Christmas!

 The boys all accidentally dressed alike for Christmas Eve service.  If I had tried to force them to dress alike I would be hearing about it for the rest of my life.

The only person who reported downstairs for Christmas at 8:30 was Kyle.  I told him to wake the rest of them up.  You would have thought there would have been running downstairs with excitement (or at least storming down angrily that the music was too loud). 

I thought brunch would be a good idea this year since we were going to The Texans game. Thankfully Jason was up for it (although I did make more things that I usually do!)

 And here's Jason making homemade hollandaise sauce. (Yes, he did eggs Bennedict!)

I have no pictures of opening presents, any presents, or anybody that was at Christmas dinner, but I did take a picture of my table. 

And this is the one picture I have from The Texans game. 

The Elf is Finished

 I finished with the elf today (Merry Christmas to me)! 

The food ones were pretty easy.

Kyle told me this one was his favorite

 He pointed out that Megan should be winning.  And with the way she can jump, he's right.  I didn't think that one through! 

And then I ended with this one today.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Kyle Pictures

 Kyle went to a concert this week (yes, during finals week).  Not only did he pass the final he had the next day, but he also made it on to the band's Instagram.  So I guess it's a win-win. 

And then they had some really cool diving pictures taken that we just got.

Elf Update

 Thanks to the internet, I've been able to keep up with my Elf on the Shelf (but they have to be good) duties.

I did get lazy one day and just stick them in the toaster oven. 

The one with the all the googly eyes on the Santas (and The Elf and Mini Megan) was the hardest one for them to notice! 

This one was my favorite.  Here's what the picture is all the time, and then what I switched it out to that day.  I was very proud of myself. 

And they weren't as much impressed that I did this with the elf, as they were to find out our printer also works as a copy machine. 

I Can't Believe Jason Beat Me in This

 Jason and I joined a fitness ap basically so we could see how much Reed and his cross country friends run and be impressed by them.  

Here is what Reed's year looked like.

And here's Reed compared to normal people. 

I am actually really impressed with how much more consistent Jason is about walking than I am.  I will definitely be better about that next year now that I know I'm going to get a report at the end of the year!

I would also like to thank the city of Breckenridge for all my elevation! 

Parties

 Jason and I have both had a bunch of Christmas parties, none of which we have gone to together, or have any pictures from.  But we did go to his work party last week.

The dress was "holiday festive".  And as you can see, I was the festive for both of us. 

More from Floral Arranging

Here's Kyle's latest project.  I think they look great.  

He got a 90 on them. I think that should definitely be a 100. 

And here's what they look like in our house!

MAGA Tree

 So here is my new tree this year.  

Yes, it's right beside our main tree, but it looks better in real life than it does in this picture. 

 I made Barron taller than everyone, and I made Melania to look like she did at the 1st inauguration because she looked so stunningly beautiful that day.  I even made her gloves! 

 

I realized after I took his picture that Usha looked too big, so I trimmed her dress down and now she looks skinner on my tree.

Reed wanted me to make Elon Musk, so I tried to give him his dark MAGA look. 

And Kyle wanted Kai Trump so I put her in a Miami U golfing outfit. Her hair is in a pony tail in the back. 

I want to make more but the days are getting away from me.  I'll update if I get anymore made. 

Elf on the Shelf

 So even though I have absolute grown people living in this house, Kyle informed me that he wanted me to do elf on the shelf this year and I "had to do it good". 

I agreed to do it, but I also let them know that the elf would only be moving while they were at school since they both leave for school so early.  So here's what I've done so far, which have been deemed "good enough".

He also found himself on our Trump tree, which I'll have to post about tomorrow and show the ornaments I made for it. 

Christmas Decor and Advent Drama

 As you know we have some kind of Advent Calendar drama every year.  This year Kyle informed me he had never gotten to pick the calendar he wanted.  So I let Kyle pick first, and then I labeled all the calendars. 

No sooner did I think I wouldn't be hearing any more about advent calendars, we got this text at JR.

Past advent calendar drama has taught us that Jason gets upset if you eat the candy out of order. You must only eat that specific day's candy.  

I can't with these people.

In other Christmas news, Kyle made this

And I hung it with my silver decor. I think it looks great!

Jason's Birthday and Thaksgiving

 I took 0 pictures of Jason's birthday and also 0 pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner.  

I did, however, take pictures of Reed winning the whole Turkey Trot, so we'll just go with that for this post. 

Here they are at the start.  Reed is in the black shirt.  You can hear the wind whipping around.  It was 30 mile an hour winds (but at least it didn't rain like it has the other years). 

And here's Jason and me in our annual waiting on Reed to come back to the finish picture.

And here he comes down the finish.  

The finish line is empty when you are the first one to cross.

His winning stats

And with his turkey trophy for winning!

More Lambs and Diving

So Kyle won 3rd place at his diving meet in Corpus.  I don't have any pictures, and the videos he sent me are trying to download to the cloud and I'm not smart enough to get them to copy to my phone or out of the cloud.  

But I am smart enough to post this picture he sent.  One of his friends is out of town and asked Kyle to walk his lamb.  She won't walk for Kyle and just lies down.

Which really made me laugh.

Miss Megan

 Kyle was out of town last weekend diving, so Jason and I got to take care of Megan.

 (And we all know that means Jason really took care of her.)

Look how adorable she is!

She loves to eat! She's not too far off from show weight, so she's probably going to have to go on a diet soon. 

And here are her neighbors, who aren't nearly as beautiful as she is.

She even let us walk her. 

I love her.

Sweater Weather

 It finally cooled off a bit here in Houston, enough so that Chloe had to break out her sweater and Megan had to break out her heat lamp. 

And while we're on the subject of all the animals...I came home the other night and Jason said to Chloe, "tell your mother what you did."  Chloe (Reed) then told me she'd killed a baby possum.  I was super upset by this news since 1. we don't kill possums; we love possums and 2. it was a baby. 

Apparently, Jason and Reed had heard Chloe doing her possum bark and by the time they got in the back yard she had already killed it.  Jason said its tongue was hanging out and he poked it with a stick and it didn't move.  I guess in the excitement of trying to get Chloe back in the house he left it and figured he'd go pick it up later.

After they told me the story, Jason went back outside to get the possum...and it was gone.  It had played possum!  It totally fooled Jason who thought it was really dead. 

Also, not possum related but animal related, the raccoons have gotten way too brave at the club and now come up on the deck at night with everyone sitting there! 

Here's a picture I took of one this past Saturday!

1 More Season Left

 We officially put cross country season to bed with the cross country banquet.  

Here are Reed and his teammates.  

And here's what his coach had to say about him. 

There are only 3 awards they give out, and 2 of those are for seniors, so Reed won the only award he could have, which was most improved.  It's not that he improved so much during the season, but more that he came back from the summer so much faster than the year before.

The Colors Match My Christmas Tree

If anybody is reaping the rewards of Kyle's floral design class, it's me.

Just look what he brought home last week. 

Burgers. Literally.

 So one of Reed's cross country buddies invited him (and 2 other friends) to the Texans/Colts game.  But even better, they got to do the Whataburger hamburger race.  (They knew they were going to get to do it before the game.  They weren't chosen randomly at the game.) 

When Reed told me I knew exactly what he was talking about as they do it at every game.  Jason and I decided to go to the game so we could see him.  And it was so funny, especially since we know all the kids.   

All 4 of these guys are cross country guys, so I imagine it was one of the fastest races they've had. Reed said the best part was getting to stand on the field level during the game waiting to do the race.

Reed is on the left side and is the bun.