The Varner Family

This December has brought us some very cold weather and even an entire weekend that we were covered in snow.  It was beautiful and so much fun to play in!

The day we were expecting the snow you both bundled up for school.  Meg insisted on wearing her new fancy hat and coat passed down to us from the Kite girls!

Brody wanted hot chocolate!

And there is nothing that I love more than getting to show my kids a snow covered yard when they wake up.  I remember how little it seemed to snow when I was little and just how magical it was to wake up and see the snow covering everything!  But once they saw it they were just itching to get out in it.  The temperatures were in the 20's and we were able to hold them hostage (or that's at least what they acted like we were doing to them) in the house until about 9:30 a.m. and then we spent about 30 minutes bundling up and then hit the snow!

Bryson earned cool dad points and hooked the sled up to his 4-wheeler and made non stop rounds for about 2 hours!

The neighborhood kids were all lined up for their turn!

I was surprised by how much she loved it!

And if they weren't being pulled they helped Bryson drive!

I had never seen kids flock to our house like I did that day.  Meg last about a hour outside and Brody lasted about 2 hours.  He ended up going out a few more times that day that included some epic snow football game with Bryson as all time quarterback for a bunch of neighborhood boys!

 

The rest of the time was spent cooking, cleaning up, and doing dishes.  By the time dinner rolled around I told Bryson I was done cooking so he took us out to Outback!

 

Thankfully the weather didn't interfere with any of our weekend plans.  We still managed to go watch the OU/OSU game with friends (ouch....such a bummer of a game) and put together Christmas goodie bags for the kids at the Cap Haitian Orphanage.  And Sunday the kids and I were insistent on making it to Weatherford to watch Hannah as the head angel in her church Christmas program!

 

She was amazing.  I couldn't even believe all the lines she had memorized!  And we called it our own Christmas miracle that Bumpy made it out of his neighborhood and to Weatherford for the fun as well. 

While we were there we got the call that Moore Schools were cancelled the next day so we decided to spend the night!

The snow stuck around for a few more days and we enjoyed walks in the park.

I just love this picture!

They both loved how they could just run and then fall into the snow and it wouldn't hurt.  And of course they loved snow angels!

Nothing makes it start feeling like Christmas quite like snow!

Each year we make an annual trip to Chickasha to look at the Christmas lights.  We knew a cold front was coming and so we decided to go on a Tuesday night at the very beginning of December.  After a long meeting with our builder out at our land regarding a driveway (I am already discovering that there is nothing easy about building a house in the country) we met Carolina to pick up Cooper and hit the road.  It was a quick drive to Chickasha from Blanchard!

The three were bouncing off the walls with excitement!

We were so happy to meet up with the Ward Family from church.  I think looking at lights (well actually almost anything) is more fun with friends!

There was a lot of discussion about who was going to ride with who on the camel.  But one thing is for sure was that Brody and Cooper were going together!

Meg and Landon went together!

And the four other boys went together.  There was barely room for Brody!

They ran full speed from one thing to the other!

My request for a sibling picture was not met with much enthusiasm

Absolutely love the lights there!

Such a fun night with friends!

 

I wanted to do a post on Thanksgiving but seeing as this is the only picture I took from Thanksgiving I'm thinking it will have to wait until I can steal some pictures from my dad.  I will say Thanksgiving was wonderful.  The kids played for hours and hours with their cousins, we ate delicious food, and Bryson introduced us to the card game Dots and watching my Grandmother learn this new card game may have been the funniest thing any of us had ever seen.

 

So after a wonderful Thanksgiving and some seriously fun Black Friday shopping with my mom, Kena, and Hannah and then a fun Friday evening of playing more Dots with Aunt B and Gran B it was Saturday and we had a fun day ahead of us. 

Last year Devon started Saturdays with Santa where you can go visit Santa at the beautiful Devon building and they have fun activities set up for the kids and it's all free!  Last year we went with the Cunningham Family and we decided to make it a yearly tradition.  We arrived about 20 minutes before opening time and we waited outside and we quickly realized it was very chilly!

Absolutely love doing things with the Cunningham kids.  Brody, Cooper, and Meg fight like brothers and sisters do but they all treat Georgia like the little princess she is!

Can you tell how happy they are?

They both explained to Santa what they were hoping for this Christmas.  Brody couldn't decide what to say and eventually told him a cross bow and some random truck that I have no idea what he is even talking about.  Meg asked for a Frozen castle that Santa assumed meant a Barbie Dream House with a black elevator.

Then it was Cooper's turn.  I loved how him and Santa just had a little heart to heart.  Neither one of them looked like they were in a hurry to go anywhere!

Making sure he really explains it well!

And then it was poor little Georgia's turn.  This cracks me up so much!  She recovered in like one minute!

I made fun of Rob's picture taking skills and then got home to realize he took a darn good picture of our family!

Candy canes make everyone happy!

This year they had a station set up where you could package goodies to send to the soldiers overseas.  The kids were so into decorating the boxes and putting the supplies together. 

I think Brody wrote "Hope you get presents"

Cooper and Meg wanted to visit Mrs. Claus too

Brody acted like he was too cool for that

And then he just couldn't resist!

Then we waited in a line for the Christmas Train.  Carolina and Bryson always manage to have a good time together!

Bryson and I decided we weren't riding the train and Meg wanted to sit in the green car and all the other kids wanted to sit in the Blue car so she decided to ride by herself.  Rob felt sorry for her and jumped in at the last minute.

Carolina was as a trooper and rode along too!

I'm thinking Rob really did want to ride that train!

I love the big red ornament they have on the front lawn!

And jumping pictures always make me laugh!

Love this family!

Then we went for breakfast at Waffle Champion.  It is a fairly new restaurant that was obviously too hip for Rob and Bryson.  I really enjoyed it but it wasn't the most kid friendly place.  And they may still be scrubbing the table we sat out after a marker incident.  Oops.  It was a super fun day and going with friends made it even more fun!