Christmas!

The weekend before Christmas we went to Booneville for the Hicks' side Christmas party and dirty Santa gift exchange at Aunt Lesia's house with lots of yummy food.  It's not a Hicks' party unless there is a huge spread of food and dessert :)! 

We stayed with Davin's parents that night and did our Christmas with them the next morning.  His parents got the girls lots of great things, but the main gift was a trampoline.  It's a medium size one that's really nice and the girls will LOVE it.   His mom got us each wonderful things as well, but my main one was a new sewing machine!  I was surprised she got me one, but so happy!  I still have a LOT to learn, but I'm excited about it!  After gifts and a yummy lunch with the family, we headed back home.


The next week on Wed the girls and I headed to my parents that morning. It was my mom's bday and I wanted to be there for that.  Davin worked, but was able to catch a ride with Joe since they were spending Christmas in RSVL too!  Since we were going to be there through Monday I felt like I had my whole house in my car, plus the dog :)!  That night we had a family dinner for my mom's bday. 

The next day we met up with Joe and Amberley for an early morning run!  Then we had a few more errands and things to buy for Christmas...so last minute this year!  That night we also went downtown to see the Living Nativity.  Joe and Amberley and her fam (the Bauman's) were all in it that night.  The girls loved seeing the animals and dancing to the music they had playing!
And after that we drove around some neighborhoods and looked at the Christmas lights!  Since I was a little girl my dad would take us on what we called "whole wide world rides".  We would get in our PJ's and drive up and over the hill in our town where you could see the whole town lit up and from a child's perspective it looks like the whole world lit up :) so that's what I called it and that's what it's been ever since.  We always went at Christmas time, but we also went a few other times of the year.  When we went in the summer we would get ice cream.  It is one of those childhood memories that I will always hold on to.

Friday night was our Christmas Eve get together with my mom's side of the family at my Aunt Linda's house.  The food is SO yummy and so are the desserts!  After dinner, we play games and it's a lot of fun.  Wendell comes up with the best games! 

Saturday night we went to the Christmas Eve candle light service at my parents church.  I always look forward to the Candle light service each year.  The girls loved when all the candles were lit!  We went home and watched a Christmas movie.  Perfect way to end the day.
Christmas morning we woke up and let the girls open their gifts from my parents!!  Then we had our Mortenson Christmas breakfast tradition.  My mom found this recipe years ago for these blueberry pancakes with some kind of cream cheese topping.  They aren't your normal pancakes but they are my FAV pancakes, the best ever, seriously!!  My dad cooks the bacon and sausage to go with it.  My brother and I are on the same Holiday schedule so he and his wife were there too!

My sister and her family do Christmas at their house since Zak is 8 and then they come over for lunch.  My grandparents came over this year to cook us lunch.  We had Pop's famous spaghetti and grandma's Asian salad.  Then after lunch once everyone was there, we did our gifts.  Last year we decided to just draw names with my family, but my mom still gets us "stocking" gifts which are so not stocking gifts, ha!  After gifts we played games and just enjoyed each other's company.

We had a wonderful Christmas with family and celebrating the main reason!  Thank you Lord for sending us Jesus so that we can be saved and have eternal life.  What a wonderful gift, the best gift!

Christmas Parties Galore

The second weekend in December we had lots of fun celebrating the Christmas season with friends all weekend long!


Thursday night I went to a GNO cookie exchange party. Since it was just for girls,  Davin and the babies stayed home and Amberley, Mandy, and I headed to our friend Kayla's house.  This party is fun because I get to see a few girls I went to college with and then also meet lots of new people that go to church with them.  Some of our friends, the Blanchards, moved to a town 30 min north of us to start a church a couple years ago.
We ate dinner, played games, talked, exchanged (and ate) lots of yummy desserts, and talked some more!  It was a great way to kick off the Christmas parties!


Friday night we had Davin's work Christmas party.  It was at a hotel in town and they had some really good food catered in.  These work parties can get a little crazy and after dinner I'm usually ready to head home.  I do enjoy catching up with some of the other wives who I don't see very often!  There were lots of people there from all 3 offices (Here, Tulsa, LR)  and they always do a dirty Santa exchange.  I don't play, but Davin does and he left with an "awesome" green sparkly Santa sweater, woohoo.  A little after 9 we left and went to pick our girls up from FNO and head home.


