his trophy and screamed "I got 1st place! I got 1st place!" He told of how as they announced the places over the intercom at the end of the day the tension built as they announced 3rd, then 2nd place and his name hadn't been called. And then when they announced: "...and the 1st place winner for the 5th grade boys division is Samuel Doolittle!" Well I guess the entire class went crazy and were yelling and clapping and jumping all around Samuel. It sounds like it was awesome! I am so stinkin' excited for him! Way to go dude!

So G looks excited here but only because I told him to smile. He won 1st again! Yay! But he went to school totally expecting to win and when he did and his class was excited...well...apparently he said something along the lines of "yeah, I knew I would win. I win every year.".....WOW. Just wow. But I'm excited for him too. A dose of humility is sure to find you at some point in life Grant. 

I just love you to pieces kid!

And here's a random pic taken from upstairs to the foyer down below. The boys laid there and had Isaac throw all their dirty clothes onto them from the overlook. Too funny. Well, at least they were obeying when I told them I wanted them to take their clothes down to the laundry room ;)