Christmas 2011

Heritage Village Clove Oranges

Snow Ball Fight with Mayme

Bell Family Christmas

Spearman Christmas

Christmas Morning

Llano Christmas

Christmas preview

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Happy Monday

Just a quick picure to update the blog for today.

Weekend Festivities



With Mayme at the Northpark Trains

I love how he's trying to figure out the sound, plus his cowboy boots are too cute!

Gingerbread House - I know I seem like the kind of person who would like to make Gingerbread Houses but I'M NOT! I've done it once before and it was a disaster and this try was no better. In fact,  it was worse because I had an eager 3 year old who wanted to compare our houses to the box it came in. Ha!
This season Teri and I are experimenting with holiday actives to see which ones hang around as a traditions and I can honestly say there will never be another Gingerbread House at the De Leon's.

Depite my bad attitude towards the houses, Vin had a good time.

Look at this picture and the first one of him and Mayme, and you'll see that he's perfected his "fake" smile.

The finshed products

This one says "Vin" on top.

Thanksgiving 2011

Whew... we've had a busy and fun filled Thanksgiving weekend. We're already embracing the wonders of the season and creating traditions and memories for years to come. Teri and I are especially excited for this Christmas since it's the first one that Vin actually "gets". And speaking of the word actually, Vin is now using it on a regular basis saying things like, "Well Mom, I actually wanted pancakes for breakfast." He sounds so grown up. And just now as I was typing this he said, "Actually I want a minorah for Christmas." What????

So back to the holiday, we went to Teri's brother's in-laws for Thanksgiving and had a great time. Vin has an 8 year old cousin who he just loves. They played all day together and "actually" Teri's brother is expecting their second baby just two weeks before us. The meal was lovely and we had a set table with the good china,  real silver, great food and good company.

Vin and cousin Grayson

The crazy cupcakes I made to look like Thanksgiving dinner.

The whole meal.

Tree Hunting
We went to Yesterland Farm in Canton to cut our own tree. They advertised a kiddie wonderland with rides and games and they delivered. They had about 10 rides for kids 32" to 45" tall and fair food, games, Santa and trees. I highly recommend this place, we'll be going here every year for our tree.

My little corn eaters, on the cob and "kettled" in a bag.

At the water pump duck races.

At the water pump duck races.

Cutie on a ride.

Kicking Off the Household Christmas

Cutting and pasting pictures for his Santa letter.

Decorating

The finished tree and a quick note about the lights... Patty set the motherhood bar high, I mean real high in lots of areas but none higher than the Christmas tree lights. When we were kids our living room ceiling allowed for a 12 foot live tree and Patty did it up. Her light philosophy is to string each branch from truck to tip and work your way around. Do you know how long this takes and how many strands of lights??? Too much and too many that's how much but man it makes a pretty tree!

Fireworks

At Fair Park for the Dallas tree lighting and Fireworks set to Christmas Carols.

Teri, Vin and Zen bundled up and watching the show.

And to wrap up the weekend we went to Church where Vin won this stuffed reindeer playing an Advent quiz game. Oh. One more thing... We to see the Muppets and they were AWESOME!