Christmas Vacation

I know the schools can't officially call it "Christmas break" anymore, but to our family, that's still what it is. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus Christ came to earth to save us, Christmas is the celebration His birth!

We had lots of family time over the break...Casey had the entire week between Christmas and New Years off, so he kept especially busy with our crew.

The kids had dentist appointments on Tuesday afternoon and they picked me up after work. We told them we were going out to eat. They obviously have no sense of time because we drove to Omaha and they didn't whine (or have a clue!) that we had left Lincoln. We grabbed Subway close to our hotel and told them we were going to eat it someplace else.

We pulled up to our motel and Casey checked in. It wasn't until we had already grabbed our bags and were walking into the Holiday Inn and had pointed out the water slide to the kids that it started to sink in. We surprised them with a short getaway to an indoor water park and a trip to the zoo the next day. They seriously had no clue!

Eating his sandwich before heading to the pool!

These two were on a mission to get wet!

"Come on, elevator!!!"

Unfortunately the actual pool was being re-filled with ice cold water. So we hung out in the hot tub and on the slides and play structure. I don't think the kids even noticed the pool was down!

Rockin' the slide!

Burning some time while Daddy gets us ice cream!!!

Wednesday morning we headed to the Henry Doorly Zoo...

Our little monkey loved the big apes!!

By the time we got to this exhibit, I was pretty jealous of this big guy. Kennedy and Chase didn't sleep very well and I'm a light sleeper so I was ready to curl up for a nap!

We treated the kids to an IMAX movie, one on caves. Casey had never seen one either and we thought it would be a good fit since we had toured our first cave last summer. We loved it! And everyone sat through the whole thing. We will definitely be going back!!

Making a winter craft before heading back to the little city!

Last weekend I took the kids to Lost In Fun, it was Chase's first time there. I didn't have my good camera but took a couple pics of him. He was a hoot on the slide, he went down head first every time (with me assisting him of course!)


Last week we had McCoy and Ryder over for a couple hours. Check out McCoy and Chase's spaghetti faces!

Have a great week!

A New Years Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with my side on New Years weekend. It was our year to host and our guests couldn't get her soon enough for our kiddos :)

My Mom made these beautiful afghans for the kids. She nailed the colors, they love them!

Kennedy and Lizzie Bug

We played lots of Hearts

All the grandkids

Opening our stocking bags!

Christmas cash!

White elephant time. This years theme was "Nebraska". One of the better themes we've had, there was lots of stealing this year! The favorite gifts were a "cup" "ornament" "bag" and "hot pads"!




We at lots and lots and LOTS!

Playing Family Feud, girls vs. boys

Wrestling with Uncle Craig

Burning off some energy at the pool!!

I love this sweet photo of my older sister reading to Chase!!

Christmas 2011

The Friday before Christmas the kids and I were all off of work/school/daycare. We got busy with some projects, including painting these "H" ornaments and making cards for Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year. We had a super busy day. We went shopping for gifts and a grocery gift card for a family in our church that is in need.

After that we decorated sugar cookies for Santa and dressed in our best and headed to the Christmas Eve service at our church. I love the family friendly service and so do the kids :)

We normally eat out and then drive around and look at lights. We decided to pick up Zhang's and head home instead.

After chowing down our favorite Chinese, we let the kids open one gift like always. They got fuzzy fleece blankets!

And we opened a family gift which we then played: Headbands!

Christmas morning, wearing their Christmas tree shirts and ready to open gifts!

After opening gifts we bummed for a few hours and played with the new toys. Then it was off to Grandma's house for a late lunch and vegging out :) We are so blessed to only live a half hour from her home.

Our theme this year was "H", the guys are playing with Jimmy's new "hacky sack"