December Adventures- part 2

Wow- I'm tired all over again just looking back at how much we managed to cram into the month of December! Never a boring day at the Pool house!

We celebrated Landry's 11th birthday at the skating rink in Granbury!

The "kids of QSR". Carter still counts. He'll always be a QSR kid as far as we are concerned

I looked over and spotted these two sitting just alike. I love the bond they share!

The girls decorated their annual gingerbread house!This is Josh's department, not mine. Just like dying Easter eggs- that is his thing, and I am happy to be the picture taker!

They worked really hard, and worked TOGETHER! (for the most part without fighting). Miracles do still exhist)

I decided to take the girls to look at Christmas lights one night. And we snagged Maylee to go with us! We popped popcorn, I made myself a large coffee, Brenna a hot chocolate, and Macie and Maylee some milk, and we were on our way!!

We found a ton of lights to look at in town, and the girls had a blast! We ended our tour with a trip through the furniture store that always has a huge display. It didn't disappoint this year for sure! We ran up to grab a picture in Santa's sleigh even though it was freezing and no one had coats. Because...photo op! duh! (see previous post about my mom of the year trophy arriving soon..)

Abby spent a week with us while Kyson and Nina were in Germany with Kim. The girls loved having her here so much! And so did I. She fits right in around here!

She cuddled with Macie regularly, and slept with Brenna almost every night!
We go some of our new furniture moved in from Dad's house. Our new dining room table, the tanning bed, and the most anticipated...new furniture for Brenna's room! She got MeMawMom's furniture from when she was in high school. We didn't have her bedding ready, but we made do! She loves her full bed!

The girls and I made sugar cookies to decorate! I don't know who decided this was a good Christmas tradition. I mean seriously- who ever eats these cookies?? They taste gross, and by the time two little girls finish putting enough icing and sprinkles on them to cover a football field, they will cause you to develop diabetes just smelling them! But alas- I'm always up for an adventure (even if I do regret it 5 minutes in...). So I mixed up a batch of icing that I saw online that looked pretty and we proceeded to ice cookies!

They had a blast and were really into it....for about 5 minutes. It took me longer than that to make the icing! And after about 6 cookies were iced, they were done. Go figure. Hopefully I will remember this little adventure next year and we will skip the decorating all together. Let me also add that no one ate the cookies. The pretty icing was BLAH, and the cookies were just ok.... So- huge waste of time for the 5 minutes of fun they had. And THIS was what I was left to clean up!

*Note to self- when the desire to make and decorate Christmas cookies arises in the future... sit down and drink a glass of wine until the desire passes!

Christmas Eve EVE we went over to the Baldwin's for a get together. We had dinner and just enjoyed being together. The kids had a blast too. It was a great, low key evening!

Sweet BFF's!

Brenna and Landry had their make up done by Madison and Tori!

I almost got a 3rd degree burn sitting by this fire!!

My People!!
Thankfully Chuck's mom and sister were there and could take a group pict for us. This was the best we got out of about 40 pictures. Why you ask? Schaef Riley. No further explanation needed! 

Steve was a little less serious this time! He and Schaef made a good pair in the photo department that night!

It was a great time with great friends! Thanks Baldwin's for hosting! And thanks Riley's for driving all the way back to the old 'hood to join us!