Christmas: Happy Together...

While all of our Christmas days past have been great, this Christmas was one of the best I've spent in Texas. The biggest reason is that it's the first time we've had Christmas (all day) at our house with my parents. I cannot tell you how many holidays and birthdays that they have not been able to be part of.  While the distance between me and my family members is great, I find there are times where we're actually closer than families I know who see each other with greater frequency. So I cherish time with my parents in a big way and am admittedly and unapologetically selfish in my desire to have my own little family spend our time with them. Even if it's just hanging out in the playroom chatting and watching the boys play, it's all important to me. I loved being able to go to Christmas Eve service together, open gifts Christmas morning together, preparing a scrumptious Christmas dinner together, and just, well, being together. And I wouldn't trade it for anything! :)

 I'm not sure where Alex gets his wacky wide-eyed expressions sometimes - I think it's from Daddy's side! :) But it cracks A.J. and I up.

After gift-opening we ate homemade biscuits and gravy and my mom's special coffee cake (which I must say is to-die-for). While sitting at the table enjoying our breakfast Alex was gazing out the window and noticed some weird cable on one of our trees. "Hey! Someone put some kind of cable on our tree!" We responded with a "What? Where? I don't see anything." And he pointed it out to us again while heading to the back door for further investigation. Once there we heard him squeal excitedly, "It's a zipline! It's a zipline!" It was so funny to see it dawn on him. So we all quickly got ourselves ready to head out in to the chilly Christmas morning air to watch the boys have their first run on the zipline.  It's only about 70 feet from tree to tree, but we were impressed with how fast the boys zipped along.

 I love being married to a handy man! After lots of research, A.J. decided to build the zipline for the boys. There were also a couple top secret test runs while the boys were at choir practice.  It can easily hold a full grown adult man, so it's a solid piece of work. And it's a pretty sweet ride.

I don't think Ayson can take a ride on this thing without a giddy smile!

Once outside, the boys remained there for several hours - Ayson, playing with his new rocking metal Tonka tractors and hand Trux digger, and Alex in his army tent with all of his cool army & survival gear. The boys pretty much alternated between the toys and the zipline most of the afternoon.

So Christmas day was excellent. We are so very blessed indeed!