Christmas in the month after July

So I have kinda sucked it up on blogging...but here are our Christmas pictures....

We started out our Christmas really early by going to the Texas Renaissance Festival and getting our picture taken with Santa.

Then we made gingerbread houses with Mimi.  Ryan and I also went over tot he Sheltering Harbour house to deliver Christmas presents and to make these same houses with all the boys.  It was a lot of fun to see high school boys getting so creative and being so precise with frosting.

Christmas Eve took us to my parents house, where we completed a 1500 piece Christmas puzzle.

The morning was filled with presents, and fun, and happy faces.  Looking back now, I think the kids favorite present was the razor scooters their Uncle Scott gave them.

Next we headed up to East Texas to visit with Ryan's side of the family.  We started off at Marla's house, where we did more puzzles, crafts, and the cousins all got to play.

Then we headed over to the Roberts Party, where Sam and Josh introduced the oven mitt game to everyone.  Ella won in the end, but it was a whole lot of fun trying to get that present unwrapped.

Kai's Birthday

For Kai's Birthday we headed down to Galveston with his two best friends, Harrison and Lukas.

We played all day at the beach: checking out mussels in the sand, boogie boarding, digging holes, building sandcastles, and playing in the waves.

The next day we headed down to The Strand to Kai's favorite place in Galveston, Boardgame Island.

We played games and sipped on sodas for hours.

Happy 10th Birthday Big Guy!!!

Spring Break

This Spring Break Rocked....While is rained all week in Houston, We enjoyed sunshine and snow in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

We went skiing for the first time as a family at Apache Ski Resort.  On the mountain the weather was cold and snowy.  The first day, we actually got to experience thunder snow, which closed the mountain for a little bit, but is supposedly super rare and brought with it huge snowflakes that looked like dip 'n' dots.  The second day it was sunny and beautiful, and by this time the kids were pros.  They flew down the green (and even a few blue) slopes with ease as Ryan and I raced behind.

On our way back to Midland, we stopped by Roswell, NM to do a little alien search and eat some delicious mexican food.

Back in Midland, we visited the The Museum of the Southwest.  

The kids and I spent over 5 hours exploring the different sections of the museum, but our favorite by far was a room filed with nothing but cardboard boxes, scissors, markers, and tape.  The kids were allowed to create, construct, and let their imaginations run wild.  

They loved it.

After a long ride back to Houston, Malia and I went to see the new Cinderella movie with Emma while the boys spent some quality computer time with Coleman at Mimi and Pawpaw's house.  The next day we hit up a park with Mimi, Emma and Coleman and discovered the joy of Geocaching.

It was a packed break, but did not feel exhausting. It was just the getaway we needed.