Saturday night we had our annual small group Christmas party!  Always such a fun time!!  Sweet Dia came over to watch the girls for us.  **Side note: Dia got engaged over the Holiday and we are so so happy and excited for her, but I'm also a little sad.  It's not easy finding a sitter that you trust and love and that your kids love!!  She will be moving away, so we will have to get all our date nights in for the year between now and May ;)! We will miss her very much!! Thankfully we still have another wonderful sitter Claire!**
Ok, back to the party...After Dia got here we headed to a yummy Mexican place for dinner.  Then it was off to the Rowe's house for dessert and dirty santa!

 Helga, Shannon, Jodi, Me, and Lindsey

 Brett, Cody, and Davin

Helga(and baby girl), Michelle, Lindsey, Me, Jill, Shannon (and Reagan), Katie, and Jodi

Remember that "awesome" sweater I said that Davin won at his work party?  We re-gifted it and Jason ended up with it!  Mark ended up with this lovely turtle neck.  This was the second year for it to have an appearance, so I'm sure we'll be seeing both of these items next year :)! haha!

Davin co-teaches our small group with our close friend Mark, and on Sunday night we had our Leadership party.  It was at the church and they provided dinner and Chris spoke and gave each couple a gift and then we just visited with the other teachers.  It's fun to be able to get together with the other young couples small group teachers because we normally don't see them.  I feel like we meet new ones at each get together!

The next week my friend Krystal asked me to do dinner with her and I was so happy she did!  We used to meet monthly for lunch before we had our kids.  Now it's just sporadic!  I was glad we were able to do dinner so that we could just talk for however long we wanted to without having to be back at work, or tend to the kids, etc!  We met at Olive Garden and were there for 2 hours catching up!  It was fun!

Before I met up with Krystal, Davin and I took the girls to the mall to see Santa.  Last year at 11 months they liked him.  Well, this year they did not.  So the picture of the girls with Santa is a picture of the 4 of us with Santa, haha!! 

It was a busy weekend, but so much fun!!  We are so thankful for and blessed by the friends God has allowed us to do life with.  Thank you Jesus!

Also that week, the girls had their Christmas party at KDO!  I'm not sure what all they do, but I'm sure they have fun!

Christmas Fun in Branson!

*I really wanted to be caught up before the New Year, but I haven't even done December!  So here goes...


We go to Branson with my family every year around Thanksgiving (depending on who's side of the family we are with that year) to see the lights at SDC and do some shopping.  We love it!  I knew the girls would really enjoy the lights at SDC this year because they have LOVED seeing all the Christmas lights around town!


This year was a little different though.  Normally we spend 3 or 4 nights in a condo and kind of space things out and enjoy our time with each other running around Branson, and also in the condo playing games and watching movies.  Things just change when everyone grows up and has families of their own.  It's hard to work around every body's schedule, so this year just our family of 4 met up with my parents (who brought my nephew Zak, while my sister and her hubby were in Dallas).  We just stayed one night in a hotel down by the Landing.  It was a fast trip, but still fun even though we missed the rest of the fam!


We drove up early afternoon on Friday. After checking into the hotel and a quick stop at the Outlets, we made our way to SDC.  The girls did love all the millions of lights, and Parker rode all the kiddie rides.  Davin and I took turns riding some rides with Zak.  Payton still wants nothing to do with rides (hopefully she'll grow out of this!).  We did manage to get her on the carousel and she enjoyed it!
For the last several years we have watched the Dickens Christmas Carol so of course we had to watch it this year!  It's always a good show, and the girls were great through the whole thing!  I'm sad that it is not going to be there next year.  They are replacing it with It's A wonderful Life, so that will have to become our new tradition.

 The next morning we got up and had a yummy breakfast and then hit the outlets and Landing for some shopping.  The girls were a little fussy.  I guess at almost 2 years old, they don't want to sit in a stroller all day ;)!  And it was cold and rainy!  My parents and Zak headed home and Davin and I did just a little more shopping and then found a Mexican place in downtown Hollister and it was SO good. 

