Holiday Happenings

It's time to document all of the Christmas party pictures throughout the month.  So beware, there's A LOT!  Just goes to show we've had a great month full of friends, family, and food. So here goes.

Gardner Family Party:

We all went to the bowling alley for pizza and bowling first.  Then the adults met up for games afterward.  I love this tradition.  The kids get to have fun, but then the adults get to later without worrying about the kids.  Awesome.

Taylee tried jumping off the carousel.  Good catch Grandpa:

Poor Tay bug has eczema which causes rashes on her face.

My girls and I in our apartment ready for the Christmas season:

Brielle got a kick out of playing with the mask we got her in New Orleans.  She's always extremely concerned about matching for some reason.  As soon as she saw the blue mask, she had to get her Cinderella costume on along with her blue Cinderella doll.  (She generally even has to match her plate and silverware with her outfit of the meal.  She still changes clothes 5 or 6 times a day.  It cracks us up and drives us nuts!):

The girls had a blast with the Christmas Countdown books.  We opened a book a day for 12 days and that was our bedtime story.  I love the Christmas season!

Taylee mostly loved unwrapping the presents.  Brielle has always loved to read but Taylee only likes it in very small doses.  (Yep, we still have Trav's camo tree that we promised we would only put up for two years. 6 years later, I still have more important things to buy than ornaments I guess).

Ward Christmas Program:

It's always nice to watch the Nativity program, but I especially enjoyed it when my daughter went right up to the front and stuck her hand down her pants for all to see. 

Santa's The Man!  My girls adore his generosity with candy canes at every visit.

Although Taylee loves him, she is SO not afraid to stare.

Kyhl Family Party:

We started off the day making gingerbread houses at Grandma's house which Brielle was delighted to do, mostly because she kept sneaking candy and frosting.

Taylee didn't mind watching as long as Daddy kept passing her the goods.  By the way, she is still all girl even though her bib says otherwise!

Tyson and Jackson building their masterpiece:

Grandma Margee and Grandpa Gary:

Brielle loaded that sucker with as much decor as it could hold. . . . and then some:

Gotta love cousins.  Tripp and Taylee Jane:

Always gotta throw some tricks in there.

Which almost always ends in a tackling contest:

PARTY TIME:

After moving on to Grandpa Jack and Grandma Della's house, we got ANOTHER visit from a very dear man.

Cute Grandparents put on a fantastic party:

Rhodes Family Party Time:

Christmas Eve!

Getting ready for all of the fun traditions my family does on this very favorite day:

Dad getting ready for the traditional neighbor brunch:

Final product.  I just drooled a little:

Whitney and Brian have been two of my very best friends since I was 8, so it's always good to see them along with their beautiful wives.  (Top: Tara & Brian, Bottom: Whit and Kassie).  After brunch, we went to see Sherlock Holmes with Whit and Kassie.  So fun.  Thanks guys, can't wait until next time!

We started playing with our new camera while we were waiting for my brother & his fam to get there for the next party.

As always, Brielle just has to do some tricks for the camera:

And finish off with a little dance.  I love that girl!:

After a delicious dinner provided by my parents, it was GAME TIME!!  Let's get our ping on!

Christmas Bingo. Why am I always the last to win?  Every. Time.

Speaking of lucky, check out the white elephant gift I won:

With it being the Christmas Season and all, I was generous and gave it to my brother Ryan.

The girls got to open their Christmas Jammies and a few other gifts.  Cayson was a stud and helped:

Goodnight girls!  Sweet dreams!

After the girls were all snug in their beds, I KILLED in the money game!  Woohoo!  Note:  In this picture, Trav wanted to try the quickshot or whatever it is on our new camera that allows you to take a bunch of pictures one right after another.  So Randy started dropping $ on me to try to make the effect cooler.  But instead of kind of trickling the $ through his fingers, he dropped the whole wad on me at one time.  Good job Randy!  Turned out sweet eh?  Ha ha ha.

Trav and I have a tradition every year where we draw a store or a theme from a hat, and we each have to pick a present for the other person from that store or theme.  Every year without fail, Travis puts in something like his theme this year which was "Up All Night".  This was the first year we've EVER drawn his theme of choice.  I don't think he really got what he had in mind!

I couldn't stop at the pepto though. As funny as that was, I had to do something more along the lines of "sexy"!

I'm not going to tell you what our real gifts to each other were ;)  The other theme we ended up drawing was "For the Home".  I was somewhat hesitant to open up my gift from him.  I was just hoping it wasn't another dead animal he wants to hang in the house.  I'm kidding, he wouldn't do that to me on Christmas, just any other day!

He actually did really good.  Travis always has been an excellent gift giver. 

Round II of GAME TIME!

Minute to Win it:

This game SUCKED!  At least for me, everyone else did awesome.  I was probably the funniest to watch though.  I would hit everywhere BUT my target.  It was awful!

Trav got some sweet white elephant's too:

 My mom won the partial denture that I gave.  She was tickled.  That's right Randy. . . . . I said it.

Round III of GAME TIME:

As bad as I sucked at the ping pong catch, Randy was worse at the balloon game!  This might have been my highlight of the entire trip.  I can't wait to watch it back on video at next year's party!  He's by far the most athletic of all of us, but could not ever pass this level.  It was hysterical!

Travis was brilliant.  Much like my dad and myself!

Randy, you did an awesome job at the games.  They were a hoot.  Seriously, great time.  And to top it all off, we ended the night with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  Love it.

Christmas Morning

Presents, presents, and more presents:

Travis got some coal.  Enough said.

What is up with my little girls ALWAYS putting their hands down their pants? 

Christmas Cuties:

My Dad now works for Miche Bag, so I got a really cute new purse from them with a couple different shells.  The Miche bag is such a brilliant idea.

Family Picture Time:

Christmas Night:

Playin' around with our Santa toys:

And making up hilarious little girl dances that we will forever have on video!

 Day After:

More Playing

 

Cute shadow pic of Travis and Brielle:

Randy did a performance of Randy the Reckless Reindeer.  Only Randy can make this funny enough to be one of my favorite traditions ever!  Thanks Bren.

Extended Rhodes Family Party:

Nelly and Granny Bev put together a fabulous party for everyone.  There was a delicious lunch, white elephant games and presents, a slide show and a fishing pond for the kids.  I love seeing all of the family.  As nuts as it gets, there's always some great laughs!

While we were all playing the white elephant gift game, I momentarily lost Brielle.  Come to find out, she was off by herself, eating a gigantic piece of chocolate cake.  That's my girl!

Good times. Even though my whole family had a little cold at some point through the season and we ended up having to do some last minute schedule re-arranging, it turned out to be awesome! I hope that everyone else had a fabulous month and has a Happy New Year as well!