It was a beautiful day on Friday so we took advantge of the weather and headed to the park!  It was a really great park and the kids had such a good time playing!  Here are some pictures from our day.  Robin got me a new telephoto camera lens for Christmas and we had a lot of fun playing with it at the park!

Foster really enjoyed walking the “perimeter” of the play area.  He does this a lot when we go various places!   He likes to be by himself and just take leisurely walks!

Pops watching his Grandkids… he’s such a good Pops.

I love it that each year our kids get to have an Oklahoma Christmas and a Texas Christmas.  :)

On Tuesday, the 27th, we packed up and headed to Arlington for our Christmas celebration with Pops and Gigi and the cousins!  We stayed there the 27th through the 31st.  We had an awesome time just hanging out and letting the kids play together.

Gigi had a lot of fun things for the kids to do together.  Here is Emma playing with play dough.

Everyone arrived on Tuesday evening but we decided to wait until Wednesday morning to open presents.  We started a new tradition this year… Pops and Gigi hid baby Jesus from the manger scene and had the kids search the living room for Him.  They explained that we couldn’t have Christmas until we found Jesus because He is the whole reason we celebrate!  Pops helped Emma find Jesus hidden in the tree.  She was so excited that she got to hold him throughout the gift opening.

Here is everyone looking for Baby Jesus…

Here is Lylah holding her “payback” gift from us!  When Emma turned two years old Criag and Fallon gave Emma a HUGE stuffed dog for Christmas.  She loves that dog and carries it everywhere.  We have had it in our bed at times, in the carseat with Emma, on the couch, etc.  It takes up quite a bit of room!  So this year we got Lylah a huge puppy dog. :)

Lylah and Zane playing the drumset that we got for Zane

Foster loves his Pops

TRACTORS from Craig, Fallon, and Lylah!

Each of the Grandkids got books from Pops and Gigi where they recorded their own voices reading the stories- I loved these gifts.  The kids love their books.

Foster and Zane playing with their car ramps

At the very end of the gifts, Robin found another gift from “Santa” under the tree.  Santa brought Foster and Emma and bounce house to Pops and Gigi’s house!  The kids had a blast playing in the bounce house over the next several days!

Dinner time…

We also celebrated Lylah’s Birthday (it’s in early January)…

Here are all 4 cousins: Foster, Zane, Emma, Lylah.  It was IMPOSSIBLE to get a good picture of all of them!  It’s hard to believe that 3 years ago Emma was the only Grandchild!

Emma and Foster playing football with Uncle Craig

Robin wearing his “Heisman shirt.”   On Thursday night we watched the Baylor Bears beat Washington in the Alamo Bowl!  It was exciting to say the least.  I almost woke up the kids screaming several times.

Foster is obsesssed with cars and trucks and knows that Uncle Craig drives a truck.  Whenever we talk about Craig, Foster talks about his truck. So, Craig let Foster sit in the driver’s seat and check out the truck.

Foster and Zane got along really well.  One day I walked in the living room and found this.  Adorable.

We had a great time in Arlington!  I’m so thankful that my kids have so many family members who love them.

We had a wonderful Christmas Day!

We let Emma sleep in our room on the floor because she was scared that she might run into Santa if she had to leave her room during the night. :)

She woke up pretty early but we held her off until 8:00 am.  Robin, Emma, and I headed to the living room and opened a few gifts before going to get Foster.  (Emma had a lot more gifts to open than Foster so we figured this would be ok!)  We decided to give one of the kids their big Santa gifts in Arlington when we went to Pops and Gigi’s house because we weren’t sure it would make it to our house by Christmas….more to come on that later!  Santa left Emma a note that he couldn’t fit her “big gift” on his sleigh and would deliver it to Pops and Gigi’s house.

Reading the note from Santa.  By the way… did I mention that Robin got really sick 2 days before Christmas?  We think it was a bad virus or cold.  He felt slightly better on Christmas morning Praise the Lord!  We had all been battling colds.