Such a fun weekend and great way to kick off December!! Love making memories with our girls!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving was our year with Davin's side.  He wanted to take off a couple days early so he could play some golf with his dad.  On Tuesday afternoon me and the girls went to my parents house b/c one of my mom's close friends that moved away several years ago was in town and hadn't met the twins yet.  It was great to see Mrs. Angie and two of her daughters.  We grew up in church together and so it was fun getting to see them again.  I stayed at my parents until late afternoon on Wednesday and then headed to the in-laws. This year we had Thanksgiving on Wed night at Granny's house.  There are always lots of people there (big family) and lots of yummy food!
Davin and I did get out and run 5 miles on Thursday, so I felt a little better about all the food I consumed and was going to consume the rest of the weekend :)! 
Friday night we had Thanksgiving for the Hughes side of the family at Davin's parents house.  Again, there were a lot of people and a lot of food.
Other than a trip to the Elementary school for the girls to play on the playground, and out to eat at the Mexican place, we pretty much just hung out around his parents house.
Saturday morning we headed back home for some shopping and to take down Fall stuff and put up Christmas stuff.
We had a great time with his family.
*I stole most of these pics from Mandy's blog, she is a much better picture taker than me :)!  Thanks girl!

All the yummy food!

Davin with his Aunt Trish, and cousin Amy

Parker, Payton, and Grace...second cousins.

The boy cousins and cousins-in-law

Davin, Dakota, Peck, Tim

Britt, Kyle

(Hunter can fill in as Andrew since he was out hunting) Colt, Kent, Levi, Kevin

The gals - Kala, Amy, Hailey, Lacy

Jessica, Me, Abby, Mandy

Cousins and cousin's-in-law (if there is such a term!)

Me and hopefully my sister-in-law one day.  We all hope Britt will propose soon :)!

  

Kevin and Payton. Payton was soaking up all the attention from anyone that would play with her :)!

Parker's favorite toys are still ride on toys!

The girls at Gran and Pa's house in their Turkey shirts that me and my mom made for them!

Now it's time for all the Christmas celebrations!  It gets a little A LOT busy this time of year, but the reason I celebrate this season isn't all the fun, parties, presents, food, sugar :), but the reason is that a baby was born.  A very special baby who was, and is, and is to come! A baby that was born in a manger and grew up a lowly carpenter.  A sinless man, who is Christ the Lord.  A baby that would save the world!  Thank you Lord for your son Jesus and that we can celebrate him this season! 

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

"For God so loved that world that He gave is only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Randomness....

A few weeks ago we went to the Richey's house for Adeline's 2nd birthday!  They had a bounce house set up outside for the kids to play in.  The girls had lots of fun in that thing! 

The girls jumping in Adeline's trampoline that they also had set up!

That night Davin's parents came up to watch the girls so that we could go to the Razorback game.  My brother and his brother-n-law Chris, and the Futterers joined us.  It was one of the most fun games I've been to.  I'm sure it had a lot to do with the fact that I had great company (Ams and I talked and laughed the whole time) and we won!  However, on our way home a kid in front of us thought he had his car in drive and floored it to go up the hill, or so he thought, but he had his car in reverse and rammed into us.  We waited over an hour for the cops to finally show up and get all the paperwork/insurance junk taken care of.  Thank goodness it was 'Fall back' daylight savings time that night so when we got home at midnight it was only 11, ha!

 Chris, Jack, Joe...calm, excited, nervous?!? haha.  silly boys

The following Tuesday, our good friends had their second baby!  Abby gave birth to Landon and I was so excited to get to see him and love on him!  With all of our traveling I just knew we were going to be out of town when he came.  When Ava was born we were in Destin and I was so sad we weren't there (she came a week early) and so I was really hoping Landon would come between all of our traveling :), and he did!

A couple weekends ago there was a local Boutique show that I have gone to for the last couple years.  So on Friday, Dia and Claire came over to be here while the girls napped!  Bless their sweet hearts, my girls napped the entire time they were here, so they just came over to hang out with each other at my house :), love those girls and so thankful for them!
Amberley hadn't ever been to the show, so we went together.  There were lots of great things, and I was really on a search for stockings, but didn't find any.  I did find the girls their Christmas outfits and a dress for the Spring!

The next morning we went to a birthday party for our friend Zach at a Bounce house.  He turned 4 years old.  Four just sounds so much older than 3 to me.  Seems like the other day we were at the hospital when he was born, crazy!  We had a fun morning celebrating with him.

That night we met up with some friends for the lighting of the town square and a small parade.  This was our first year to go and it was fun!  The girls loved all the lights!  Thankfully it was an unusual warm night so it was nice to be out and not be freezing!!  We all went out for BBQ afterward and had a fun time visiting.  I was thinking how just a couple years ago we were all on a ski trip together and none of us had kids (two were pregnant) and now we all have kids!

That Sunday night we had our good friends the Coleman's over for dinner.  It's so fun to watch the girls and Noah interact with each other.  The age gap is getting smaller and smaller and they are enjoying playing with each other more and more, I love it!