Christmas in Texas - Part 1: Time with family and friends.

One magical month in Texas. Man, oh, man, oh, man, did we ever have fun! I have more pictures than you have time or interest to see, so I've tried my best to scale back. When you get to the end of this post, you'll probably be saying, "That was scaling back?!" LOL! Settle in, my friends. This is a long one.

Because of the sheer volume of pictures and tales, I'm going to break our adventures into four posts, which just so happen to be my four most favorite things about our time back home.
Part 1: Time with family and friends
Part 2: Christmas activities
Part 3: The Polar Express
Part 4: Christmas Day

Spending time with family and friends is really what our trip back home was all about. We haven't had this much consecutive time with loved ones since we moved to Roanoke three years ago, and we cherished every single second of it.

One treat was getting to join my high school BFFs and their husbands and kiddos for a weekend of fun. These girls are hands-down some of the greatest gifts God has ever given to me. Their friendship has carried me through many a journey, and I simply cannot imagine what my life would be without them. Their influence is immeasurable. For more than 20 years now, they have been a living example of Romans 12:15, "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Dana, Lauri, and Katherine, you girls are some of the greatest cheerleaders a girl could ever hope to have.

Now these girls were much more eager than I ever was to take the leap into motherhood. I was scared out of my mind, and the last one to jump on board. But, boy, am I ever glad that I did. We have shared so many other chapters in life that it's now hard to imagine not having shared this chapter, too. Here are our babies.

And one more, just because I love that when you look at the picture below, you can see a dozen stories just waiting to be told from these precious little faces. Be still my heart!

We also had lots of fun with Pops and Nana. I think it rained each day we visited them except maybe one. But we weren't about to let the rain slow us down or dampen our visit. There were pizzas and cookies to be made...

Puppies to be played with...

Hugs to be had...

Smiles to be captured...

"Gold Speed" to be raced...

Playtime to be shared...

Duck calls to be learned...

Presents to be opened...

Tools to be used...

And one very cool tricycle to be ridden...

No, sir, we did not let the rain dampen our fun with Pops and Nana!

Thank goodness it didn't rain when we visited with Ganny and Grandpa because we would have missed out on all the fun that the leaf pile holds. Alex was in heaven.

I've never seen a kid have so much fun in a little ol' pile of leaves.

Grandpa really made Alex's day the next time we visited because he quadrupled the size of the first leaf pile and let Alex run and dive right on top. "Again!," Alex would cry out.

Meanwhile, Ganny was busy getting some of Roo's sweet sugars.

Isabel managed to snag some Roo loves, too...


While Isabel's momma got a few loves from Wyatt, Isabel's brother.

Roo also logged a few minutes seconds on the tricycle.


And a few seconds minutes in Grandpa's arms.

One of the funniest things was seeing the boys "ride" Ganny and Grandpa's reindeer.

What a hoot!

And here are a few of my favorite pics from our Christmas celebration with Jerry's family. You'll notice that Alex isn't in many of these because he was much too busy with other things to slow down long enough for me to get his picture.

While we were visiting Noni and Pop Pop, we had some special visitors come join us. My uncle Jeff and Aunt Brenda drove from west Texas for a weekend. This was their first time to meet the boys. Alex was only shy for about a minute, and then he warmed right up to them. It helped that Bren was willing to "help" Alex wash cars in the sink with him - a favorite activity of his. Water + Cars = hours of entertainment for that boy! Hate that I didn't get pictures of that, but here are a couple I did manage to get.

While Jeff and Bren were there, we had a small get-together with some of our other family and friends, and mom whipped up quite the meal. We had smoked chicken, bacon-wrapped pork loin, green beans, corn casserole, broccoli casserole (my sole contribution), homemade potato salad, rolls and chocolate cake. We ate until we were miserable. It was so good! I have pictures of the food, but I am trying to scale back, remember. ;-) Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.

We enjoyed getting to see Uncle Zack. And might I just say, that his gift to Little Man has been quite the hit. He gave Alex a car launcher that holds ten cars to race. Um, do you think he could have done any better? I think not.

And one of my favorites - Alex and his Noni sitting on Tallulah's (the name of Noni's house) grand front porch playing with balls.

Whew. More to come in Part 2. Stay tuned.