Forever 25: Third Christmas

We made it to Austin on Mya's birthday, the 26th. It took us HOURS to get here because the traffic was so bad. I was definitely a little stressed by the time we finally got south of Waco.

On Tuesday, we just hung around the house and took naps. Apparently nothing noteworthy because I have NO pictures of Tuesday.

Wednesday was tons of fun.

When we arrived in the late morning, Hannah and Cole were eating popcorn and watching a movie, and Witten began to help himself.

Katie drove up a little north of Waco to meet Laurie and Sean. They were with Sean's family in Greenville, and had no transportation to get to Austin, so Sean's mom drove them 1/2 way, and Katie met them to drive them the other 1/2.

While we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Mehews, we headed outside where we played for hours. I played some volleyball with the girls, and grandma played a little later. At one point the ball got stuck up in the tree, so Grandma tried to shake it down by hanging on one of the lower branches. It eventually took a good toss from Hannah of another ball mixed with a little shaking from Grandma, but it eventually came loose.

Daddy, Witten, and Grandpa played basketball. This picture reminds me of a line in one of his books from my favorite books of his: "You're to small for basket ball...unless you play with someone tall."

Eventually Cole joined in to the game, and they had a rousing game of horse.

The men tired out and had a nice chat on the bench in the front yard.

Later, we migrated to the back to play on the zip line. The kids love this!

Grandma even gave it a try.

Witten thought he wanted to ride, but he changed his mind once they got going.

He did love playing in the playhouse though.

Once the Mehews showed up, the kids got out all of the motorized vehicles and began riding around the driveway and yard.

Cole chose the motorbike.

Mya got on the 4 wheeler.

Luke took Witten for a spin in the Jeep.

Hannah took a turn on the 4 wheeler.

Even Grandpa got in on the action, although he chose the much more practical bicycle.

Then it was time to prepare dinner.

Uncle Sean and Witten found something very interesting in the Martha Stewart magazine.

The kids were itching to open gift, so they began organizing the gifts into to piles. This was a bit of a mess because none of the adults had chosen their seats, so they ended up just making tons of piles in the middle of the living room floor. Then Luke wanted to help, but he couldn't read the tags, so he ended up mixing up the piles a bit which was a little frustrating for the older kids, but they handled it very well. Eventually, the presents got passed out to the right people, and we all began to open.

Johnny and Witten enjoyed opening gifts with their daddies.

Luke LOVES to dress up a super heroes. In fact, he was very disappointed when he got to Aunt Katie and Uncle Mark's house and found that they didn't have a Batman costume. Boy was he surprised when he opened this up!