Merry Early Christmas

We spent our last weekend in town at Horseshoe Bay with the Madres'. The 80 degree weather didn't seem at all wintery, but we managed to do some holiday things like the Marble Falls trail of lights in between playing tennis, hot tubbing, eating out, s'mores and fishing:

When we got home, the boys discovered (only after a good 15 minutes of sitting in the kitchen) that Santa had visited while we were gone! He left a note saying that he came early since he knew we'd be in Maryland on Christmas. I guess the boys were good this year because Dean got the bike he wanted and Morgan got the big Minecraft Lego set he asked for. Since we were already opening presents, we decided to get out all the grandparent gifts and have at it. Dean also surprised us with gifts he got from the Dollar Store with his allowance: a jump rope, dart board and pens for Morgan, socks for Ed and a xmas stocking for me. The boys had a great afternoon opening their gifts and playing with their new toys : ) Thanks Nana, P-Pop, and Poppy, everything was a hit!

The Road to Christmas

It's that time of year and Christmas celebrating has begun! Following Thanksgiving, we broke out the Christmas tree and all helped to decorate it. Dean was super enthusiastic while Morgan was participating until he hit a spell of inconsolable sadness when he came upon a decoration with a photo of Stella : ( Poor guy. Ed topped it off with the star and the living room now has the Christmas spirit. 

On Tuesday, we braved the relative "cold" to attend the neighbor's only night at the 50th Anniversary of the Zilker Tree and Trail of Lights. Based on previous years, this was definitely the way to do it - WAY less crowded and you could see everything more clearly. We bumped into school friends everywhere we went and it turned into a big group outing. We even got to ride the ferris wheel (which Dean hated) and saw the HEB buddy giving out free books. It seems we pushed it though giving in to the boys' requests for hot chocolate and funnel cakes and the evening ended in meltdowns... but we did make it on time to school the next day : )