Texas Andersons

Ben got to spend a fun couple of days at Granmom’s, already getting to open up a couple of Christmas gifts.  Granmom and Papa gave him a new bike!  And he got a big lego collection from Angie!  It sounds like he had a great time, spending lots of hours building and playing.  And during this time, I got to sneak some presents into the house without him seeing, Evan and I got to spend lots of playtime together, and Evan had a great gymnastics class.

Wednesday, Papa Larry, Granmom Debbie, and Aunt Jenny came into town, and we filled the house with wonderful smells as we baked pumpkin muffins, cornbread, and chocolate cupcakes for our neighbors.

On Thursday we took Granmom Loretta and Aunt Jenny to Fiesta Texas.  The weather was perfect; we had a great time!  Ben and I “ice skated.”  Granmom, Nathan, and I rode lots of rides with the kids.  We got everyone onto the carousel (even Jenny and Burke).  And then we stopped at Chick-fil-a for milk shakes (chocolate pepperminty goodness!).

Ben was my little elf on Christmas Eve.  He helped me get the last of the gifts wrapped.  And we baked cookies for everyone (including Santa).  We got the whole family around the table to ice and eat some cookies for snack; we went out to eat for dinner; we stopped at the North Pole one last time to look at the Christmas lights.  And then the boys got to exchange gifts.  Ben gave Evan a Santa/North Pole GeoTrax train, which Evan loved and played with all evening.  And Evan gave Ben a lego set, which he built with until bed time.  Sweet!

Christmas morning, the boys went through their stockings stuffed with goodies!  Then the day was spent cooking up a wonderful Christmas lunch and eating!  There was LOTS of food.  But nothing beats the cheese ball, sweet potato fries, yeast rolls, and chocolate cupcakes.  Yum!  And then (after much begging by Ben), we finally opened gifts.

Favorite things received?  Evan loves his new Cars characters and wii game, his golf set, the Hot Potato game, and the jumbo sized keyboard!  Ben loves his legos, gps unit, and Wheel of Fortune wii game!  Nathan and I can’t wait to spend our gift certificates at Kohl’s, Home Depot, and Amazon!  And I just love the boys’ new Bass Pro Shops caps from Papa (very handsome).

Favorite things we gave?  We loved the concept we went with this year… gift of the month clubs.  Each month, my parents will receive a food gift certificate which they can use at their choice of San Antonio restaurants and a yummy smelling soap from a seller on Etsy, Nathan’s parents will be getting different teas and candles from Etsy sellers, and Jenny and Angie will be getting cupcakes and cookies from Sweet Beginnings.  All delivered right to their doors each month!

And Christmas evening?  We popped popcorn, blended up some frozen hot chocolate, and settled in with The Polar Express.  Heaven!

Thanks to everyone who sent Christmas cards and well wishes.  Thank you for all the wonderful gifts!  And big hugs to our family who joined us yesterday for the fun.  We are so blessed!!!  Merry Christmas!!!

We had two Christmas parties with our scouts group.  Tuesday night was the entire pack, at church.  LOTS of sweets and a visit from Santa.  And each boy received a present- their Pinewood Derby cars!!!  The other party was Saturday, just for our age group, at our cubmaster’s house.  Dinner, s’mores, a hike, a fire pit, and good friends.  Great night!

Evan had his preschool Christmas program.  Granmom drove out; we both sat anxiously to see how he was going to do.  He walked out on stage with his reindeer antlers on and his jingle bell in hand.  He seemed fine… until he saw me.  Then he threw his bell to the ground and hid his face in his seat until all three songs were done!  Oh, joy! 

This weekend I spent both days photographing dozens of adorable kids with “Santa.”  And Nathan brought the boys out to the studio for their turn.  Guess whose kid was the worst behaved of the whole weekend?  That’s right- my 2 year old!  He did not like Santa, even though he knew it was Daddy.  So I snapped what I could.  Not great images, but decent.

And then we headed out to look at Christmas lights.  The North Pole (on Cedar St.) is glorious again this year!  (makes me really wish we had had time to put up our lights and snowmen)

Ben had his first choir concert.  With a “Christmas Around the World” theme, the kids (and Santa) talked about different cultures’ traditions and sang songs from different countries.  Ben even had a speaking part about the menorah.  It was great, mistakes and all.  And we found that Evan took the whole thing in.  Once home that evening, he started practicing and performing his songs for his Christmas show. 

We had a wonderful playdate with some of our best friends.  Morgan, Landon, and Madison came over to build and decorate gingerbread houses.  Then, playing, hide-and-seek, laughing, and squealing commenced.  What joy!

We had our first-ever Shutter-Happy staff Christmas party.  Nathan and I cooked up some chicken sliders, coconut shrimp, and jasmine rice.  (we forgot the sweet potato fries)  And Beth’s and Emily’s families came to the studio for eats, visiting, and fun.  What a blessing to really enjoy the company of your co-workers and their families!  Only snag?  Beth baked up a bunch of cookies for the kids to decorate while here… and some unknown and still unnamed persons took samples of most of the baked goods!  (gasp!) 

Nathan and I took the boys to the riverwalk for our annual Christmas outing.  We saw The Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX (LOVE it!), walked the river, and ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.

And then we finally got around to decorating!  It looks as though we’ll never get our snowmen in the front yard or lights around the house.  But we did get the tree lit and decorated, and the stockings are hung. 

Letter to Santa, from Evan:
Evan’s letter was simply lots of scribbles.  What he means is, he wants trains or anything Cars.  He’ll be pretty easy to please.  Have fun building the toys for him!

The winter season has begun, so Evan has started gymnastics.  And he LOVES it!  One morning that I let it slip that it was a gymnastics day, he ran around the house yelling, “Go ‘nastics!” over and over again.  We had to start getting ready that minute.  And we got there over half an hour early.

We spent a wonderful evening enjoying Dickens on Main.  The boys rode the barrel train and enjoyed some kettle corn.  Then we all had fun in the “snow,” seeing the animals at the petting zoo, listening to the performers, eating a funnel cake, and taking a horse-drawn carriage ride.

The next day we headed out to Devine Acres Farm.  The pancake/sausage/hot chocolate breakfast was great, and the visit with Santa was pretty amazing (both boys sat with him, and Ben visited with him quite a while).  Then we enjoyed some rubber ducky races, putt-putt golf, a bean bag toss, tetherball, their playground, and a hay ride.  Then we picked out our favorite Christmas tree, cut it down, and brought it home.  Such a fun morning!

Then we headed to Bear Moon Bakery for cookie decorating and to Main Street for the annual Christmas parade.  Then Nathan and I handed the boys off to Granmom so we could head out to the Don Strange Ranch for Rackspace’s Christmas party.

Letter to Santa, from Amy:
I’ve been good, really good.  And all I want for Christmas are things for my business.  An awesome camera would come in quite handy, to help me capture even more beautiful portraits.  An extra light would make my job so much easier, so that I’m not constantly moving lighting around the studio.  And a few really neat backdrops would give my clients more opportunities to create images they’re going to love.  Really, that’s it… unless you can give the gift of time.  I’d love to have some extra moments to clean up around here, work in the yard, relax in a bubble bath, get back on the treadmill, etc.