Goodbye 2014

The last few weeks have been all about family and fun. My parents and brother arrived on December 17th and stayed with us until the 26th. We baked cookies, played games, went to see the third Hobbit movie, held our second annual family talent show, enjoyed Christmas together and had an all around great time.

We held our second annual family talent show on Christmas Eve. It was awesome. I decided to step out of the box this year. Instead of stumbling my way through a piano song I practiced once, I decided to take it up a notch with some dancing. My mom and John decided they'd join me. We danced our way through Koo Koo Kangaroo's Dinosaur Stomp and invited the audience join us at the end. I'm thinking either the Napoleon Dynamite dance or the Thriller dance next year. Oh yeah!

Kaylee wowed us with her Smeagol/Gollum impression. Landon played us a song of his own creation. Chris had us all pick a word then told a Christmas story using all of our words. My dad sucked helium out of a balloon and sang "Christmas Don't Be Late". Ainsley played us a piano song. She was the one taking all the pictures that night so I don't have a picture of her playing (I do have a picture of her shooting some Nerf guns). And, the grand finale was a Christmas song we all sang together. It was slightly complicated because my dad assigned us all different parts. It did come together in the end and was a perfect conclusion to the show! 

Landon woke up at 3:17 am on Christmas morning. He was camped out in our room because John was occupying his room. Needless to say, Chris and I got no sleep. Landon was in and out of our bed the entire night, but that didn't stop him (or anyone else) from having a fabulous Christmas day!

Ainsley gave Kaylee a sweet framed poem about sisters. Uncle John gave the kids their favorite Harry Potter pets, and the kids gave Uncle John a Whoopee Cushion. Yes, Kaylee's favorite Harry Potter pet is Nagini. She's such a bad guy lover, haha. 

On the 26th we sadly said goodbye to GPa, GMa and UJ (as Landon lovingly calls them), and we welcomed Grandma Yarbrough who stayed with us until New Year's Eve. During her visit Grandma Yarbrough completed a few puzzles with the girls and created a board game with Landon. We also made our annual trip out to eat at Logan's with a visit to Barnes and Noble after dinner.

It's now New Year's Eve, and the ball is just about to drop. After loading up on snack food, we watched Guardian's of the Galaxy and then The Avengers. So, there you have it, 2014 is in the books. See you next year!

December

December started off with our ward Christmas party. Chris and I are both kind of over ward activities, but the kids still love going. We did get to take a picture with Santa. Can you tell it was totally unplanned?

Ainsley and Kaylee had a choir concert in December. It's nice that they're both singing at the same events this year. Ainsley is the middle school girls choir president, so she announced the songs they were going to sing. When she got up to talk I started snapping pictures of her. The woman sitting next to me leaned over and asked if Ainsley was my daughter. When I told her she was indeed my daughter the woman informed me that her son has a crush on Ainsley, hehe.

Kaylee invited a few friends over to make gingerbread houses one Saturday in December. Landon had a birthday party to attend that day and Ainsley was going to a Christmas party that evening, so Kaylee got the gingerbread house party this year.

The last thing we decided to do before family started flying into town was go to downtown Round Rock and take some pictures with the Christmas decorations. The pictures turned out pretty good!