Christmas in Texas

This year Dan really wanted to have Christmas in Houston since we haven't been back in so long.  Although I knew it would be a lot of work to travel with 2 small children we decided to make the trip.  The boys did WAY better than I thought they would do and I am so glad we were able to spend Christmas there.  We flew in Thursday afternoon (boys did great on the plane, we had an extra seat on either side of us and no complaints of ears popping) and spent Thursday night with Dan's mom and brother.  

Here we are decorating cookies, every time we would talk about going to Texas to visit Nana, Noah would say I need to decorate cookies.  So that was something we knew we had to do!

 Friday we spent with my mom (see previous post).  On Christmas Eve we met Dan's dad for brunch and he had a ton of gifts for the boys, including a playhouse which we will take pictures of when it arrives here!

 Noah and Luke with Uncle Thomas and Grandpa

 Eating some Christmas cookies before we got ready for church

 Christmas Eve night we went to church and they had the perfect service for families with kids.  The message was really short, they had a puppet show, there was tons of singing, and they did a mini Christmas pageant.  Noah got to be a wise man but the pictures didn't show up because I was too far away and it was too dark.

 They also passed out glow sticks instead of candles to sing the last song Silent Night...the boys loved it!

 They also loved eating it

 After church we went to eat Mexican food which I have been craving, it was sooo good and that alone might convince me to move back!  Christmas morning we opened presents first because Noah is getting to the age that if he sees presents it is just too much to ask for us to open them later!

Luke got an elephant in his stocking

 Barbara opening up a gift

 This picture is so cute of Luke staring up at Uncle Thomas

 Noah loved the Aggie jacket he got from Nana, he wore it the entire rest of the trip!

 This is the playhouse Dan's dad got the boys

 Later that day after presents we had Christmas dinner.  Luke ate so much.  There were potatoes everywhere and he seemed to enjoy dinner the most of everyone!!

 After dinner we had a special ice cream cake for Jesus and Noah got to blow out the candle.

We had to leave the next morning and it was a loooong trip home we left the house at 9 a.m. and didn't get home until after 8:00 p.m.  Our flight ended up being delayed more than 2 hours so it was a fun day trying to entertain 2 tired kids for 3 hours in an airport, 2 hours on a plane, and 3 more hours in the car!!  But we are back at home and the boys absolutely loved being so spoiled by everyone that loves them so very much.  We are blessed to have such amazing families!!