Foster’s main gift was a bucket for his matchbox cars… and about 25 new matchbox cars.  He was SO excited!!! (I stole the bucket idea from our friends, the Kreys.)  I had been looking for a good place to put all these cars and I knew he would love taking them out and putting them back in and carrying them all over the house.  Once he saw the cars, he was pretty much done for the morning. He took ever single car out and told us which ones were new. :)

Emma really wanted to pick out a gift for Foster so Robin and Emma went to Target on Chrismtas Eve.  She picked out a Thomas the Train lego set and a Color Wonder set so he could do his own artwork and it wouldn’t be too messy (smart girl!)

After we took our time opening presents at our house, we got dressed (well the kids stayed in their P.J.’s) but Robin and I got ready and we all drove to Nana’s house.

Emma and Foster in their Christmas P.J’s at Nana’s house! (you can tell that Foster wasn’t feeling too great.)

Of course Foster brought about 7 cars to Nana’s house…

Love this picture… some of my very favorite girls… Emma, Nana, Jill, Judy.  I’m so lucky to have my Mom and Judy- they do so much for us and help so much with our kiddos!  But wow, this picture makes me realize I really need to tackle those ‘extra pounds’ after the Holidays.  Oh well.

Stockings at Nana’s house

Monkey hat… I love this!

Foster was very excited about this school bus that was in his stocking!

Emma was so excited about this clock from Aunt Judy.  She has been wanting it for a while.  Not only does it teach kids to tell time, it also lights up different colors according to when it’s bedtime, when it’s ok to get out of bed, etc!  It also plays music!  It is so cool!  She used it on Christmas night and loved it.

Judy got Foster his very own coloring book and crayons.  He loved them!  Now maybe he won’t draw on Emma’s masterpieces.

Judy also got Foster this awesome CD player.  This boy LOVES music.  He often runs to Emma’s room to play CD’s on her CD player.  Now he has one of his very own!

I love this picture of my Mom and Boom.  She ordered this picture of him finishing the Tulsa Run… a huge milestone for him!

2nd breakfast for Foster…

I would like to point out that with the hundreds of new gifts that Foster received on Christmas morning… Foster kept running to Nana’s toy closet and pulling out the OLD (as in 35-40 year old) toys that he always plays with when he goes to her house!  These are oldies but goodies!

Foster loved playing with Ron and Christi!

We all had a fit over this wrapping paper that Christi used… isn’t it adorable?

Foster loved this seek and find book from Nana…

This was hilarious…. Ron and Judy and Christi gave this James train to Foster… it is battery powered and moves on it’s own.  He was really excited about it when he first opened it.  Then when we put it down on the ground and it started moving he ran into my arms frightened and said “James chasing me!”  Then he asked to see Thomas on my phone- like Thomas was his security blanket!  Now, I am happy to report that he carries James everywhere and loves to watch him travel around the house.  It’s like James is Foster’s new little puppy dog!

We had an awesome Christmas with my family!  We were very excited to go see The Curry clan in Texas… more Christmas to come!!!

Christmas Eve was a wonderful day!  I had worked the night before so I did have to do some cleaning the morning of Christmas Eve to get ready for family.  I also had some last minute gift-wrapping to do!

Here is Emma right before our family came over for Christmas Eve dinner…

We had Ted’s catered for dinner… yummy enchilladas, rice, and beans.  It was very good!  After dinner we played several games- a family favorite is always “Scene It” where you watch movie clips on DVD and answer movie trivia questions.

After games we had peppmermint ice cream with fudge topping (a famly tradition.)

Then Nana let the kids open a gift- Christmas pajamas!

Then Nana read several Christmas books to the kids…

Grainy picture… but here is Nana reading the Night Before Christmas!

We made cookies to leave for Santa and here are Emma and Daddy writiing their traditional Christmas Eve note to Santa.

One of Emma’s friends from school gave everyone some “reindeer food” at their school Christmas party.  So this was our first year to sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn to guarantee that the reindeer would find our house!

Luckily the kids settled in to bed fairly well so Santa could get to work!

One thing I like to do every Christmas time is go see Santa Claus at the Bass Pro shop in Broken Arrow.  This Christmas season was so busy and it seemed like we never had a free evening or weekend to go see him.   So… on December 23rd Robin had the day off work and we decided to venture to Bass Pro.

Apparently, a lot of people waited until the last minute to see him!  When we got there we found out the the wait to see Santa was about 2 hours long!!!  I had to work at the hospital that day at 2:00 so it just wasn’t feasible to wait for 2 hours. :(  Emma was pretty disappointed.   We opted to just take some random pictures with snowmen and bass boats!

