Here are our 2011 Santa pictures:

Notice anyone missing?  Below is the only way B would get in the photo (he didn’t know the Mr. & Mrs. were behind him)!

I also wanted to remember this cute Christmas card Riley made for me.

(inside)

(back)

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house and had such a great day just being with family.  I was awoken by sweet “Happy Birthday” wishes from my precious little ones, and we quickly moved on to a yummy french toast breakfast and play time with granny & papa.  My sister and her family arrived just after lunch, then it was time for presents!

Here’s a quick “before” picture of Riley & Dalton.  There are no during pictures because they were opening so fast and we were just enjoying the moment!

Braden loves his car set from his grandparents!

Riley & Dalton testing out her new walkie-talkie phones.

Leslie woke from her nap and had a bunch of “helpers” when opening her gifts.  This activity center was a big hit!

She got her own set of wheels and knew just what to do!

But just in case she didn’t know what to do, B was there to help her out!  Love the expressions on their faces!!

After opening presents we got ready for church and headed to our former church for a beautiful Christmas Eve candlelight service.  Once we got back home, we grabbed the opportunity for family pics and then had a nice dinner together.

What a wonderful day spent with loved ones.  Thank you to my amazing parents for being such great hosts and spoiling all of us!

Our Christmas festivities started off with an evening with our friends, the Fuentes & Chapa families.  Such a fun night!

Christine had set up her table with her fancy dishware and these two were “on a date”!  They even had “servers” and were loving the fine dining experience!

This one climbed right up to the table as soon as the food was placed upon it and started digging in…apparently we don’t feed him enough!

A game of Trouble for the oldest crew…

And tunnel fun for the youngest crew…

Time for pics!!

Bubba being “loved on”!

Me & my (Kool-Aid) cutie!

A rare photo of just me and the mister

We had such a wonderful time with our friends and did not want the evening to end.  Looking forward to their visit in February!

The last two months have been a blur of sorts.  While we had so much going on over this time, there are few pictures to show for it.  As probably most everyone who reads this blog knows, our family moved back to the DFW area at the beginning of December.  So November was filled with a lot of packing, and a LOT of hard, sad good-byes.

I more than made up for my lack of picture taking over this past Christmas weekend, but will save that for another post (or two, or three) following this lengthy rewind.

Thanksgiving 2011 was spent with our dear friends, the Chapas & Fuentes family, our adopted family.  Josh was actually at our new house, working away, making it ready for us to move into it.  So the kids and I had a fun afternoon/evening and spent the rest of the holiday weekend packing!  Here are some pics from our fun Thanksgiving.

B looking at the dogs next door.

After a wonderful meal and afternoon of being lazy, we headed to Incarnate Word to check out the beautiful lights.

My best friend Carlye was in town visiting her parents over Thanksgiving so we got to meet for lunch and love on her sweet baby Carson!

We had our last meeting with our life group, whom we are going to miss incredibly.  This amazing group of people have been such a source of inspiration and encouragement for our family.

Riley is already missing her best friend Savannah.

We attempted to take a picture of the cousins for Granny & Papa’s Christmas card.  As you can see, someone wanted no part of it.

The others were pretty cooperative, though!

We loved on our furr babies

And acted like monkeys…