First Christmas!

*We are just going to skip over the fact that I haven't done a post in over two months, and go right into the Christmas festivities! New Year coming, rejuvenated to blog more!

This was the first year we really did the whole Christmas thing as our own family, since past years were during college and we traveled to the Chapman/Carlile houses. Then last year with Jaycee due right around that time and me not wanting to buy Christmas decor knowing everything would soon be 75% off, we kind of skipped some parts. Having Jaycee around this year made Christmas that much more special! Love the picture of Jaycee watching Ev hang the lights.

We enjoyed a classic Church Christmas activity. We sported some pretty sweet sweaters. When the older ladies complimented my outfit {and were not joking...} I did not know how to respond without offending them. My go to line was, "Yes, it is festive." I thought Jaycee would be more curious with Santa, but turns out she is not a fan. Maybe next year!

My poor mother really dreams of us being a musical family {especially since they live in Branson and have friends who are performers}. Her Christmas wish was us to 'gather around the piano and sing Christmas carols.' Lovely.

It was an epic Nativity reinactment, complete with my dad as the angel, Derek a donkey and my mom riding the donkey.

It must have been confusing when the time up until Christmas I told Jaycee she could not open her gifts, then all of a sudden I am encouraging her to. Santa brought her a little table and chairs set, and she loved all the other goodies she received.

I asked Ev to marry me again {and replaced his lost wedding ring}.

One lesson we learned this holiday season was to not send square Christmas cards. Who would have thought it takes extra postage. Sorry to those who had to pay to receive our card!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, as well!

Black Bear, Black Bear, What Do You See?

We had a great time going to the zoo with Ev's parents a while back. Jaycee was very into seeing all the interesting animals.

Her face the majority of the time:

I crawled into a little tunnel so we could do this. When we crawled out there were many adults we had to crawl around to escape. You do what 'cha gotta do, huh Jaycee?

Waving to the animals.

I can't imagine what goes through a child's head when they see something like this...

Be the bear.

Just doing some work on the farm with gma and gpa.

Jaycee using the skills she learned at the zoo by attacking daddy!

Thanks for a fun night guys! And putting up with me saying, "I don't want to see any birds. I just want to see a tiger."

Bend 2010: Best. Weekend. Ever.

We rented a house in Bend, OR with some peeps Ev works with over Labor Day weekend and had a blast. Prior to the trip many meetings were held, and the official title of the event was named. Best. Weekend. Ever. It really was great and fun to just hang out with the group.

Minute-to-win-it games to decide who got the master bedroom. It was very intense. Sadly, Ev lost in the finals to Tyler. Dumb Kleenexes. Fun to watch though!

Lots of Rock Band was played this trip. "All You Need is Love" and "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine" with everyone singing were highlights.

Of course, Ev + pool table= Splash. (and the fact that 3 balls were missing meant a lot of this game).

The food was great. Special thanks to Chris as food chairman. Well done.

Since we had so much food left, we played a game with the winner able to select two items first, and so on. Spouses were unable to communicate with one another. Also, very intense.

What we came home with.

Doing their thing. This is their boy band pic.

Livin' it up in the backyard. Life doesn't get much better than this.

We stopped at a neat restaurant on the way home right on the lake. Also very pretty!