We made the most of our trip by picking up a Christmas present for Uncle Ron while we were there- a Bass Pro fleece and some fishing lures. :)  We let the kids pick out the lures- Emma picked hot pink!

We promised Emma and Foster that we will make plans to visit Santa early in the season next year!

On Emma’s actual Birthday, Sunday December 18th, we got to go see the Nutcracker ballet in Tulsa!

I bought Emma a new pretty dress and purse for the special occasion.

Here is Emma waiting fo the show to start- she was so excited!  Nana, Emma, Aunt Judy!  Fun girls’ day out!!!

Sparkly nails for the special occasion!

After the show, we found our friend, Bo in the lobby!  It was very difficult to get a good picture of them standing together!

Being silly after the show!

Immediately following Emma’s party at the Little Gym, our immediate family came to our house to open gifts from family.  Nana, Judy, and Ron all came over.

There was a theme to several of her gifts…. she got this beautiful Ballerina jewelry box from Judy, Ron, and Christi…

Robin and I gave Emma tickets to go see the Nutcracker ballet on her real Birthday with Mommy, Judy, and Nana.     This was a suprise for Emma and she was very excited!

Ballerina Nutcracker..

Emma also got a great ivory coat with fur from Nana and some clothes that she loved! (bummed that I didn’t get pictures!)

Judy, Ron, and Christi also gave Emma “Just Dance for Kids” for the Wii.  EmmA and Foster loved playing it that same afternoon- I can tell it’s going to be awesome for this Winter when we are trapped inside!

We celebrated Emma’s 5th Birthday on Saturday, December 17th, the day before her Birthday.  Emma wanted to have a “girl only” party and she invited several close church friends and school friends.  When she went to The Little Gym classes this past summer she decided that she wanted to have her party there so we booked it about 5 months in advance. :)  We went with a pink and green owl theme for her party!  I had the invitations made on ETSY (the picture of Emma on the card was taken by our good friend Kathy Krey- thank you Kathy!)

I snapped this picture before we left for the party… Nana got her this cute Hello Kitty outfit and I just couldn’t get over how big she looked!

There are TONS of pictures from the party…

forward roll with Adelynn and Maggie watching…

This was cute… the hostess asked the girls what they were there celebrating and all of the girls pointed to Emma and said, “Emma’s Birthday!”

Circle time and introductions…

Adelynn, Emma, Aubrey…

Each girl got to show their favorite “trick.”  Emma confidently and proudly did a forward roll! You just never know with Emma… sometimes she is shy and clams up and sometimes she is super confident!

Silly games

Balancing on their belly buttons…

Quick, everyone dog pile Emma… which was really fun and cute until Emma ended up with a hurt ankle.  She was better in a minute or two!

Parachute time- Emma was really excited about this…

Emma and Kaycee

Video of freeze dance

Foster was at the party and had a great time too!  Here he is looking in on all the big kids dancing!

Emma was very sweet to Foster and kept trying to include him in the activities

Foster and Emma

3 little monkeys, hangin’ on the bars…

Bouncing on the air track…

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The cake!  My good friend, Connie Easterwood, made this adorable cake.  I found a picture on-line of a cake I really liked, I sent her the pic and asked her if she could make something similar.  The cake below is the EXACT cake, even cuter acutally.  It is ALL icing, even the lollipops!  I was kinda sad to cut it and eat it.

Blowing out candles…

Opening gifts… she got some really great new things!

Emma had a great 5th Birthday!  We are so thankful for all of the sweet friends and family who helped her celebrate!  Can’t believe my first-born is FIVE!!!

Foster loves to playin the leaves in our yard… here he is playing after church one Sunday in December.

Emma’s last day of school before the Christmas break was Friday, December 16th.  Robin and I both got to go to her Winter Party and it was so fun!  The kids sang about 3 fun songs and then we got to go to different tables to play games, do a craft, eat snacks, and more.

Emma and Taylor

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Emma and Lindsey

Playing Bingo

Emma and Aubrey making thier gingerbread craft… I was in charge of this little project. :)

Emma and her teacher, Mrs. Bradshaw- we LOVE her!

Emma is looking like such a big girl… sniff sniff.