MERRY CHRISTMAS (a month ago....)

Yes, I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas! It may be a month late but at least its getting done!

Christmas this year was a little different for us for a few reasons:

1. It was our first Christmas NOT going home to Louisiana.

2. My family came to US in Houston (minus Kristin & Chad....so sad).

3. We spent Christmas at my Uncle Mike and Aunt Jill's since they were out of town and my house is TOO small to host.

So it was a little different but we managed and it turned out to be a great Christmas (even though I was HUGE and 9 months pregnant). My aunt had taken down their Christmas tree before they left & we decided we couldn't do without a tree for Christmas so we brought over our small, dinky artificial tree and did a little decorating to it to make it a little more Christmasy around the house. And yes, that's Krew moving around all the presents to a new and "better" spot!

This was the first year since Kent & I have been married that we've spent Christmas Eve with my family. We usually do the Hooper Christmas on Christmas Eve in Louisiana so this was a first for us. Every Christmas Eve my family makes taco salad for dinner (its easy and simple for a busy day/night not to mention YUMMY).

There's Krew still rearranging the presents right before we opened up our annual Christmas pj's.

Another Christmas tradition my family has done as LONG as I can remember is my dad reading to us "Twas the Night Before Christmas." He has the whole thing memorized and puts alot of animation into it. I told Kent he has to do the same for our family (he can't imagine ever having it fully memorized). Luckily, this year my dad was so sweet and found the book where you can record yourself reading it and it will play it back to you. So we have Papa to read it to us EVERY year if he's not around!

The annual reading...

Boston & Krew in their Christmas jammies (we missed Rylee, Sophie and Charlie). I love how MASSIVE Boston looks compared to little baby Krew!

My parents also let the boys open ONE other present Christmas Eve. They got their GARBAGE CAN TRUCKS! This was a last minute request that Boston asked Mimi & Papa for and we're SO glad they pulled through. It is Boston's FAVORITE toy. He constantly tells us he wants to be a garbage man when he grows up....Kent told him to go for being the CEO but he wants to be the man who runs behind the truck throwing the trash in the truck! We'll see if he changes his mind as he gets older but for now, he's our trash picker upper and collects trash all around the house (its quite nice).

We also had our annual baby Jesus birthday cake. Yes, to some this is a little weird but we've been doing it since we were little to help us better understand whose birthday Christmas REALLY is.....so the tradition continues.

The next morning was Christmas and to say Boston was THRILLED is an understatement. I don't know if Krew really understood a TON what to expect and what was going on. I think he was still half asleep.

We sit and wait, just like every year, for the video cameras to be set up and ready for us to enter!

There was lots of gift giving and Christmas lasted until after noon!

Boston got a cool new race track from Santa

Another one of his gifts from Santa were his BIG bowling pins. This was his MOST wanted gift and he was THRILLED to get it!

Kari was in awe at her new camera that HOPEFULLY she'll take advantage of so we can get more pictures of our sweet little Krew!

We were shopping one night and walked into an "As Seen on TV" store and found this (practice putter while on the toilet) that we just HAD to get my dad for one of his gifts! So if his putting gets better this year, you now know why!

Boston got totally loaded and spoiled with gifts this year.

Usually EVERY year I can think of the PERFECT gift for Kent. This year, I struggled so I resulted to some tools he wanted. He was pretty excited about it thankfully!

That face of Kelli's is PRICELESS!

Kent brought me to tears with his gift. It was sweet and sentimental. Do you love that he's LAUGHING at me as I'm getting so emotional?!?

Krew fell in love with his ball pit from Auntie Kristin. Don't you love his hair standing straight up?!

When all the presents were finished being opened, we had daddy's annual Christmas breakfast! Its my FAVORITE breakfast of the year that we usually always end up eating at 1 or 2 pm since Christmas takes so long but its TOTALLY worth the wait! Later that day after we had cleaned up Christmas, the boys found it the MOST fun to play with the trash bags with all the wrapping paper and act like they were trash men filling up their garbage trucks.

We topped our evening off with our nice (and delicious) Christmas dinner!

We had a GREAT Christmas! I'm so thankful my family is so wonderful and willing to make sacrifices and to have come to US this year since I couldn't travel to them! It meant alot and made the holidays so special!

MERRY CHRISTMAS (a month later...)!!!