Christmas Traditions!

This past weekend is one I look forward to all year. My mom, Natalie, Ella, and I were able to go downtown to the Nutcracker ballet and spend an afternoon together. This is the third year I have taken Ella and she just loves it. She loves to dance and watch all the dancers perform. Each year as Christmas music starts playing she always points out which songs are from the Nutcracker and how much she loves it. I am grateful that my mom started this fun tradition for her and that we are able to go. She even gave our seats a MAJOR upgrade so we were plenty close to see. It made for a much better show!

Here is Grandma Speers and Aunt Natalie with Ella at the Wortham Theater 

Then.....my mom and Natalie were kind enough to watch our kids that evening for my SECOND favorite part of Christmas! Our friends the Millers have thrown an ugly sweater party for three years in a row now, and I truly love it! This year my mom and I were out at good will and saw this hideous sweater, but it wasn't too Christmasy...which technically isn't a requirement, but I thought if I was going to win I had better come up with something to go with it. So...I decided to be brave and found some metallic gold pants to go with it! They were spandex and were definitely pretty tight! So I put my pride aside and it was TOTALLY worth it! I won! I bet no one expected me to put those on!! (HAHA...five years ago I never would have!) Anyway, totally worth winning. I had a fun night and it was full of some crazy competitive people. :) We have some really fun people we live around!

Here is the group shot! There are some good looking outfits if I do say so myself!

Here are all the lovely ladies!

Ragnar and I looking good!

Here are the winners! Reagan won best guy outfit, I won best girl, and the Monreals won best couple! Can't wait til next year!

Thanksgiving 2012

This past Thanksgiving we were grateful to have my little sister Marisa in Houston for a few weeks with her two children. We went over to my moms house for dinner and this year the boys were in Michigan at my brother Corey's house and my two sisters and I were in Houston with my parents. I am glad we all had somewhere to go and at least a couple of us were together! We had a nice dinner and evening and Ragnar was able to have 4 days off which we enjoyed!

Here is a sad (literally) attempt at getting our kids together for a photo. As you can tell Channing LOVES her picture taken right now! 

This was her literally right before....on her dads shoulder...she is happy until you are TRYING to get her picture! Sassy girl!

We went as a family the night after Thanksgiving to a Rockets game and got to stay in a suite which made it all worth it! 

Cavin wanted to wear this beard to the game because the Rockets have a new player James Hardin who has a long beard...so funny!

And we spent the rest of the holiday cleaning and decorating for Christmas.....Channing has a little bit of OCD and if you hand her a wipe or a rag....she wipes down everything! It can be pretty helpful at times :)

We had a nice Thanksgiving and are grateful for so many things, but especially living close to some of our family. We sure wish everyone were close!