Happy Birthday Craig!

Because of the way New Years fell on the calendar, Craig was off for his birthday this year. So I thought it would be fun to plan some fun things for his birthday all a surprise to him. Craig knew I had some things planned but just didn't know what.

 Early that morning these guys showed up at our house to take Craig and

head to Tulsa to do a couple Frisbee golf courses.

 Then we went over to The Escape. We were put into a room and given 60 minutes to figure out the clues hidden inside that would ultimately give us the code number to the door to get out. I picked a room that had a 60% success rate so was hopeful we would be able to figure it out. I got a little nervous towards the end but we figured it out with 15 minutes to spare! It was so much fun!

Then we ate lunch at Red Lobster (Craig's pick) followed by one more Frisbee golf course. And what better birthday gift than to get an ACE on one of the holes!

Happy Birthday Craig! Hope you had a great day!!

Merry Christmas!

For Christmas, I decided I wanted to start the tradition of our own family name exchange. So a couple weeks before Christmas we drew names and were to stay around $10 for a gift. So we opened up those gifts on Christmas Eve. 

Austin drew Mikayla's name. She was so excited to see what he got her.

Num Noms! Which is one of the things she wanted for Christmas!

She was happy! What a sweet picture!

(and photo bombing Abby....haha)

Craig got Katelyn and she got a musical light up flashlight.

Katelyn got Brooklyn

And with a little help got her some PJ Mask puzzles which she obviously loved!

I drew Austin's name. I figured I better get him something soccer related.

Mikayla got Craig and got him some new soft PJ's.

Brooklyn drew my name and with Craig's help went over the $10 limit and got me a new sweatshirt!

After our name exchange we watched the Nativity story on TV and then got things ready for Santa!

Look's like Santa found our house on Christmas morning!

We had a great Christmas day opening presents together!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Activities

Making Christmas sugar cookies for Santa

Each kid picked a plate to decorate

We also went over to my parents house to make gingerbread house

(always a favorite with my kids)

Brandon and Jenna came for Christmas this year!!

And of course Christmas means lots of family gatherings and lots of game playing

The big boys playing some games of their own (Nintendo games)

These girls made up their own "cake-walk" game with prizes and everything!

Doing puzzles---Brooklyn's favoritePainting fingernails

And I can't even count how many times these guys got together

to play Frisbee golf over the holidays!

Meanwhile the littlest ones had fun playing together....

And sleeping together.

The kids always love getting together and playing with their cousins!

And we got to meet Audrey (Brandon & Jenna's girl) for the first time! She is a curly-hair cutie!!

 A couple days after Christmas we decided to head over to Silver Dollar City for the 4th time this year except this time it was all decorated for Christmas! The kids had fun doing the rides again....mainly the roller-coasters (although I didn't get any pictures).

 We did stop inside to meet this guy....too bad Rudolph was on a break!

 Austin and Mikayla really wanted Dippin' Dots and were so happy when they found some. Personally when it is 40 degrees outside I would have chosen hot chocolate but they were happy with their choice until their hands started getting cold!

 After it got dark we enjoyed seeing the whole park lit up with Christmas lights!

I love getting to hang out with these kids doing fun things together!