Joy to the World

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15

This was the verse on one of the versions of our Christmas card this year, and we hope it expresses how we feel about this season. All year long we should praise God for the everlasting gift of his son, Jesus. It is so hard to imagine that God loves us all as his children, even more than we love our own kids. It is truly a miracle!

We went to our contemporary service for Christmas Eve this year. It was great to see our church friends and we were blessed by serving as ushers at the service.



When we got home, we had a quick dinner and Chance and Cade went looking at Christmas lights while I put Annie to bed. While they were out, luck had it that a red light was shining in the sky, which clearly was Rudolph's nose. Cade came home in a huge hurry to get to bed since Santa was already so close to our house! He very quickly wrote a letter to Santa, put out the cookies, and put himself to bed. I have really never seen him move so fast or be so excited about something!



The big man did make a stop at our house...

And Hearts Will be Glowing When Loved Ones Are Near

Our first Christmas celebration was in Dallas this year with the Locklear family. It is always a great (and loud) time when the Locklear siblings get together, and this year was no exception! We all dearly missed Lindsay, who was celebrating her first married Christmas with CJ in Virginia, but thanks to facebook and texting, they got to see pictures of everything we did almost immediately!

You'll have to take my word for it that we had lots of quality family time, because my picture taking was an epic fail. I focused a bit way too much on it being Annie's first Christmas and seriously neglected everyone else. So, here is Annie's Christmas in Dallas...

One semi-successful cousin picture



And the present-opening can begin! The boys got Ninja Turtle and superhero gifts, which allowed for many battles in the next few days. Annie got her first doll from Papaw and Melly, and especially enjoyed the ribbon.



Photo ops with the aunts and uncles


I did at least try to get Cade in these pictures, but he was too busy playing with Xavier. Those two are best cousin friends and love every minute with each other!

We had a wonderful Christmas with you, Papaw and Melly! Thank you for having us and for all you do for us!

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

Getting ready for Christmas is so much fun! Here are a few random pictures of our Christmas fun:

Our family read the Advent reading at church on December 1. I took advantage of the kids looking lovely to take their picture with the church tree. It was a great success, which takes some pressure off of Christmas Eve, which is when we usually attempt this picture.



I couldn't find an ornament that I loved for Annie's first Christmas, so I decided to paint one myself. Sleep-deprived mamas apparently cannot be trusted with craft projects.


The nice lady at U Paint It fixed it for me and it now proudly hangs on our tree.

I was able to attend some Christmas festivities at Cade's school. Last Thursday morning, the kindergartners had a holiday brunch. This is code for massive amounts of sweets with an occasional grape sprinkled in. We did some crafts after the brunch and my respect for kindergarten teachers tripled.



Another fun activity was gingerbread house making. I thought the teacher was crazy when she said that she would just put the supplies out on the tables and let the kids figure out everything by themselves, but those little 5 year olds really impressed me!



And now we're ready for Christmas!

Family Pictures - November 2013

We had family pictures taken for our Christmas cards last month. We had to change photographers at the last minute, and it worked out very well! We met Sherra Ogden about 5 minutes before our photo shoot at the George Bush Library park, and she did an awesome job capturing the shots we wanted and our family's personality. Now that our Christmas cards have (mostly) gone out, I can share all of the photos with you. Enjoy!

First... the nice ones where everyone is looking at the camera (aka - card-perfect)



Then, we played around with copying Lindsay and CJ's engagement picture where CJ did a push-up with Lindsay on his back

The original:



Our versions:



And, we're all done!

Santa's Wonderland

We were one of the 12,000 (not kidding - that was the real number of people there) crazy dedicated people that went to Santa's Wonderland last Saturday. This is a great tradition that we have with my parents and Cade really looks forward to going every year! For the first time, we had weather that matched the fake snow that falls at the entrance - it was COLD!



Our first picture as a family of four at the giant Texas flag!



We saw Cade's favorite character - Marshall Frost



And we saw Santa and Mrs. Claus!



My family has gone to Santa's Wonderland since I was in college, and Mrs. Claus has been nice enough to be in our picture every year. We were proud of Annie for tolerating Santa's lap pretty well! She was kind of overwhelmed by all of the cold and the people, but she was happy when we got home!



Because we just didn't get enough Christmas spirit the first time, Cade and I went back this week with Garrett and his family. We went to Santa's Wonderland together last year, and the boys have been asking to ride the hayride again since we got off of it last year. We love seeing the boys have fun together!



Even though Santa's Wonderland has gotten bigger every year, my favorite part (besides seeing the magic on kids' faces) is this sign, which never changes:



No matter how many gifts need to be bought or wrapped, or how many parties we attend, I want us to all strive for light hearts this season, and a wide-eyed focus on the birth and gift of baby Jesus.

Annabeth Cate - 8 months old

Thanks to everyone for being patient as Annie's monthly updates are delivered later and later each month!

Annie's 8th month has been busy! Here are her highlights:

Eating: Still doing well with nursing and eating her baby food. She is doing better with trying new foods and we are working on more finger foods. Chicken was forcefully rejected recently! Dr. Parr encouraged us to introduce peanut butter before she turns one, so I am currently looking for a low-sugar peanut butter cookie recipe. I still want her first "sweet" to be at her first birthday!

Sleeping: A second ear infection gave us another rough stretch of sleep, but hopefully we are on the mend now! She is not allowed to sleep in our bed anymore since she is so mobile and we do not want her to fall out. She is doing a little better about napping at daycare, and we can usually count on one short nap and one long nap on the weekends. Babies are so sweet when they are sleeping!



Growing: She is one whole pound heavier this month than last month! She weighed 18 pounds, 7 ounces at her ear infection appointment this week. She still wears 6-9 month clothes and is very tolerant of all of the Christmas outfits I've bought her!

Enjoying: Pulling up is her newest trick!! She pulls up on anything that will stand still, and she can even scale up smooth surfaces like the refrigerator, shower, and dishwasher. Annie just learned how to sit down from a standing position, which makes her pretty self sufficient. Chance and I really feel the love when she crawls to us and pulls up on our pant legs! Daddy especially feels the love because she is saying dadadada. Baths are her favorite thing at night, and she will crawl to the tub when she is ready for her bath. Cade is still her absolute favorite person and she is so happy when he plays with her. We are *hoping* that once she gets past these ear infections that she will start enjoying the car, because there is still a lot of crying when we drive!

One of the most fun activities of this age is that Annie can help with household tasks. She recently assisted with dishes, laundry, and opening the mail.



Just like her big brother, Annie enjoys being outside. We had some nice weather last weekend, so we hung out on the back porch. Annie had fun investigating the leaves and did not want to stay put on the blanket!



I'm very thankful to have some time off work to spend time with each child individually. Last week, Annie and I went to her first Kindermusik class. Here we are on the waiting room, where I've spent lots of time waiting on Cade's classes before!



The next week, we couldn't go to the class, so we had our own music class/ instrument tasting session at home!



For Annie's 8 month pictures, I really wanted a shot of her in front of the Christmas tree. We got 2 great photos!





Annie's first year is truly flying by and we are so thankful for her learning and growing!